I have been on vacation here in South Carolina for one week now and it seems that I am missing much action in Carroll Gardens. Let me see: The building at 360 Smith Street has gotten several permits from the New York City Department of Buildings. That is big news, but hardly surprising. After all, the building is As-Of-Right.
The newly formed neighborhood group that calls itself CORD (Coalition for Respectful Development) has been hard at work trying to stop the project. They have put up signs all over Carroll Gardens, got about 8oo people to sign a petition against the developer and a moratorium on further building in C.G. They also started their own blog.
They made two major mistakes right from the start.
1) They thought they could count on some real help from our Councilman Bill De Blasio,
2) They have picked on one developer ( Scarano) instead of joining forces with the Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association. C.G.N.A. is a much bigger neighborhood group that has worked for months to get the neighborhood rezoned to limit the height of any new building.
Of course there is room for two groups working towards the same goal. The more the merrier. But I believe that CORD is starting to realize that Bill DeBlasio was never willing to do more than to seize a photo-op when he showed up a month ago at the Carroll Street Station to demand Scarano's architecture license. Did anybody really think that slick Bill was going to actually do anything more?
It is starting to dawn on Cord that DeBlasio is no help, judging by their latest email blasting our Councilman.
And as far as going after one architect,it is naive to believe that it will stop the project.
What we need in Carroll Gardens is to rezone at the very least and to expand our very small existing landmark district. That is the only way to protect our bownstone neighborhood. Lets all work together on this.
CORD Blog
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6 comments:
I disagree with you about the group
with the yellow signs and who they
went to for help. I signed the petition at the street fair,spoke with the people who were getting signatures and have followed the stories on their blog since that day.They do not seem to be putting their hopes into anyone but the petition signers.They mentioned both the cgna and deblasio on the blog, but it seemed to me that they must not have been helpful.I noticed there was a story about some permits being issued and there was a letter to a DOB official questioning the process but they seem to be doing their own thing.
Dear Anon,
The more people get involved in protecting Carroll Gardens, the better it is for all of us. And CORD certainly has brought attention to 360 Smith Street, which is great. My merely want to point out that we need to find a permanent solution, which involves downzoning and landmarking. And we need to do it in an organized, professional way to get the most support.
Our best bet would be to organize as a neighborhood and to march on Borough Hall to tell developers, politicians as well as D.O.B. that we demand appropriate development for our brownstone neighborhood.
As for CORD's disappointment with Bill De Blasio's response, anyone who has been involved in other issues in the neighborhood could have told CORD that the Councilman only shows up when he can get some press out of it. In between, he does not solve many problems for Carroll Gardens.
I am surprised at how misinformed your article is! If you use the CORD link that is at the end of your article, and go the CORD website, you can see how erroneous your article is. First, you call Mr. Scarano the developer, and he is not; Mr Billy Stein is the developer. Second, you state CORD went to Councilman Bill deBlasio for help, and this is aslo false. The Councilman lauched his campaign against Scarano at the "Plaza" independent of CORD as everyone knows who attended the Councilman's rally at the Plaza. Third, you state CORD never went to CGNA yet an early CORD blog post explains what really did happen with the CGNA. Please check the facts!
I met CORD when I signed the petition and I must say that my wife and I were very impressed with them. They are organized and well-informed and very cordial. We are so glad to seee that soemone is finally doing something and happy to sign the CORD petition that expresses our feeling re: As Of Right. Thank you.
Again, I am happy that there are more people involved in the process. It took a long time to get Carroll Gardeners to realize that our neighborhood was under siege from developers. I am happy that CORD is helping in this efford.
As for Cord and Bill de Blasio, I attended the press conference at the subway plaza. I have had dealings with our Councilman before and have become very cynical about his motives, especially in this case. In my posting, I was reacting to the email blasting DeBlasio which was sent out by CORD. I never said that Cord went to deBlasio for help, only that they were mistaken in thinking that he was going to help.
As for Scarano being the architect and not the developer, you are absolutely right. I typed too quickly and should have reread the post. Thanks for your opinion.
The more voices are heard in Carroll Gardens, the better!
Dear Pardon Me for Asking,
When I try to send anything to your e-mail address listed on your blog, it always comes back "undeliverable"! Are you aware of this problem with your e-mail? Is there some other way to send stuff?
Thanks for all your help!
PS I was wondering: Did anyone in the neighborhood ever fight that Hannah Senesh building? I am new to all of this. It seems the whole mess started there. The old DOB building was so much smaller and much nicer in terms of architecture than this new orange out of place architecture! I noticed on the DOB site several violations on the Hannah Senesh building. One seems to be still open but honestly, I can not really understand anything at the DOB site as it all so coded and cryptic to me. I do see however the same LLC on Hannah Senesh as on the 360 Smith Street building proposal.
Hi CORD,
The email address seems to work fine. It is noisesoffonsmith@yahoo.com. You can also email me at kelly_katia@hotmail.com
As far as the Hanah Senesh school is concerned:
Yes, it is pretty ugly. I guess as a neighborhood, we were so shocked by the color scheme as they were staccoing it, that nobody quite believed that the school really intended it to be so , well, bright.
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