Be On The Side Of Gowanus: Donate To The Gowanus Legal Defense Fund

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From Voice of Gowanus:

Time for Gowanus to Lawyer Up - Help Us Fight De Blasio's Rezone Madness!

Today we're proud to announce the launching of the Gowanus Legal Defense Fund to defend our neighborhood from a dubious proposed rezoning, that is not sustainable, healthy, nor a path to address equity issues in our city. We invite you to help in this defense. Your financial support, at any level, is what will make that happen. Donate to the fund here today.

When the powers-that-be continue to ram a terribly planned, out-of-scale, environmentally unsustainable, luxury rental-centric, anti-community, pro-displacement rezoning down our throats, what else is a community left to do? Especially during a pandemic when it's difficult to organize to express community concerns in person—and it's almost impossible to do so in virtual "public meetings" that are heavily controlled by city officials because they find all the community sentiment "distracting." Distracting? Government-run zoom-sessions have already proven to be a form of muzzling the community on many fronts. Legitimate concerns about putting residential towers on forever-toxic sites should not be "distractions," as city officials declare—these disqualifying concerns cannot go ignored by the city.

We are not going to take this lying down. We are raising funds via our new Gowanus Legal Defense Fund to retain attorneys to attack the ill-advised proposed Gowanus rezoning on multiple fronts. We can do better. A better plan—one that actually makes for a healthier environment, and that is led by the community rather than by developers and politicians—is possible. But it's clear we'll never get that healthy and sustainable plan with the current politicians in place unless we defeat the greed-fueled juggernaut careening toward our neighborhood.

Here is what is currently at stake in Gowanus

Though the discussion regarding the rezoning of 80 city-blocks in Gowanus has been ongoing for quite a while now, the Brooklyn Office of the NYC Department Of City Planning just sent out an email announcing that the agency will certify the rezoning on January 19th, 2021.

The certification is the first step in the Uniform Land Use Review (ULURP) process which ends eight or nine months later with the City Council voting and, depending on the outcome, writing the rezoning into law.

Once the ULURP starts, it takes on a life of its own, as many who have participated in the process before can attest.

This rezone is huge. It will span over 80 blocks in Gowanus, allowing 22 and 30 story buildings along the canal and adding 20,000 to 22,000 new residents to a FEMA Flood Zone A, near an EPA Superfund site that the City still uses as an open sewer when it rains.

Therefore, we must all participate in this ULURP,  as this is the most important and impactful issue ever discussed in Community Board 6, one that will affect the future of residents not only in Gowanus, but Park Slope, Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens, Red Hook and even Sunset Park.

The community will be given a chance to testify at several stages, starting at the Community Board 6 Land Use Committee level. However, DCP will be holding these meetings as webinars, which makes it impossible to guarantee a fair process. In previous DCP meetings on the rezone, hosted by CB6, there was no list of attendees,  the comment function was disabled at times and it was unclear how questions from the public were chosen. CB6's manager Michael Racioppo even commented on the fact that people were impersonating other people in the chatroom and how vile the comments have been. (video at 1:12.16)

This is certainly an intimidating atmosphere for anyone who would like to participate in ULURP in a meaningful way.

You may wonder where Councilmember Brad Lander stands on this? As he finishes his third term as our representative, he sees this as his parting 'gift' to his constituents.  Many local residents on the other hand, see the rezoning as a huge giveaway to developers, many of whom will not contribute any real estate taxes for 25 years for their Gowanus projects.

To Lander, the massive up-zone seems worth it for the 'affordable' units that may be gained.  Even if that means placing 950 units of that affordable housing on Public Place, the most polluted parcel of land in the neighborhood.  Perhaps he should be listening to the EPA, which has warned him that it would be dangerous to do so.

Councilmember Brad Lander

Councilmember Lander needs to realize that this is a legacy moment for him. Perhaps, if we all point out that putting people next to a Superfund site, on poisoned land (Public Place), will be what he will be remembered for here in Gowanus long after he is gone. 

This rezoning should not move forward during a pandemic when we can't engage in person, It should not be beholden to Lander's timeline and to promises he may have made to developers.

We need to ask for a moratorium, so that we can make sure that Gowanus' many environmental issues are fully addressed and remediated before we expose more people to toxins. And we need a legal fund so that we can ensure that we will get a fair ULURP process.

How can you help?

Join Voice of Gowanus

Demand a Moratorium on the Gowanus Rezone

and Contribute to the Gowanus Legal Defense Fund

Further reading:

Councilmember Brad Lander’s Damning Developer Donations - Who’s He Trying To Kid?

Can Gowanus Be Both A White, Rich Neighborhood And A Low-Income Opportunity Zone? Why It Matters In Regards To The Proposed Rezoning

EPA's Head Engineer For The Gowanus Canal Superfund Clean-Up Confirms Community's Concerns Regarding Environmental Remediation Of Public Place Site

Voice Of Gowanus: Let's Require a Racial Impact Study BEFORE the Proposed Gowanus Rezoning

Demand a Moratorium on the Gowanus Rezone

***The 3D model above of what the Gowanus Corridor could look like in just a few years if the rezoning goes through was developed by New York Institute of Technology (NYIT).

Read more

Tonight, Tell Council Member Lander That Building Affordable Housing On The Toxic Public Place Site In Carroll Gardens Is Insane ...And Nefarious

Public Place site at Smith and 5th Street

A 1930 view of the former Citizens Gas Work Site on what is now Public Place

TONIGHT, TELL COUNCIL MEMBER LANDER THAT BUILDING AFFORDABLE HOUSING ON LAND THAT WILL FOREVER BE POISONED IS JUST INSANITY!

By now, most residents in Gowanus and neighboring areas have hopefully heard about the proposal by the NYC Department of City Planning  to up-zone the Gowanus Canal area, which calls for 8,200 new units of housing that will bring approximately 20,000 new residents to the area.

If this seems insane to most, the plan has nevertheless the backing of Councilman Brad Lander, who has supported the rezoning from the start.

Though it appears on the surface that Lander wants to make sure that "plans for growth are grounded fully in the public interest, and will achieve our shared goals", the rezoning of the Gowanus area was always a huge giveaway to developers despite all the talk about affordable housing units that may be gained in the process.

Councilmember Brad Lander, supporter of housing on Public Place

Which brings us to Public Place, the City-owned six acre Brownfield site near the intersection of Smith and 5th Streets adjacent to the Gowanus Canal. It is currently in NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development portfolio.

Brad Lander has been pushing for the development of housing on Public Place from the moment he ran for City Council, if not before.  From 1993 to 2003,  he served as executive director of Park Slope's Fifth Avenue Committee, a not-for-profit community-based organization that develops and manages affordable housing.)

Interestingly enough,  in 2008, Fifth Avenue Committee, together with  Hudson Companies, Jonathan Rose, and the Bluestone Organization was selected to develop the site for affordable housing with retail space, community facilities and open space.

Fifth Avenue Committee's current executive director is Michelle de la Uz, who also currently serves as a Commissioner of NYC Planning Commission. If that is not a conflict of interest, what is?

Gowanus Green: a proposal for about 900 apartments and a school on permanently toxic land

Their proposal was named 'Gowanus Green' and included 774 units of housing, of which 70% would have been permanently affordable. To move forward, the site needed to go through a rezoning from manufacturing to residential, which never moved forward after the Environmental Protection Agency declared the Gowanus Canal a Superfund Site.

Gowanus Green has been revived of late since City Planning has wrapped Public Place into the framework of the agency's Gowanus Neighborhood Planning Study. 

The new plan for Public Place calls for about 900 units of affordable housing in 30 story buildings as well as a new public school. 

Tonight at 6 pm, the NYC Department of City Planning and the “Gowanus Green” development team are going to present the development at a webinar hosted by Community Board 6.

To register, click here.

In 2019, Brad Lander stated:

"The chance to build a sustainable, mixed-income community in Gowanus is one of the most important and unique opportunities of the Gowanus Neighborhood Rezoning. Gowanus sits in-between Carroll Gardens and Park Slope, two wonderful neighborhoods, with great schools, thriving commercial strips, great access to transit -- and almost no affordable housing. Gowanus Green offers us the opportunity to build hundreds of units of truly affordable housing, right at the heart of the neighborhood, to open up the opportunity of our dynamic community to a much wider range of people than can afford to live here now."

Affordable housing, additional parkland, a new public school...it all sounds great, until you consider the history of Public Place, which Brad Lander refuses to mention in his email to the community.

The truth is that to this day, Public Place will remain one of, if not the most polluted site along the Gowanus Canal even after remediation.

From the 1860s to the early 1960s, the Public Place site was the home of the former Citizens Gas Light Company's 12th Ward Gas Work Plant, a Manufactured Gas Plant (MGP) where coal and petroleum products were turned into flammable gas. The gas was used for cooking, lighting, heating and commercial purposes in the surrounding neighborhoods.

Unfortunately, one of the by-products of this gasification process is coal tar, a black viscous liquid, which is harmful to humans and the environment. At Public Place,  coal tar has been found in significant amounts at depths of 150 feet.   

When the Citizens Gas Works plant was decommissioned in the 60s, the site was given to the city 'by condemnation' as public land in 1975. Hence the name "Public Place". Citizens Gas Light Company later sold to Brooklyn Union Gas, which became Keyspan, which is now National Grid.

The responsibility for the clean-up falls on National Grid. The work is currently being done under the supervision of NYS Department of Environmental Conservation.

Since coal tar and contaminated groundwater have been found to ooze from the site into the Gowanus Canal for decades, the US Environmental Protection Agency, which declared the canal a Superfund site in 2010, has also been involved.

Though National Grid's contractor, Creamer Environmental, has been recently implementing remedial actions on the site. we are a long way from a clean environment.

Brownfield remediation consists mostly of removing the top layer of existing dirt, adding new clean fill, and installing a plastic vapor barrier before capping the contamination on the site with cement.

How well those sites are monitored and how long the barriers maintain their integrity is anyone's guess. As an example, the Lowe's site in Gowanus at 9th Street, which was also built on an MGP site but cleaned under the NYS Brownfield program a decade ago, was found to be in need of additional remediation by the EPA.

By far the biggest concern about housing on Brownfield sites is the intrusion of vapors into the structures.  According to Public Integrity.org: 

"Plastic vapor barriers and other soil containment measures are all that states require in some types of redevelopment.

But sometimes, such efforts fail or the science changes. New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation decided to reopen hundreds of Superfund, brownfield, and other sites that had been remediated to investigate potential new threats from vapor intrusion, something that had not been considered at the time of the “cleanups.” The reviews are ongoing, but the agency has already found mitigation will be necessary at more than 70 sites."

If Brad Lander refuses to even acknowledge to his constituents that Public Place will have a plume of coal tar underneath the site in perpetuity, we need tell him that we will hold him ultimately responsible for the health of everyone of the future resident and schoolchild he intends to bring here.

Perhaps he should listen to those who came before him. In 1984, a New York City Partnership withdrew its proposal to build moderate income housing on the site "because of serious environmental problems and exorbitant costs associated with developing the lot."

Read more

Brad Lander's Brownfield Of Dreams Part 1: Our Councilman's Push To Build Housing And A School On The Most Polluted Site in Gowanus Is Folly

Public Place on Smith Street near 5th Street

A 1930 view of the former Citizens Gas Work Site on what is now Public Place

An arial view of the Citizens Gas Work site in 1926

Councilmember Brad Lander, supporter of housing on Public Place

Gowanus Green: a proposal for 1000 apartments and a school on permanently toxic land

By now, most residents in Gowanus and neighboring areas have hopefully heard about the proposal by the NYC Department of City Planning  to up-zone the Gowanus Canal area, which calls for 8,200 new units of housing that will bring approximately 20,000 new residents to the area.

The rezoning will likely go forward early next year as it moves through the Uniform Land Use Process (ULURP) despite the fact that it will still take years for the Canal to be environmentally remediated as part of the EPA Superfund Clean-up, and despite the fact that the City still uses the waterway as an open sewer and that the area's infrastructure is already stretched to its limits under current conditions. The area is also a FEMA Flood Zone A.

The ULURP process, once it starts, should take between six to nine months. If the rezoning goes through, developers who have already purchased the land around the Gowanus can start building 22 to 30 story high rises.

If this seems insane to most, the plan has nevertheless the backing of Councilman Brad Lander, who has supported the rezoning from the start.

Though it appears on the surface that Lander wants to make sure that "plans for growth are grounded fully in the public interest, and will achieve our shared goals", the rezoning of the Gowanus area was always a huge giveaway to developers despite all the talk about affordable housing units that may be gained in the process.

Which brings us to Public Place, the City-owned six acre Brownfield site near the intersection of Smith and 5th Streets adjacent to the Gowanus Canal. It is currently in NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development portfolio.

Brad Lander has been pushing for the development of housing on Public Place from the moment he ran for City Council, if not before.  From 1993 to 2003,  he served as executive director of Park Slope's Fifth Avenue Committee, a not-for-profit community-based organization that develops and manages affordable housing.)

Interestingly enough,  in 2008, Fifth Avenue Committee, together with  Hudson Companies, Jonathan Rose, and the Bluestone Organization was selected to develop the site for affordable housing with retail space, community facilities and open space.

Fifth Avenue Committee's current executive director is Michelle de la Uz, who also currently serves as a Commissioner of NYC Planning Commission. If that is not a conflict of interest, what is?

Their proposal was named 'Gowanus Green' and included 774 units of housing, of which 70% would have been permanently affordable. To move forward, the site needed to go through a rezoning from manufacturing to residential, which never moved forward after the Environmental Protection Agency declared the Gowanus Canal a Superfund Site.

Gowanus Green has been revived of late since City Planning has wrapped Public Place into the framework of the agency's Gowanus Neighborhood Planning Study. 

The new plan for Public Place calls for 1000 units of 100% affordable housing in 30 story buildings as well as a new public school. 

This Monday, December 2, the NYC Department of City Planning and NYC Housing, Preservation, and Development  will be presenting an update on the Public Place / Gowanus Green site to Community Board 6 at PS 32.

Ahead of the meeting, Brad Lander's office released a statement that reads in part:

"The chance to build a sustainable, mixed-income community in Gowanus is one of the most important and unique opportunities of the Gowanus Neighborhood Rezoning. Gowanus sits in-between Carroll Gardens and Park Slope, two wonderful neighborhoods, with great schools, thriving commercial strips, great access to transit -- and almost no affordable housing. Gowanus Green offers us the opportunity to build hundreds of units of truly affordable housing, right at the heart of the neighborhood, to open up the opportunity of our dynamic community to a much wider range of people than can afford to live here now."

Affordable housing, additional parkland, a new public school...it all sounds great, until you consider the history of Public Place, which Brad Lander refuses to mention in his email to the community.

The truth is that to this day, Public Place remains one of, if not the most polluted site along the Gowanus Canal and needs extensive remediation.

From the 1860s to the early 1960s, the Public Place site was the home of the former Citizens Gas Light Company's 12th Ward Gas Work Plant, a Manufactured Gas Plant (MGP) where coal and petroleum products were turned into flammable gas. The gas was used for cooking, lighting, heating and commercial purposes in the surrounding neighborhoods.

Unfortunately, one of the by-products of this gasification process is coal tar, a black viscous liquid, which is harmful to humans and the environment. At Public Place,  coal tar has been found in significant amounts at depths of 150 feet.   

When the Citizens Gas Works plant was decommissioned in the 60s, the site was given to the city 'by condemnation' as public land in 1975. Hence the name "Public Place". Citizens Gas Light Company later sold to Brooklyn Union Gas, which became Keyspan, which is now National Grid.

The responsibility for the clean-up falls on National Grid. The work will be done under the supervision of NYS Department of Environmental Conservation.

Since coal tar and contaminated groundwater have been found to ooze from the site into the Gowanus Canal for decades, the US Environmental Protection Agency, which declared the canal a Superfund site in 2010, is also involved.

Though National Grid's contractor, Creamer Environmental, has been recently implementing remedial actions on the site. we are a long way from a clean environment.

Brownfield remediation consists mostly of removing the top layer of existing dirt, adding new clean fill, and installing a plastic vapor barrier before capping the contamination on the site with cement.

How well those sites are monitored and how long the barriers maintain their integrity is anyone's guess. As an example, the Lowe's site in Gowanus at 9th Street, which was also built on an MGP site but cleaned under the NYS Brownfield program a decade ago, was found to be in need of additional remediation by the EPA.

By far the biggest concern about housing on Brownfield sites is the intrusion of vapors into the structures.  According to Public Integrity.org: 

"Plastic vapor barriers and other soil containment measures are all that states require in some types of redevelopment.

But sometimes, such efforts fail or the science changes. New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation decided to reopen hundreds of Superfund, brownfield, and other sites that had been remediated to investigate potential new threats from vapor intrusion, something that had not been considered at the time of the “cleanups.” The reviews are ongoing, but the agency has already found mitigation will be necessary at more than 70 sites."

If Brad Lander refuses to even acknowledge to his constituents in a press release that Public Place will always have a plume of coal tar underneath the site, we need to tell him that we will hold him ultimately responsible for the health of every current and future resident, and every schoolchild he intends to bring to Public Place.

Perhaps he should listen to those who came before him. In 1984, a New York City Partnership withdrew its proposal to build moderate income housing on the site "because of serious environmental problems and exorbitant costs associated with developing the lot."

Brownfield of Dreams: A Film By Matt Sollars from 2008

PLEASE ATTEND!

Public Place/Gowanus Green Presentation to CB6

Monday, December 2, 6:30 PM

P.S. 32

317 Hoyt Street

Click here for Part Two:
Brad Lander's Brownfield of Dreams Part 2: The Councilman's Shameful Neglect In Mentioning Public Place's Special Designation

Read more

Brooklyn CB6 Residents and Property Owners UNITE! Sign Petition To Ask CB6 For Inter-Agency Panel Town Halls To Assess Impacts Of Massive Gowanus Area Rezoning On Our Community

Gowanus, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill, Park Slope Residents!

Please sign this Petition!

Brooklyn CB6 Residents and Property Owners UNITE!

HERE

New York City's proposed rezoning of the Gowanus area, which will add about 8,200 new residential units and an estimated 20,000 new residents to this environmentally fragile neighborhood is the most  complex and consequential issue in Community Board 6 in decades.

Yet many local residents are still unaware of the upcoming rezoning and too many CB6 Board members, who will get to vote on the issue, are shockingly ignorant of all the issues with the plan.

We therefore join the Carroll Gardens Coalition For Respectful Development (CORD) in asking CB6 to organize two inter-agency panel town hall Q&A discussions  to give the community an opportunity to hear from City, State and Federal agencies so that we may  all fully understand the consequences of this massive proposed rezoning.

CORD's petition reads:
Understanding that the proposed Gowanus Rezoning is approaching a NYC procedural land use review, called a ULURP, we the undersigned Carroll Gardens, Gowanus, Red Hook, Cobble Hill and Park Slope residents and property owners wish to:

Join CORD's call for a minimum of two (2) inter-agency panel town hall Q&A discussions on the rezoning of the Gowanus Canal to be organized and held by Community Board 6, so that the community can assess for itself if the City has the means, the resources and the will to TRULY plan for the impact of about 8,200 new housing units and an estimated 19,000 new residents. In order to give the community and the Community Board Members the time to absorb and assess all of the potential consequences of this rezoning, these meetings must be organized and held to take place well before the ULURP comes before the CB6 Land Use Committee for approval.

**A list of NYC agencies we think should be at our town hall include:
1.FDNY Fire Department
2.NYPD Police Department
3.OEM . Office of Emergency Management
4.EMT SERVICES Emergency Medical Personnel
5.DSNY Sanitation Department
6.DOE Education Department
7.DOT Transportation and Traffic Department
8.NYCT NYC Transit (All)
9.DCP City Planning Department
10.DEP NYC Environmental Protection (air, water, sewage)
11.EPA Region 2 . US Dept of Environmental Protection (our Superfund team)
12.PARKS Parks Department
13.DEC, NY State Department of Environmental Conservation (brownfields including Public Place)
14.MTA and Metropolitan Transit Authority (subways along with NYCT)
15.FEMA Federal Emergency Department (flooding, natural disasters)

The more we know of the rezoning, the more we can plan ahead for the thousands of new residents in the Gowanus area, the better the outcome.  Community Board 6 represents all of us, so the ask for two inter-agency panel discussions should be no issue.

Join us in asking for the opportunity to decide for ourselves if New York City is

ACTUALLY PLANNING ahead for the Gowanus upzoning. 

Brooklyn CB6 Residents and Property Owners UNITE!

HERE

Related Reading:
Gowanus Rezoning: These Are The CB6 Members Who Will Vote' Yay' Or 'Nay' On Landersville
Dear Brad Lander: Give Us A Democratic Vote On the Gowanus Rezoning
Landersville: Councilman Brad Lander Is Still Promising A Gowanus Rezoning That He Can't Possibly Deliver
Voice Of Gowanus Holds Press Conference To Address Concerns About Neighborhood Rezoning

Read more

Gowanus Rezoning: These Are The CB6 Members Who Will Vote' Yay' Or 'Nay' On Landersville

3D model of a fully built-out Gowanus after rezoning

by New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) students

Dear Neighbors, 

As the South Brooklyn community is wrapping its collective head around what New York City Department of City Planning's proposed Gowanus up-zoning will mean to an environmentally challenged neighborhood,  Pardon Me For Asking thought it worthwhile to take a look at the members of  Community Board 6, who will cast their vote on either approving or disapproving the plan.

What is proposed in Gowanus is the largest of the recent rezonings on the smallest footprint in the City and will alter this low-rise industrial neighborhood forever by allowing 22-30 story residential buildings along the banks of its iconic canal. It would not be an overstatement to say that this issue is one of the most important many of our board members have ever voted on.

Though the Community Boards of New York City are strictly advisory, some wield more power than others on matters of importance to their community. They are our "local non-partisan interface to the many offices and agencies of City government." In the case of Gowanus, we need to make sure that CB6 members thoroughly understand the environmental issues in Gowanus, are free of conflicts of interest, and truly represent the voice of the community, and will cast a vote free from pressure from the Councilmembers who put them on the board.

In all, there are 50 members of CB6, representing Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, the Columbia Waterfront, Gowanus, Park Slope, and Red Hook.  The Board's  members are appointed by the Brooklyn Borough President, with our Councilmembers Brad Lander, Carlos Menchaca and  Stephen Levin, making recommendations.

As part of the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), the public review process any New York City rezoning needs to go through,  members of CB6's Landmark/Landuse Committee will first cast their vote and make a recommendation.

The current Members of the Landmarks/ Land Use Committee are:

Landmark Chair - David Briggs

Land Use Chair - Mark Shames

Jerry Armer

Paul Basile

Pauline Blake

Lyn Hill

Glenn Kelly

Ariel Krasnow

Daniel M. Kummer

Robert Levine

Marvin Michel

Tom Miskel

Madeline Murphy

Charles Pigott

Allison Reeves

Debra Scotto

Roy Sloane 

Joanna Oltman Smith

Judith Thompson

Suzanne Turet

The full board will then cast a vote on the matter.

Here is a list of current Community Board 6 members

Numbers behind the names represent appointments by  Councilmen Stephen Levin (33), Carlos Menchaca (38), Brad Lander (39), and Brooklyn Borough President (BP)

Term expiring March 31, 2020 

1. Pauline Blake (BP)

2. David Briggs (BP) 

3. Frances Brown(BP) 

4. Jason Reischel(BP) 

5. Eladia Causil-Rodriguez(BP) 

6. Hasoni Pratts(BP) 

7. Ariel Krasnow (BP) 

8. Robert Levine (BP) 

9. Richard Luftglass (BP) 

10. Elena Santogade (BP) 

11. Judith Thompson (BP) 

12. Kiamesha Smalls (BP) 

13. Howard Graubard (33) 

14. Victoria Alexander (38) 

15.J ulian Morales (38) 

16. Vilma Heramia (39) 

17. Sayar Lonial (39) 

18. Eric McClure (39) 

19. Thomas Miskel (39) 

20. Debra Scotto (39) 

21. Josh Skaller (39) 

22. Dolly Williams(39) 

23. Jean Fritzner (39) 

24. Paul Basile (39) 

25. Kathy Park Price (39) 

Expiring March 31, 2019 

1. Jerry Armer (39) 

2. VACANT (39)

3. Leroy Branch (38) 

4. Karen Broughton (BP) 

5. Joe Ann Brown (39) 

6. Marilyn Carter (33) 

7. Reginald Ferguson (BP)

8. Peter Fleming (39) Chairperson

9. Kara Gurl (BP) 

10. John Heyer II (BP) 

11. Glenn Kelly (BP) 

12. Jasmeet Krause-Vilmar( 39) 

13. Daniel Kummer (39) 

14. Bridget Anne Rein (39)

15. Hildegaard Link (BP) 

16. Charles Pigott (BP) 

17. Rachel Freeman (BP) 

18. Angelica Ramdhari (BP) 

19. Roger Rigolli (39) 

20. Mark Shames (BP) 

21. Vacant (BP)

22. Joanna Smith (39) 

23. Suzanne Turet (39) 

24. Neal Zephyrin (BP) 

There are so many unresolved issues concerning the Gowanus rezoning:

-the area is a FEMA Flood zone A with mandatory evacuation.

-the actual EPA Superfund clean-up of toxic material at the bottom of the Gowanus Canal has yet to start.

-The City still has to build two EPA-mandated Combined Sewer Overflow tanks to capture raw sewage that it currently dumps into the canal.

-the infrastructure in Gowanus is currently insufficient or crumbling.

In addition, despite the participation of local residents in Councilman Brad Lander's Bridging Gowanus visioning process, this re-zoning plan guarantees few of the things that the community really cared about: artists lofts, maker spaces and parks.

How exactly the area will accommodate thousands of new residents when our sewer treatment plants, schools and subways are already near or over capacity remains a question that needs to be answered honestly first.

Please take a look at the list of board members. if you know any of them, please engage them (respectfully) in conversation on the matter. If not, take the time to get to know a few.

Help identify those who may own land in Gowanus, are developers or  those who work for developers in Gowanus and may have a conflict of interest.

This is simply too important of an issue. Let us all enter into this rezoning with knowledge, integrity and honesty.

***For full disclosure, my husband Glenn Kelly is a board member.

Read more

Neighbors, Let's Talk About All The Trash In Carroll Gardens

Neighbors, have you noticed how absolutely filthy our neighborhood has become? Everywhere one looks, there is litter on the sidewalk and in the streets. The worst are Smith and Court Street, where the public garbage cans are overflowing with refuse on a regular basis. Why is that?

When I first moved into Carroll Gardens in 1985, it was a working class Italian neighborhood. Sure there was garbage littering the streets, but many residents regularly swept in front of their houses and kept an eye on neighbors who did not.  It certainly was a lot cleaner than it is now.

These days, brownstones in Carroll Gardens sell for millions, but it sure does not look like a million dollar neighborhood around here.  Just look at the photos above, which we took in the past few days.

Our streets are a lot busier than they were just a decade ago. There are definitively more residents living here now as several tall developments have been constructed here.  Also, our local eateries attract people from other neighborhoods and there is a whole lot more foot traffic, especially on the week-ends.  

All this should prompt our local government to make sure that we get the proper trash pick-up.  Obviously, that has not been the case judging by how full the public trashcans are.  

So what can we do about this?

-Obviously,  produce less trash ourselves and pick up after ourselves.  We also are responsible for sweeping the sidewalks in front of our own houses.

-Make sure people know that the public trashcans are not for residential trash. (Too many times, local residents just dump their trash bags and broken pieces of furniture at the corner.

-Talk to the business owners on Court and Smith Streets to ask that they join in the effort.  

It is their responsibility to keep the sidewalk and curb of their establishment clean. 

-Call 311 and make a complaint to the Sanitation Department.

-Contact Community Board 6 at  718 643-3027 or Info@BrooklynCB6.org to ask for help in addressing this problem

-Make a call to Councilman Brad Lander's office at 718-499-1090.
Councilman Lander, who is now in his third term (thanks to the 2008  Council vote granting then-Mayor Bloomberg and City officials an exemption to the two-term limit) should be advocating for proper services that better reflect our current community need.

Frankly, in the past few months, we have received more emails from his office regarding the upcoming national election than anything concerning his constituents' more local needs. Until he is elected into higher office, if he chooses to seek it, his primary concern should be his district, not Washington.

More development is on the horizon if the proposed Gowanus Rezoning, backed by Councilman Lander, goes through. The rezoning from manufacturing to residential will bring thousands more to the neighborhood. How will we cope if we are not getting the simple services like proper trash pick up we need now?

We need to get a handle on this situation.  Carroll Park is overrun with rats, people have reported seeing rats in their front yards, our children walk past overflowing, smelly garbage on their way to and from school.  Is this really happening in our 'beautiful brownstone neighborhood?

We would love to hear what you have to say and encourage you to help come up with a solution.

Read more

Great News! NYC Landmark Preservation Commission Votes Unanimously To Calendar 236 And 238 President Street In Carroll Gardens

NYC Landmark Preservation Commission discussing 236 and 238 President Street at its meeting yesterday morning

Drawing of the building from The Brooklyn Eagle, November 21, 1897

238 President Street and 236 President Street seen in 1912 and today

Here is some hopeful news for the two beautiful historic buildings at 236 and 238 President Street, which Carroll Gardeners are trying to have landmarked, after it became known that a developer plans on demolishing the former  Hans S. Christian Memorial Kindergarten at #236 to make way for new condos.

Here is a report by Glenn Kelly, who attended New York City Landmark Preservation Commission's meeting where the two buildings were discussed:
"At 9:45 Am on April 10th, the New York City Landmark Preservation Commission voted unanimously to calendar 236 and 238 President Street for consideration as individual New York City landmark buildings.
There was a brief presentation and recommendation from the LPC research department and a question about the garage addition at 236 and top floor addition at 238. The Chairperson, Meenakshi Srinivasan, seemed quite supportive of the recommendation and answered that the garage is likely to be removed in the future. Several commissioners seemed quite pleased with the Joan Baez connection.
While this action does not guarantee that the buildings will become landmarks, it does provide immediate protection against changes or demolition while the agency does further research and follows its procedures for a hearing which will likely be held later this year.
Should the buildings be landmarked, we can be sure that the 236 building will be preserved (at minimum its facade) and any development will be subject to community (and community board) review in order to produce a result which incorporates the existing building in a respectful way and adds to the community. The history of this building will remain more real with its continued existence and this block, our neighborhood and our city will be a more interesting place.
This is a big win for our community and hopefully a signal that LPC will continue to consider an expansion of our existing landmark district.
Congratulations are in order for our community and especially to those who fought for this designation.
Thanks for your initiative and dedication !"

Again, to make clear, this does not mean that the two buildings have been landmarked, just that the Commission is committed to consider landmark status.  It also means that starting today, 236 President Street can not be demolished without prior approval by the Commission until a final vote on its landmark status. It is a giant step forward, however, and we should all be proud of how we came together to get us to this point.

For more on the two buildings, click here:

Urgent: Help Save The Hans S. Christian Memorial Kindergarten Building On President Street In Carroll Gardens As It Faces Imminent Demolition

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