[Photo courtesy of Stanley Greenberg]
This photo of flowers starting to bloom came to us courtesy of the Gowanus Dredgers, which planted them at the foot of Second Street at the Gowanus Canal where they launch their canoes. The trailers in the background, by the way, are on property that would become part of the Toll Brothers Gowanus project.
Pratt Center for Community Development Director and City Council candidate Brad Lander was among those who spoke at the City Planning Scoping hearing on Thursday on the big and controversial Toll Brothers project in Gowanus. Late on Friday, Mr. Lander emailed to us to clarify things because he had been described as giving testimony that was supportive of the development. He said in the email that he is “not a supporter of the Toll Brothers project, generally or otherwise.”
One thing that has become clear to us is that the Toll Brothers proposal has become even more polarizing in Gowanus and Carroll Gardens than the rezoning that it seeks to circumvent. (The rezoning discussion is like to revive when the city presents its draft plans in late spring or early summer, per a timetable related to us by Brooklyn Planning Director Purnima Kapur.) Based on comments that are appearing in our posts and conversations we are having with residents in both neighborhoods, the development is causing (or reflecting) deep divisions in the community and some is very personal. Public controversy about the Toll Brothers development has, in fact, been far louder than that surrounding the far bigger Public Place project which would be only a few blocks away.
Mr. Lander’s lengthy testimony, from which we will excerpt a few passages, was actually quite thorough in terms of the issues with which the project review should deal. He spoke on behalf of a group called the Coalition for Responsible Redevelopment of the Gowanus Canal which includes the Carroll Gardens Association, the Fifth Avenue Committee, the Gowanus Canal Community Development Corp., the Gowanus Canal Conservancy, the NYC Central Labor Council and other labor and community groups. “Because Toll Brothers is proposing a rezoning for substantial residential development for 363-365 Bond Street in advance of a broader public rezoning of the Gowanus Canal area, this action must be held to a higher standard,” he said. “If approved, this rezoning would likely start a chain reaction of development that would have significant and broad public impact far beyond its borders. It is therefore appropriate and necessary that a full range of alternatives be considered, and that the EIS be broadly scoped to answer questions about the potential impact of this action.”
Significantly, Mr. Lander asked that the environmental review consider the Toll project with the “cumulative impact of other proposed development” in the area, even if they would not be finished until later. “The Scope of Work indicates that other projects that will not be completed by the Build Year of 2011 will not be considered in this DEIS,” he said. “We strongly object to this exclusion. If every project is able to look only at short-term impacts, then no one project may trigger sufficient impacts to show the need for additional school seats, or infrastructure investments, or child care, or traffic calming … but surely collectively they will generate these impacts.”
The testimony also requested that the environmental review consider on-site wastewater treatment, height limits, how it the development would impact overall zoning goals for Gowanus, long range impact of all developments on community facilities, and a host of other factors. Mr. Lander also called for a rezoning of Carroll Gardens to take place with a Gowanus rezoning (which is not likely to happen given the city’s timetable) and that the Toll development take this context into account as well. In terms of canalside uses, the testimony said:
The DEIS should consider additional small-scale retail and commercial uses, preferably artisan-, environmental- and community-oriented, along the Canal. We believe that adding a mix of uses along the Canal will help to enliven it, to the benefit of the project and the community at large. These should not be uses that would draw car traffic, but instead that would encourage pedestrian visits.
Written comments about the critical environmental review and what it should include can be submitted through March 24. (While comments can cover anything, at this stage, the most useful comments should cover elements that should be present in the environmental review; opportunities for lengthy commentary for or against the project will be available later.) The comments should be sent to Robert Dobruskin, Dept. of City Planning, 22 Reade St., New York, NY 10007. A copy should also be sent to Community Board 6 at 250 Baltic St., Brooklyn, NY 11231.
The City Planning Department held its Scoping Hearing yesterday for the proposed Toll Brothers development on the Gowanus Canal. With neighborhood resistance to the project getting organized, the hearing attracted more attention than the average technical City Planning session. The room was full during the afternoon session and about 18 people spoke on the project. Blogger Pardon Me for Asking told us that 14 people spoke against the Toll rezoning and three spoke supportively of the project, though not necessarily the special rezoning. PMFA wrote that she was “proud” of the community’s performance at the hearing:
Clearly urging the Board to not issue the spot zoning change that Toll Brothers’ will need to push their project through, Carroll Gardens residents listed some of their concerns. Amongst the concerns raised about the effects the development will have on the area were effects on the infrastructure, the obvious hazards of building on a very polluted site as well as the recurrent flooding around the canal.
Community Board 6 District Manager Craig Hammerman, who is a candidate for City Council and has been working as a volunteer with residents to coach them on the land use review process used the session to blast the city government’s approach to both Carroll Gardens and Gowanus. “Political and economic forces seem to have wrenched control of the neighborhood’s destiny from the community itself,” he said in a prepared statement. “The community is here to take it back.” Mr. Hammerman seemed to reserve his harshest criticism for the city’s handling of the Carroll Gardens rezoning issue:
It’s a community that has been lobbying actively for the Department of City Planning to apply contextual zoning protections to prevent further destruction of its built form. We know the Department has committed to looking at Carroll Gardens at some unspecified future date. It is apparent, however, that we will likely need to wait for a new administration to take over before that will happen. In the interim, irreparable damages to the community will continue to mount. The decision not to act expeditiously is a conscious act that suggests that our city government is not there to protect us.
Mr. Hammerman urged the Planning Department to listen to resident concerns. “We’re raising an army of citizen planners to raise the issues that we believe must be considered,” he said. “We know that if an issue doesn’t make it into the scope we can’t get it studied, and if it isn’t studied it can’t be considered when looking at changes to the project.” Mr. Hammerman sought to draw a distinction between Carroll Gardens and Gowanus, which he called “a mixed-use community with an important industrial heritage whose distinct architecture has been deemed eligible by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.”
The Toll Brothers are asking for approval of their project ahead of any rezoning of Gowanus. All indications are that the city will recommend a zoning framework very similar to the density that the developer are seeking. Written comments can be submitted through March 24. The comments should be sent to Robert Dobruskin, Dept. of City Planning, 22 Reade St., New York, NY 10007. A copy should also be sent to Community Board 6 at 250 Baltic St., Brooklyn, NY 11231.
The “Scoping Hearing” for the big, proposed Toll Brothers Gowanus development is today (3/13). There are two sessions, one from 2PM-5:30PM and the other from 6PM-8:45PM. It will take place at 22 Reade Street. Attendees can make statements of up to three minutes about the project and written statements can also be submitted through March 24. A reader left a comment on our post yesterday and we’re reproducing it here:
Tomorrow’s testimony is not to speak for or against this proposed development. It is to ask Toll to consider other options and expand the menu of choices for when this project goes thru ULURP. The “no build” option is automatically considered in the environmental review.
People can ask can ask for the project to be reduced to avoid negative impacts. The development is 447 apartments so an easy way to reduce size is scrap the 130 units of affordable housing, which probably doesn’t generate profit for Toll. We can ask for more on-site parking to quell fears of traffic congestion.
The big miss of this project is that Toll raises the development above the flood plain by programming parking at street level, which is a criminal approach to waterfront re-development and I doubt anyone will enjoy living there. Let’s ask for some restaurants, cafes, bars, art galleries, etc.. at street level! Toll can even add a few apartments / floors to pay for it!
Interesting.
The first step for the Toll Brothers firm in trying to win approval for its big proposed development in Gowanus will occur tomorrow (Thursday, 3/13). That’s when a “Scoping Hearing” to determine the contents of an environmental impact study (or its scope) will take place at the Department of City Planning. The scoping document is a technical, yet important, one and opponents of the Toll plan are organizing to speak against the controversial development. The project needs to go through a full city land use review process because the developers are looking for a zoning change in advance of rezoning the neighborhood. There are two sessions on Thursday, one from 2PM-5:30PM and the other from 6PM-8:45PM. It will take place at 22 Reade Street. Attendees can make statements of up to three minutes about the project and written statements can also be submitted through March 24. There is vocal, if not bitter, opposition to the big Gowanus development from within the community. Residents are concerned it will be too big and exacerbate current flooding problems among other things.
At the end of Huntington Street and the Gowanus Canal, it really is the end, particularly if one were to go over the barriers and check out the water.
The community meeting last night about the big Gowanus project proposed by the Toll Brothers firm that would leapfrog the actual neighborhood rezoning project, drew a big crowd and even attracted two representatives from the development company itself, included VP David Von Spreckleson. City Council Member Tony Avella held forth about the advantages that pro-development upzonings have over down zonings within the Bloomberg Administration, according to local blogger PMFA, who provided one account of the meeting. Community activist Phil de Paolo, who is a veteran of many North Brooklyn development and zoning debates also advised the Gowanus group. Community Board 6 District Manager Craig Hammerman described how the environmental review process for the development would work.
A full account of the session has been posted by our friend Gabby Warshawer at Brownstoner, who writes:
if the overflow crowd that filled the community room in St. Mary’s Star of the Sea Residences last night was any indication, there’s a great deal of fear in the community that those questions won’t be answered before the city gives Toll the go-ahead to build their project.
The Toll project would contain 577 units of housing in buildings up to 12 stories tall. Residents are organizing in advance of an early “scoping” hearing on an environmental impact study that must precede consideration of the Toll Brother proposal. The Toll Brothers officials noted that sale of the property for their development is contingent on it being rezoned for residential use. (The current zoning is for manufacturing uses.) PMFA describes the Toll representatives as growing “a bit testy when asked if they would reconsider and abandon the project if the neighborhood was against it.” One asked “if the neighborhood would rather continue living with a dirty canal than with the development, to which quite a few people said: yes.”
The Scoping Hearing will take place on March 13. There will be two sessions, one from 2:00 to 5:45 PM and one from 6:00 to 8:45 PM at the City of New York Department of City Planning, Spector Hall, 22 Reade Street, New York, New York 10007. Written comments will be accepted for ten days after the meeting.
[Photo courtesy of Pardon Me for Asking]
Gowanus residents are preparing to fight the Toll Brothers proposal for a big development on the banks of the Gowanus Canal. The developers are looking for city approval for the project–which would include buildings up to 12-stories tall and 577 units of housing–before the Gowanus rezoning. An organizing meeting to prepare for a “scoping hearing” with the City Planning Commission on March 13 is taking place tonight. (The scoping hearing is the first step in a long land use review process; it would the scope of an environmental impact study, among other things. The meeting is taking place under the auspices of a group called Friends of Bond Street. There are a myriad of infrastructure, environmental and other issues surrounding the big development, which would be the first on the canal if it’s approved by the city. Here’s a bit about the meeting from notices that are going out via email and that have been posted:
It’s coming and it’s big. 577 new apartments on the Gowanus. The Toll Brothers have unveiled their plan for a 605,380 square foot project between Bond and the Gowanus, Carroll and Second Streets. What does it mean for our neighborhood?
Come hear Craig Hammerman (District Manager Community Board 6), Phil dePaolo(Community Organizer), Tony Avella (City Council member) address our concerned response the Toll Brothers development. Help plan for the upcoming Public Scoping Meeting at City Planning on 13 March.
The meeting is tonight (March 3) in the community room at Mary Star of the Sea, which is located at 41 First Street (between Hoyt and Bond) at 6:30 PM. The nearby Public Place development on the Gowanus could ultimately exceed 1,000 units of housing and also be about 12 stories tall.
This is Gowanus Green from the Hudson Companies team. The design is from Rogers Marvel Architects and landscape designers West 8 and Starr Whitehouse. (Rogers Marvel and West 8 designed the winning proposal for Governor’s Island and the architectural firm is also designing the redo of McCarren Pool and 340 Court Street in Carroll Gardens.)
Yesterday, we noted that one of the more interesting things that was said at the community meeting on Monday night about the big Public Place development along the Gowanus Canal was the fact that the owner of a neighboring property was said to be interested in joining with the winning development team. The privately-owned parcel has always been left out of the plans, but including it would greatly increase the size of the development. The land in question sits under a huge warehouse that will have to be demolished as part of the cleanup of the highly toxic substances sitting beneath the Public Place site. National Grid, which is a successor to KeySpan, which in turn inherited the horrid pollution problem from a variety of predecessors, will be responsible for cleaning the site. The extent of the cleanup to ostensibly make the site fit for human habitation has yet to be determined.
In any case, Sarah Ryley provides a lot more detail about the property and its owner in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
Clothing magnate Henry Abadi owns the four-acre property adjacent to Public Place, where he warehouses the uniforms and sportswear he sells across the city. Together, the two properties span from Fourth Street to Huntington Street, and from Smith Street to the Gowanus Canal…Abadi said city officials encouraged him to team up with the winner, though the requirements for his privately owned land would likely be less stringent on affordability and open space than the city-owned Public Place. He pointed out that he is demolishing his warehouse, worth “between $13 and $15 million just for the sake of cleaning up the area.” KeySpan Energy, now national Grid, is required to cleanup heavy contamination on Abadi’s property and Public Place, both the site of a former manufactured gas plant.
Including the property in the bigger development plan could push the total units of housing far above 1,000 units, increasing the size of the development site from 6 acres up to 10 acres.
GLmigration 