Quadriad Has Marked Its Turf and Started Digging

Yes, they’re only photos of a fence with information about a project and its developer, and construction equipment. They are of interest, however, because of the particular site and developer. Work has gotten underway on the first phase of Quadriad Development’s controversial plan in Williamsburg that could result in several high on Berry Street and Bedford Avenue between N. 3rd and N. 4th Streets. The part of the project that is under construction, however, is not controversial. It involves housing in buildings that will be five stories tall. Construction equipment is on site. Quadriad would need major zoning changes to build its highrises as the part of the neighborhood where they want to build was downzoned to prevent highrise development.

Vote on Quadriad’s Williamsburg Highrise Proposal Delayed

That 24-story building that Quadriad Development would like to build at N. 3rd Street and Berry in Williasmburg drew a large crowd to a Community Board 1 meeting that was expected to vote on the proposal. OnNYTurf reports 100 community members opposed to the building turned out. In the end, CB1 tabled a vote on the building after a week of intense outreach by opponents.

A number of community board members whose votes would have been crucial to getting the building approved did not even attend the meeting. Activist Phil DePaolo, who helped lead local opposition to the highrise, told GL that the project’s supporters were concerned it would be voted down and also supported the delay.

“We can’t figure out if it’s good or bad,” Mr. DePaolo said, “but at least we bought some time. The encouraging thing is that most of our elected officials don’t think a building that size is appropriate at that location.” City Council Member David Yassky has come out against the project, saying that a building that height is not appropriate in that location.

Approval of the Quadriad project would require a reversal of the “inland” downzoning that accompanied the rezoning of the Williamsburg waterfront for highrise residential towers in 2005. Quadriad hopes to introduce its “model” of getting huge density bonuses in return for providing that one-third of a development would be affordable housing (under the developer’s definition).

[Conceptual rendering created by and courtesy of OnNYTurf]

Vote on Williamsburg High Rise Coming Tonight

An important vote on that 24-story building that Quadriad Development wants to build at N. 3rd Street and Berry in Williamsburg is coming up tonight. The building was approved by Community Board 1’s Land Use Committee last week. Tonight’s meeting of the full Community Board takes place at 6:30 PM at the Swinging 60’s Senior Citizen Center, which is lcoated at 211 Ainslie Street (at the corner of Manhattan Avenue). Community activist Phil DePaolo is urging a big community turnout to oppose the structure.

In the meantime, today’s Daily News covers the plan. Here’s an excerpt:

Just two years after a major rezoning of Williamsburg and Greenpoint, a developer is seeking another zoning change in return for more affordable housing.

What’s more, this proposal could set a precedent for similar projects throughout the city, both opponents and supporters said.

Quadriad Realty Partners presented a plan last week to build a 24-story residential tower in north Williamsburg, circumventing the current five-story limit allowed in the area. The proposal sparked outrage among residents at a Community Board 1 meeting. They said it would jeopardize protections for low-rise neighborhoods, including ongoing efforts to rezone Dyker Heights, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Fort Greene.

“If we allow them to do this here, we give them the keys to the car. We’re basically undermining every down-zoning in the city – present, past and future,” said neighborhood activist Philip DePaolo of the New York Community Council….

Quadriad president Henry Wollman argued that his proposal was a necessary precedent to meet affordable housing needs. “There are no other solutions on the table,” he said.

Wollman identified a seven-block area of north Williamsburg for rezoning, including a block where Quadriad plans to build the Williamsburg Terrace, which would more than double the allowed density for housing.

In addition, commercial corridors such as Coney Island Ave. and once-industrial areas such as Gowanus would be ideal locations for building more affordable housing, Wollman said.

Quadriad’s plans are still preliminary, despite discussions with the community for more than a year. City Planning Department spokeswoman Jennifer Torres said the agency had not been approached about the proposal.

This is the first mention we have seen by the firm of building highrises in Gowanus.

Next Finger Building Please Stand Up: Quadriad’s Williamsburg Project Advances

If you thought that the proposal by Quadriad Development to build highrises in low-rise neighborhoods–including ones that have been downzoned–was so far fetched that it was a non-starter, think again. The 24-story tower proposed at the corner of N. 3rd and Berry in Williamsburg took a small step forward with a vote in its favor by the Land Use Committee of Community Board 1. The thumbs up came as a shock to some residents, who told us they were surprised by the outcome. The voting process was odd, with the project being defeated, and then, approved when a committee member arrived after the vote had been taken and cast a deciding vote in favor of the project. The plan calls for a project combining a 5-story building with 75 units and a 24-story building.

Quadriad includes among its executives former U.S. Rep. and Bronx Borough President Herman Badillo, who ran for mayor five times, making it as far as a runoff election against Abraham Beame. One of the development partners is Joe Sitt’s Thor Equities.

The property is in the part of Williamsburg that was downzoned in 2005 in return for allowing highrise waterfront development. At that time, city officials argued they were protecting the low-rise character of “inland” blocks by allowing buildings up to 40 stories tall on the waterfront.

While Quadriad is looking to upzone a downzoned Williamsburg property, it is also proposing a new zoning classification citywide called R6AF, (the “AF” stands for affordable) which would create tremendous density bonuses for a project that would include one-third affordable housing. Williamsburg activist Phil DePaolo calls it “the Mother of All Density Bonuses.” In Williamsburg, for instance, it would result in a building quadruple the current allowable height.

The Quadriad project has also applied for the 421a developer tax break. Interestingly, the company is expected to rush to create a foundation for the project before the end of the year so that it can qualify for the tax break without having any requirement to build affordable housing. The building site would fall under a revision to the 421a program requiring 25 percent affordable housing in return for the tax break in neighborhoods like Williamsburg.

Quadriad is also ultimately looking to develop at least six other parcels from N. 3rd to N. 5th Streets between Berry and Kent Avenues with highrises, as well as two others, one of which may be between N. 7th Street and Metropolitan Avenue near the BQE. The company has also set its sights on Coney Island Avenue in southern Brooklyn. The company wants to propose the zoning formula citywide for sites that are a minimum of 40,000 square feet.

The full Community Board still has to vote on the project, but there is a chance it could be approved. “I’m very worried about it,” said Mr. DePaolo, who is an advocate of affordable housing, but deeply critical of the methods the city has tried using in Williamsburg and Greenpoint. “We could end up making the same mistake twice.” Mr. DePaolo’s studies of the neighborhood show that the 2005 rezoning has only produced nine units of affordable housing away from the waterfront. There is also a very in-depth and intelligent analysis of the proposal at Brooklyn 11211 that suggests that if it approves the proposal, “CB1 will have literally given away the store, and in the process will have thrown out all of the good of the upland rezoning for Williamsburg and Greenpoint.”

The zoning change would ultimately have to be approved by the City Council.

Paperwork is In on the Bedford Avenue Quadriad Site

It looks like work is going to start soon on part of the Quadriad development site in Williamsburg. You know the one: that vast, ugly empty lot between N. 3rd Street and N. 4th Street along Bedford Avenue. Quadriad has hatched a variety of, um, interesting plans for the parcel, the most riveting of which involve buildings up to 30 stories tall that would require a re-rezoning of the parcel, which falls under the neighborhood’s 2005 downzoning. The developer has applied for a permit for a five story building with 75 units, but the record also shows that it is part of a plan that would also include “2 towers and 16 townhouses.” The “two towers,” of course, are the possibly controversial part of the Quadriad scheme. As previously conveyed by Brooklyn11211:

Quadriad is proposing to build more or less to the as-of-right envelope on Bedford Avenue (5 to 7 stories), and to develop “townhouses” along North 3rd. At the corner of Berry and North 3rd, Quadriad is proposing a 20-story tower (the not as-of-right part of the project that would require a rezoning). The numbers – roughly – are 250 units total, with 90 of those set aside for affordable housing (both rental and condo). (A strictly as-of-right project would yield 80 market-rate units, so in order to generate 90 units of affordable housing, they need to more than triple the number of housing units in the project.)

The work is projected to start in August and a formal request for a zoning change to build the towers is likely in July.

Related Post:
Quadriad’s Williamsburg Presentation Delayed