Great Quote on Landmarking
Some disingenuous whining from Cobble Hill about the modification of a home in the historic district:
“The backyard renovations wouldn’t be visible from the street and the rooftop work would only make one section of the building six feet taller than its neighbors — but that’s enough to trigger an upward-sprouting, light-hogging development trend that could forever change the look of the block, some Cobble Hill residents fear.
“It could cause a domino effect,” said Jeff Strabone of the Cobble Hill Association.”
Nevermind that the character of the neighborhood is what is visible from the streetscape (thus the ability to modify interiors of properties, but not exteriors)!
But CB6’s own Glenn Kelly delivers a rational quote to the Brooklyn paper, explaining why that argument is BS:
““The building was badly in need of a renovation,” said Glenn Kelly of Community Board 6, adding the revamp will likely be an aesthetic upgrade. “The owners are well within their rights.””
Boom
Zoning Tradeoffs Result in 7 Story Building
The Columbia Waterfront Neighborhood Association recently brought to the world’s attention the new development proposed at the site of Sokol’s furniture store, which recently closed up shop after centuries decades in the same location. The scale and nature of the development can be directly traced to the wrong-headed rezoning of the neighborhood two years ago.
When outraged community members railed against perceived out of scale development in Carroll Gardens during the real estate boom of the mid aughts, they successfully lobbied elected officials to get the City’s Department of City Planning to take away roughly a floor of unbuilt square footage from most lots in the area. Some lots were already overbuilt, and some lost two or three floors worth of rights, but the average was probably about a buildable floor.
City Planning officials, despite the haphazard and rushed nature of the downzoning, correctly recognized that an entire neighborhood should not be completely devoid of new development opportunities. They wound up upzoning some lots along mixed-use corridors, a fairly standard practice. Whether this was in recognition of the need for growth, tax base enhancement or simply a best practices stance for mixed-use development, we can only guess. Nonetheless, it resulted in some new development rights being created along Court Street, some scattered sites throughout the rest of the neighborhood, and along Columbia Street. One way of understanding this is that the development rights belonging to the downzoned owners were transferred to the upzoned owners - only problem was, there was no compensation for the downzoned owners.
Columbia Street was an interesting choice for upzoning. Once the center of the neighborhood when the docks were the major source of employment, Columbia Street was all but abandoned in the 60’s and 70’s (the city’s thoughts of containerization didn’t help), and experienced a renaissance in the late 80’s and 90’s, and now that Park Slope and Manhattan transplants are finding their way down the hill from Smith Street, even the New York Times knows about it. Although the residential population is growing (and growing wealthier) with every development and conversion that takes place, there are still few retail options along Columbia and Union Streets. Culinary options abound, as do dry cleaners and bodegas, but there are no banks, supermarkets or barbers.
This leads to the first major issue with this proposed development (details of which are, admittedly, a little sketchy at this point): lack of retail space. Recently, the City has focused on the Fourth Avenue corridor to try and revive the pedestrian space and streetscape. The problem that has been identified? A lack of retail space at the street level. In Fourth Avenue’s case, those lower floors tend to be occupied by garage entrances or Community Facility space. It results in not only an unsightly (and, in the case of garage entrances, dangerous) streetscape, but does nothing that new development is supposed to do: diversify the tax base, increase the economic resiliency of the corridor, provide services for the new residents, or create the mix of uses needed in a “mixed-use” area.
Our City Councilperson, Brad Lander, has committed to requiring active uses at the street level for new and revised zoning categories. In his statement on the rezoning, he wrote the following, which summarizes the point succinctly and correctly:
“I am concerned that developers will not include retail space, but instead build on-grade parking, with residential development to the full 3.0 FAR above. This is not the type of development that will strengthen the area, and I urge that changes be made to prevent it.”
The proposed rendering is the exact situation (minus the garage, which we will get to below) that our City Councilperson warned us about, and it may come to pass.
Although conscious of the higher marketability of residential space along Columbia Street, the on street level, combined with a lack of privacy, combine to make the value of the space as residential or commercial roughly equivalent. In order to ensure orderly development patterns, create economic diversity and resiliency, ensure a mix of uses and provide services to Columbia Street residents, the street level uses of this new development MUST be commercial in nature, not residential.
The second major issue with concentrating development along Columbia Street is the lack of transportation options. Unlike Fourth Avenue, a brisk ten minute walk takes one to the F train or one can try the B61 (much maligned, but not proven to be an inferior line). That’s it. Flush with transportation options, Columbia Street is not. From a development, tax base, resiliency and good planning perspective, the upzoning should have been concentrated all along Smith Street, with nodes at the subway stops. Ironically, it is a building directly over a subway stop that caused the most uproar that lead to the rushed downzoning in the first place.
Nonetheless, in order to ensure public safety, prevent the further exacerbation of the lack of transit options along Columbia Street and allow for retail uses at the street level, a garage MUST NOT be permitted at this location. Although none is shown in the rendering provided, this may be an early sketch. Density does not work if it creates additional automobile trips without providing retail space for services for those new residents.
Although not exactly historically contextual, the proposed development is well within zoning. The city, community and developer need not take any drastic measures, such as taking away square footage or height (which factored into the rather large purchase price), but make some smart, community oriented, long-term decisions which will serve to benefit all stakeholders.
