Borough President Marty Markowitz
Councilmember Brad Lander
Harry Schwartz
John C. Muir
At yesterday's Baruch College - Steven L. Newman Real Estate Institute
Forum on the Future Of Gowanus Canal Area
Real estate developers, business and civic leaders and elected officials gathered on a Wednesday morning at Brooklyn Borough Hall to "reconsider the Gowanus", now that the Environmental Protection Agency has placed the long neglected, highly polluted waterway on its list of Superfund sites.
Those who cried foul or tried to derail the nomination, because it meant that development along the Gowanus would have to wait until the EPA's clean up of the toxic canal was completed, now seem to have at least moderated their view.
More than once, speakers at the Forum mentioned that the delay is an opportunity to rethink the future in the area. There is no doubt though, that most of the attendees at the forum were envisioning that future to include housing developments and lots of them.
To developers and realtors, the shores of the Gowanus represent a huge underused tract of land, ideally located between some of Brownstone Brooklyn's most desirable neighborhoods.
The area has "huge potential" and "offered excellent opportunities" according to many speakers. Harry Schwartz, a planning and development consultant, felt that revitalization of the Gowanus would allow for about 3,000 new dwellings and would increase housing in the area by 30%, "without displacing people".
Many of the speakers remarked on the Gowanus area's good transit and road connections to the rest of the city and the region. They commented on its strong economic and social connection to New York City's major business districts.
To developers and realtors, the shores of the Gowanus represent a huge underused tract of land, ideally located between some of Brownstone Brooklyn's most desirable neighborhoods.
The area has "huge potential" and "offered excellent opportunities" according to many speakers. Harry Schwartz, a planning and development consultant, felt that revitalization of the Gowanus would allow for about 3,000 new dwellings and would increase housing in the area by 30%, "without displacing people".
Many of the speakers remarked on the Gowanus area's good transit and road connections to the rest of the city and the region. They commented on its strong economic and social connection to New York City's major business districts.
Borough President Markowitz stated that "Gowanus is already poised to be Brooklyn's newest hip address, but we need to be extra vigilant about making sure that the new Gowanus is home to everyone". He is urging any new development to set aside 30 % affordable housing units as opposed to the more common 20%. He also addressed the issue of height limits, saying that "no building along the canal should exceed eight stories and no buildings in the neighborhood should exceed twelve".
Our Councilman Brad Lander was thankful for the extra time created by the EPA's Superfund designation so that the original plan, which was conceived during the heat of the real estate market, could be improved upon. He called for a genuine mix of uses for the Gowanus area, and felt that in order to achieve such a mixed-used district, new zoning tools will be needed by the office of City Planning. In current M1 zoning districts, he said, hotels and big boxes all too often replace manufacturing after a time and in current mixed use zones, usage usually goes to the highest bidder: residential development.
The call for affordable housing was heard quite a few times during the morning. Michelle de la Uz, Executive Director of the 5th Avenue Committee spoke of the Gowanus Green project on Public Place and the 774 units that are planned there.
Of those units, 70% are slated to be affordable.
But de la Uz was quick to add that any plan to revitalize the Gowanus area would need to protect the existing affordable housing. Citing new development along recently rezoned 4th Avenue, she commented that "Brooklyn Boulevard" (as our Borough President prefers) now has less affordable housing than before the rezoning. Occupants of older buildings that were slated to make room for luxury condos were harassed, threats were made to call immigration, they had their heat turned off, fires were set and drug dealing activity actively allowed in their buildings.
One speaker reminded everyone of an important fact: The Gowanus area is a filled-in swamp and as such, will always be prone to flooding. The speaker was John C. Muir, Vice Chairman of the Gowanus Canal Conservancy, though he was quick to point out that he was representing his own views at this event and was not representing the Conservancy.
It is important, he stated, to remember that with the increased rise in sea levels due to global warming, flooding will increase. He said: "the Baruch College study makes presumptions - Question those presumptions!".
There were very few members of the Gowanus community present at the meeting. Not surprising. The 8:30 Am timing of the forum was an assurance that mostly 'suits' would be in attendance.
The one member who had been invited to represent local residents on one of the panel discussions by Baruch College was Maria Pagano, the president of the Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association. However, Ms. Pagano failed to clearly communicate how the community envisions the future of the area. She spent most of her allotted time explaining that her organization prefers to let organizations such as CORD( Carroll Gardens Coalition for Respectful Development) and FROGG (Friends And Residents Of Greater Gowanus) take on the hard issues and advocacy.
In the end, no glossy brochures, plans or speeches about the future of the Gowanus Canal area will matter much if it is impossible to adequately clean the land surrounding the canal and to insure the safety of any new residents on that land.
Also not resolved is the danger of the rise in sea level and how it will affect this fragile lowland area.
And then there is the problem of the Combined Sewer Overflow (C.S.O.). New York City still dumps raw sewage into the canal every time it rains and has no immediate plans to stop doing so.
While great ideas and a desire to "get this right" were expressed at this forum, there is concern that the theme of the forum was development and that much more than lip service is needed here. This was, after all, an event organized by Baruch's Real Estate Institute and sponsored by National Grid (formerly known as Brooklyn Union Gas), one of the largest polluters of the Gowanus Area.
We must be vigilant so that the people will ultimately decide the future of the Gowanus corridor, not the developers and the polluters.
Our Councilman Brad Lander was thankful for the extra time created by the EPA's Superfund designation so that the original plan, which was conceived during the heat of the real estate market, could be improved upon. He called for a genuine mix of uses for the Gowanus area, and felt that in order to achieve such a mixed-used district, new zoning tools will be needed by the office of City Planning. In current M1 zoning districts, he said, hotels and big boxes all too often replace manufacturing after a time and in current mixed use zones, usage usually goes to the highest bidder: residential development.
The call for affordable housing was heard quite a few times during the morning. Michelle de la Uz, Executive Director of the 5th Avenue Committee spoke of the Gowanus Green project on Public Place and the 774 units that are planned there.
Of those units, 70% are slated to be affordable.
But de la Uz was quick to add that any plan to revitalize the Gowanus area would need to protect the existing affordable housing. Citing new development along recently rezoned 4th Avenue, she commented that "Brooklyn Boulevard" (as our Borough President prefers) now has less affordable housing than before the rezoning. Occupants of older buildings that were slated to make room for luxury condos were harassed, threats were made to call immigration, they had their heat turned off, fires were set and drug dealing activity actively allowed in their buildings.
One speaker reminded everyone of an important fact: The Gowanus area is a filled-in swamp and as such, will always be prone to flooding. The speaker was John C. Muir, Vice Chairman of the Gowanus Canal Conservancy, though he was quick to point out that he was representing his own views at this event and was not representing the Conservancy.
It is important, he stated, to remember that with the increased rise in sea levels due to global warming, flooding will increase. He said: "the Baruch College study makes presumptions - Question those presumptions!".
There were very few members of the Gowanus community present at the meeting. Not surprising. The 8:30 Am timing of the forum was an assurance that mostly 'suits' would be in attendance.
The one member who had been invited to represent local residents on one of the panel discussions by Baruch College was Maria Pagano, the president of the Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association. However, Ms. Pagano failed to clearly communicate how the community envisions the future of the area. She spent most of her allotted time explaining that her organization prefers to let organizations such as CORD( Carroll Gardens Coalition for Respectful Development) and FROGG (Friends And Residents Of Greater Gowanus) take on the hard issues and advocacy.
In the end, no glossy brochures, plans or speeches about the future of the Gowanus Canal area will matter much if it is impossible to adequately clean the land surrounding the canal and to insure the safety of any new residents on that land.
Also not resolved is the danger of the rise in sea level and how it will affect this fragile lowland area.
And then there is the problem of the Combined Sewer Overflow (C.S.O.). New York City still dumps raw sewage into the canal every time it rains and has no immediate plans to stop doing so.
While great ideas and a desire to "get this right" were expressed at this forum, there is concern that the theme of the forum was development and that much more than lip service is needed here. This was, after all, an event organized by Baruch's Real Estate Institute and sponsored by National Grid (formerly known as Brooklyn Union Gas), one of the largest polluters of the Gowanus Area.
We must be vigilant so that the people will ultimately decide the future of the Gowanus corridor, not the developers and the polluters.
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16 comments:
Katia -
Thanks for the summary for all of us that couldn't attend!
One thing that I found odd was the idea that buildings adjacent to the canal shoudl be lower than those in the rest of the neighborhood.
As the canal is by definition and construct the lowest point in the neighborhood, wouldn't the inverse of that stance seem to have the lowest impact?
Michael, Much effort and money is being spent to clean up the canal. Tall buildings cast shadows, block sunlight. Sunlight is needed to keep the canal clean. Simple.
Thanks Katia for keeping us informed.
@ Michael Brown
It makes sense to have lower buildings around the canal for light.
Pardon me for saying (and pardon me for appropriating Katia's blog title in this comment), but light? Really?
With waterfront setbacks, not to mention the NYC Planning guidelines which require public access easements along waterfront developments (plus whatever comes out of the new visioning sessions the city is undertaking), buildings will have an extremely negligible impact on the ecological health of the canal. The ecological health of the canal will come from no more CSOs, a functioning flushing tunnel and ridding it of existing pollutants.
By zoning larger buildings in lower lying areas, and smaller ones as the terrain gets higher, you preserve viewsheds, reduce the impact on existing residents and property owners and create density where the value is potentially the greatest.
Michael,
Ellen B. is right. Sunlight is needed for the health of the canal, even after the CSO's and the toxic sludge are removed.
12 story buildings on BOTH sides of the canal would seriously reduce the number of hours of sunlight needed.
Of course sunlight is needed for a healthy ecosystem.
My point is just that the benefits of the taller buildings being in the lower terrain far outweigh small portions of the canal being shaded for small segments of the day.
I wish I had time to plug this scenario into a GIS system to demonstrate hours of shading with setbacks, but, alas, I do not.
Doesn't the canal face South/Southwest?
There's all the sunlight you need.
The presentation seemed to fcus on the infrastructure assets" of the area --transportation and large empty spaces. But it avoided the significant infrastructure detriments--that this is a low inland drainage area where the city sends significant amounts of sewage. The infrastructure capacity to carry that sewage away from the area just isn't matched to the volume of sewage drained into the basin. The work at the Flushing Tunnel will do little to reduce the present day sewage loads being emptied into the canal especially after the Atlantic Yards project is built out.
With out a plan to stop using the canal basin as an open sewer, how can any of these reasonable bright individuals look to building housing along this drainage basin.
But who knows, maybe they are already factoring into their redevelopment costs, the expense of separating the sewer system throughout the Gowanus watershed.
Batman, Tall buildings would cast shadows even with this South/Southwest placement - as for all the sunlight you need - that's not really scientific. Gowanus is a treasure in NYC because of open space - let's not choke that to death, please.
get real - there is no study that states that a waterfront is healthier in direct sunlight instead of shade. One study was conducted regarding shadow under a large pier on the Hudson and advocates have abused that study to further their goals to keep people away from the shorelines on NY.
The bottom line is many people are against new people moving into "their neighborhood" and stupid statements about sunlight help further those efforts. Fish LOVE shade - ask any angler where the fish hang out!
The views mean too much to me to me.
Hi Michael,
If you look at the detailed environment impact plan for the toll brothers building (just to take a 12 story building for example)
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/env_review/363_365_bond_street/06_feis.pdf
you'll see that the shadows totally shroud the water and the 40foot (mandated, for now) egress that's supposed to be public space during all daylight hours.
So along with health of the canal for water, plants and animals, another whole major goal of the gowanus rezoning - public access to the water - would be subverted by giant buildings. Who would ever walk along the canal if its like an alleyway?
Also, if you support the carroll gardens 50' height limit, the 120' buildings on the Bond Street side of the canal would be so large as to hinder the viewsheds in Carroll Gardens, much like that horrible skeleton of a building on Carroll.
The key I think is proper contextual scale for the neighborhood and all the goals of the area - more than 3 stories, but less certainly than 12.
You're all missing the point! Taking out actual heights (which cloud peoples judgements), and thinking about theory (which is all we are discussing here anyway), if you have two classes of zoning, one that allows height at X and one that allows height at X plus Y, it only makes sense that the zoning that allows X plus Y should be at the lowest point possible! Permitting taller buildings on higher ground will only make them seem even taller!
But Michael, that's only dry math and does not consider the context, which has multitudinous aspects/issues. And even though this is "just" theoretical, this theoretical equation must also include those other factors.
The solution is simple: control the height of buildings in the area. A 12 story building is no appropriate for the gowanus whether its on court street or bond street.
Anon 8:55 - The waterfront property you are referring to - the Gowanus Canal- will require intense remediation. Sunlight breaks down bacteria. That is a scientific fact. I can only imagine what the canal would be like right now if there were no sunshine on it. This fecal toxic waterway would be much much more disgusting. So even after the EPA does what it can, it would be prudent to do what we can to keep it as clean as possible - and we need sunlight for that.
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