Brooklyn Bridge Park Condo Critics Outraged Over Private Yard Plans

New details are emerging in the controversial plan to erect housing in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Proposed two-story residential units with back yards are now being planned for Pier 1.  Critics say the housing, including the private yards take up valuable public greenspace. (Images: Courtesy of Rogers Marvel Architechts)

Brooklyn

Fenced-off yards attached to planned condos in Brooklyn Bridge Park are a greenspace-hogging affront on precious public land, frustrated park-boosters say, according to the Brooklyn Paper.

A proposal for a controversial housing complex on Pier 1 calls for landscaped private terraces linked to ground-floor residential units — a design that betrays the very definition of “park,” according to recreation advocates.

“The principal is ridiculous,” said yards-in-the-park opponents Roy Sloane, who sits on the park’s advisory council. “They’re taking up land that should belong to future generations of park-goers.”

Sloane and other critics say the architectural misstep turns the park into a literal and figurative backyard for wealthy developers and their future tenants.

He also fears the privates yards will set the stage for yard-style activities — such as laundry-drying and tiki-torch-burning — near the park’s stunning promenade, potentially tainting the valuable public commodity.

The new design revives a long-simmering battle over the use of the waterfront space and ultimately how to fund the park’s $16-million annual maintenance budget — a dilemma that stems from a 2002 agreement requiring the park to raise its own cash so it won’t drain public coffers.

Lawmakers eventually decided to build a 159-unit housing complex and hotel in the park near Furman Street, just south of the park’s Old Fulton Street entrance, to bring in revenue.

New housing design details — including news about the private yards — comes after members of the park’s advisory panel recommended that architects build a clear visual separation between public grassy areas and private terraces.

“The criticism was that yards of lower units sort of melted into the park,” said Joan McGroarty of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Community Advisory Council.

A spokeswoman for Roger Marvel Architects, the firm that drafted the design, did not respond to requests for comment about the size of the private outdoor space and other details last week.

But a Brooklyn Bridge Park spokeswoman noted that the yards will not be visible from the park greenway and that residents must maintain them.

“The ground floor outdoor spaces are within the development footprint, are shielded from the public portion of the park by a berm, and we’ve worked closely with [designers] to ensure that they do not encroach on any of the public areas of the park,” said spokeswoman Teresa Gonzalez.

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Brooklyn Bridge Park critics outraged over condos with private yards

The Brooklyn Paper -  October 1, 2012  - By Natalie O’Neill 

Development Of Pier 5 Indoor Soccer Field Fails To Attract Bidders

Proposed Pay-To-Play indoor soccer field. Pier 5 in Brooklyn Bridge Park is supposed to have an enclosed, winter-proof soccer field. Yesterday park officials announced they had no offers to build it. The facility would have been open from December to March. The city allocated spending up to $750,000 on construction, but the developer would have been responsible for a host of additional items for five years including maintenance, operation, insurance, and off-season storage.

Brooklyn

Brooklyn Bridge Park won’t get its much-touted indoor soccer field because the city failed to attract developers for it — prompting locals to slam the city for deliberately bursting the recreational bubble, according to the Brooklyn Paper.

On Thursday, park officials quietly announced that they received no offers to develop the site — and wouldn’t continue seeking offers to construct and operate a seasonal facility on Pier 5, despite assurances from local pols that the winter-proof field would be up and running by the end of 2012.

“This was designed to fail,” said Roy Sloane, president of the Cobble Hill Association. “[Under city rules], developers would have to put in a lot of money, have it open only four months a year, and charge very reasonable prices. Did that sound like something the city was serious about?”

The facility — which would have been open from December to March — had no rest rooms or locker rooms, and the operator would pay for maintenance, operations and off-season storage.

The city vowed to spend up to $750,000 on construction, but the developer would be responsible for everything beyond that.

Regina Myer, president of Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation, said she was “tremendously disappointed” that no developers signed on, but would not elaborate on the bubble’s future.

The Pier 5 development was one of the less-controversial elements of the $350-million greenspace, which is required by a 2002 agreement between the city and the state to generate its own maintenance budget instead of draining taxpayer dollars.

Pier 5 in Brooklyn Bridge Park - proposed soccer field site. In August park officials announced that the enclosed recreational bubble with one soccer field would be open by the end of 2012. (Photo by Stefano Giovannini)

Funding for the bubble was secured in August, after state lawmakers reached a deal with Mayor Bloomberg to allow some luxury housing to fund the massive park’s $16-million annual upkeep.

State Sen. Daniel Squadron (D–Brooklyn Heights) — who signed the agreement — said that the bubble is still viable.

“This is only the first round,” he said. “The park has an obligation to build this bubble, and I believe that commitment will be kept.”

But critics disagreed, calling the Pier 5 loss another example of how public facilities are taking a backseat to private development.

Indeed, much of the focus for the past year has been on how to fund the park, with city officials pushing for luxury high-rises as the main funding source — along with a 10-story hotel slated for Pier 1, just south of the park’s primary entrance at the foot of Old Fulton Street.

“This exposes the great lie of this deal — that this serves the residents of Brooklyn,” said Judi Francis, president of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Defense Fund. “This park has been constructed as a development project for condos. Anything else has been an afterthought.”

Park officials began seeking a developer for the bubble at the end of August and set a Sept. 27 deadline for proposals.

On that day, Brooklyn Bridge Park staffers told the park’s community advisory council at a public meeting that they would open the proposals the next morning.

That was a lie; as it turned out, there weren’t any.

“This is a shame because we need a year-round facility — this is another hit for the park,” said Adam Meshberg, a member of the council. “We should reevaluate the size and design and make it more attractive.”

Park officials said they would move forward with Pier 5’s other attractions, including three multi-use artificial turf fields, a playground and a snack concession during warmer months.

The park is currently seeking developers to construct the picnic peninsula. Proposals are due by Oct. 28. For info, e-mail brooklynbridgepark@bbpnyc.org or visit www.brooklynbridgeparknyc.org.

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The bubble bursts! Brooklyn Bridge Park won’t get promised indoor field

The Brooklyn Paper - By Kate Briquelet - October

Inside the Brooklyn Bridge Park Housing Deal

A Walk In The Park - August 12, 2011

Squadron & Millman Sell Out In Deal With City To Bring More Housing To Brooklyn Bridge Park

A Walk In The Park - August 2, 2011

Inside the Brooklyn Bridge Park Housing Deal

The Watchtower Society’s headquarters on Columbia Heights will be turned into a sweet residential building to help pay for Brooklyn Bridge Park’s maintenance. (Photo: Bess Adler/The Brooklyn Paper)

Brooklyn

It’s the billion-dollar boondoggle!

The Jehovah’s Witnesses are poised to make out like moneylenders in the temple under the just-signed deal that allows the city to fund Brooklyn Bridge Park’s annual upkeep with tax revenues from the group’s properties, a Brooklyn Paper analysis reveals.

The deal calls for the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society’s holdings in Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO to be rezoned for residential use — a change that real-estate experts believe will send the value of the Society’s properties well north of $1 billion.

“If they put them on the market now, they’ll be sold very quickly,” said Downtown real-estate broker Chris Havens.

The deal between Mayor Bloomberg and state officials will reduce the amount of luxury condos inside Brooklyn Bridge Park by using new property taxes created after the Watchtower properties are sold and return to the tax rolls.

That money will go into the normal general fund, which will then cover maintenance of the world-class park.

The deal has green advocates seeing red.

“Tax money is supposed to go into the city’s general fund and it’s being diverted to one park,” said Geoffrey Croft, founder of watchdog group New York City Park Advocates. “These types of deals create enormous disparities. Other neighborhoods can’t pay for parks in this way.”

Under the deal crafted by state Sen. Daniel Squadron (D–Brooklyn Heights) and Assemblywoman Joan Millman (D–Carroll Gardens), the greater the number of Watchtower buildings that go on the market, the less luxury housing needs to be built inside the park at Pier 6.

Those buildings were projected to bring in roughly $6 million a year in property taxes earmarked for the park. If the properties don’t start yielding sufficient property taxes by 2014, the city, under a new mayor, can move forward with the controversial condos.

Watchtower owns more than 30 properties, but doesn’t pay taxes on any of them under federal laws that exempt religious groups from normal levies.

The religious order will either apply to rezone its properties to residential before selling them, or sell them to developers based on the inflated post-rezoning price. Either way, it’ll mean big bucks for the group.

Havens estimates that one of Watchtower’s most valuable buildings — 25 Columbia Heights, which is part of the group’s administrative offices — could go for $91 million as right now as commercially zoned. It will likely go for at least twice that now that the city is behind the rezoning.

Indeed, One Brooklyn Bridge Park, the former Watchtower property at 360 Furman St., was bought by developer Robert A. Levine for $205 million in 2004.

The city’s deal is the latest funding scheme for Brooklyn Bridge Park — but the only one to gain the support of the wealthy in Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO, who won’t have to pay anything to maintain the park.

In 2009, Squadron proposed siphoning off some taxes from nearby landowners to pay for the controversial park project’s upkeep. But that went nowhere.

A year later, a committee designated to find alternatives to housing inside the park suggested creating a “park improvement district” that would charge nearby property owners an annual fee. But that went nowhere.

Again, wealthy Brooklyn Heights objected to having to pay.

“Maybe this is all just kind of scheme so Brooklyn’s wealthiest residents somehow don’t have to pay higher property taxes,” said Roy Sloane, president of the Cobble Hill Association and longtime opponent of housing in the park. “Why shouldn’t the immediate adjacent property owners pay more for the park?”

That’s a question that has come up in various forms ever since the the 2002 agreement requiring that the $350-million park raise its own maintenance budget so it wouldn’t become a drain on city and state coffers.

City and state officials decided that luxury housing — in the form of high-rises at John Street in DUMBO, Pier 1 and Pier 6 — was the easiest way to generate revenues for the park. But that scheme has long been under fire from Heights residents — and, indeed, helped propel Squadron into office.

Opponents of housing inside the park joined the anti-tax crowd and hailed Squadron’s call to capture tax revenue from the Watchtower properties as the way to stop future luxury condos within the park.

But former Squadron allies like Sloane say that the deal is fishy and that the senator sold out the park.

“This whole thing feels artificial to me and like it’s all driven by real estate,” Sloane said. “The Jehovah’s Witnesses have been the immense beneficiaries.”

State planners have put out new renderings for the proposed Brooklyn Bridge Park waterfront condo and open space development along the Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO coastline. The new building on the right of the rendering is a hotel. (Michael Van Valkenburg Associates)

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Inside the Brooklyn Bridge Park deal

The Brooklyn Paper - August 11, 2011 - By Kate Briqeulet

Editorial: At Brooklyn Bridge Park, the rich get richer

The Brooklyn Paper - August 11, 2011

Squadron & Millman Sell Out In Deal With City To Bring More Housing To Brooklyn Bridge Park - Critics

A Walk In The Park - August 2, 2011