Zoning map for 280 Bond Street
drawing via therockandrollplayhouse.com
At a recent We Are Gowanus get-together with Borough President Eric Adams
Elizabeth Cordova, Member of We Are Gowanus, with Borough President Eric Adams
Sparks are likely to fly at the Board of Sandards and Appeals tomorrow, which will again hear the case of 280 Bond Street, a non-conforming use abutting six residential townhouses that developer Peter Shapiro hopes to turn into a nightclub.
Residents are seeking to revert the space to residential and have provided a mountain of evidence that casts serious doubt on assertions by the site's owner, Alvin Isacowitz, that it has been in continuous commercial use. Besides sworn affidavits by current and former residents of the neighborhood -- including two stating that Isacowitz said he was retiring years ago, We Are Gowanus has produced sworn testimony and a sworn financial disclosure form from the owner himself stating that he has been retired for years. You'd think that would be enough to discredit just about anything Isacowitz claimed.
But the Department of Buildings has so far chosen to keep its head in the sand, responding that it prefers to believe that Isacowitz chose to lie under penalty of perjury before a judge and before the District Attorney, instead of before the DOB.
The BSA hearing will be held tomorrow, April 1st, at 22 Read Street, Spector Hall, 10am.
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5 comments:
This is so hilarious. All of the Gowanus "stake holders" and "activists" want a mixed use community (read: no residential development), but when a commercial venue tries to come in, they protest.
This, after you just posted a few days ago complaining about how residential development was (maybe) coming ONE BLOCK AWAY.
You can't have it both ways.
If Shapiro wanted to open his music venue on the Gowanus side of Bond Street, which is zoned manufacturing, he would have no problem.
Since he chose to put it on the Carroll Gardens side of Bond Street, which is zoned residential, he had to know that there were going to be problems with the neighbors.
All he has to do is to open it across the street. His problem solved….
Bully here...
I hope We Are Gowanus made a generous donation to Beep Eric Adams' non-existant not-for-profit. That should get the desired outcome. This whole things smells pseudo-Tyrolian to me...
3:04 - I thought the same thing. If you move next to a commercial building on the edge of a manufacturing zone, you need to expect the property to eventually be used. I don't believe for a second that anyone from WAG would be ok with it being across the street. Their complaints about noise and traffic would be the same.
You can all assume everything you want, but the facts speak for themselves:
The lot that Shapiro chose for his venue is currently zoned residential. The site had a grandfathered commercial use based on continuous occupancy.
He now needs a BSA permit to run his business there given the current zoning and that there are some questions if the business has actually existing for many years.
Had he found a site properly zoned for his business, he could have built as of right, and all the "complaining" in the world wouldnt have stopped him.
Commentary, not fact - I find it interesting that Shapiro origianlly touted his business as catering to children as if the neighbors were a bunch of rubes and would have believed his crap. He is geting exactly what he deserves.
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