TRAPPED IN THE TWO TREES BOX: COMMENTATORS CONTINUE TO MISS THE BIG PICTURE AND FAIL TO CRITICALLY ANALYZE TWO TREES’ PLANS

Recent celebratory articles and editorials (http://www.metropolismag.com/story/20130509/dumbo-principle ; http://untappedcities.com/2013/05/09/behind-the-scenes-at-domino-sugar-factory-construction-with-two-trees/ among others) on Two Trees’ plan demand a thorough response.

As a planner and a resident of the area, I am increasingly dismayed with each new celebratory article on Two Trees’ plan that fails to properly consider the impact of extreme density or consider any kind of alternative to Battery Park City-style residential tower development. Commentators that are usually intelligent are allowing themselves to be boxed into Two Trees’ public relations framework of this project as a triumphant improvement on the “bland” poorly designed developments that have been built (or are soon to be built) elsewhere on the Williamsburg-Greenpoint waterfront.

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THE WARM EMBRACE OF DENSITY: Two Trees and SHoP Pitch New Plan to the Public

An analysis by: Brian Paul, Writer for The Domino Effect

What is this, luxury waterfront housing for ants!?

Last Thursday evening, Two Trees’ Jed Walentas and ShoP Architects’ Vishaan Chakrabarti came down to The Woods in Southside Williamsburg to present and discuss their new plan for Domino Sugar.

This event offered Two Trees their first opportunity to gauge the community’s reaction and gain some understanding of potential opposition and support as the plan heads towards the public approval process. Neighbors Allied for Good Growth (NAG) sponsored the meeting and Ryan Kounen acted as an informal MC.

Two Trees brought the inevitable tabletop model, along with some renderings and schematics, for folks to examine before their presentation. I have to note that there’s something about this scale model that makes the plan appear far more benign than it does in the renderings.

I think it has to do with the way that the surrounding blocks are modeled without detail in simple white cubes, making the neighborhood look like a blank slate for the imposition of the new vision.

 There is something very insidious and dehumanizing about visualizing cities and neighborhoods through scale models. They are an effective tool for narrowing the focus to the proposed built design and reducing our consideration of the existing context of the new development.

Another fan of scale models (Robert Moses)

 But enough with this tangent on scale models.

After an introduction from Ryan, Jed Walentas took the stage to present and explain his motives and vision in Two Trees’ purchase of Domino Sugar. He repeatedly emphasized Two Trees’ superiority to other waterfront developers. Unlike the other guys, Two Trees is not interested in throwing up quick and cheap condominium buildings for the greatest possible short term return – “We want to own as much of this real estate long term as a we can, we want to build a prosperous long-term neighborhood here that’s integrated with existing parts of this community.

Ryan Kounen of NAG introduces Two Trees’ Jed Walentas and ShoP’s Vishaan Chakrabarti to the neigborhood.

 Walentas repeatedly criticized the model of waterfront development seen in the CPC plan or at Northside Piers and the Edge as “sterile” and “not a great urban plan.”

In contrast to the “privatized front lawns” of other developments, Walentas claimed that the Two Trees plan will bring people down to the waterfront through a diversity of open spaces uses and creating a new street down by the water. Its commercial space will “fill it [the development] up with energetic, smart, young creative people…some will be subsidized art studios and galleries like DUMBO but not all”

What Walentas seems to be doing here is attempting to sell his plan as an authentic outgrowth of the Bedford Avenue gentrification culture in opposition to the “sterile” towers and Duane Reade-Starbucks corporatism of the other waterfront developments.  “What we can achieve here is something socially contextual…bars like this…while the density of the buildings won’t reflect it, their content will.” This is also seen in how Walentas presents himself, always dressing casual and carrying himself with little pretension, portraying himself as one who would fit right in with the young upwardly mobile creative professionals of the neighborhood rather than a stiff corporate suit.

He went into some detail describing the location of a “large scale recreational facility” (possibly a YMCA) in the Site E building (the parking lot across Kent Ave) and a school (but not an elementary school) in the base of the site B “donut building.

And Walentas reiterated the commitment to 660 units of affordable housing, stating that most of them would be “in the 60% to 80% AMI band.” This translates into affordable housing targeted roughly at the $45,000 to $65,000 household income range, a range that would entirely miss the bottom half of Community Board 1 households, most of whom make between $20,000 and $40,000 a year.  But since this project will be all rentals, the 150 home ownership units of the CPC Plan which would have been targeted at 120% AMI ($100,000 incomes) will be out of the plan and replaced by more 60%-80% AMI rentals. There was no mention of whether lower AMI units might be included. For all its faults, the CPC plan at least had 100 units for 30% AMI ($25,000) which would be affordable for the majority of residents in the area, especially those most affected by displacement.  The affordable housing issue will be one to watch as we’ve seen it make and break development proposals in the past.

Vishaan Chakrabarti then spoke about the site’s design and architecture and repeated many of the themes of Walentas’ presentation. Regarding the old CPC plan and Brooklyn waterfront development in general he said “We at SHoP basically view this as a crisis. We think it’s really deeply problematic what’s been built along this waterfront. I mean I supposed it’s good that housing is being built but architecturally we just fundamentally believe that this is a creative community, it’s part of New York City and it deserves better…We decided that it was important to try to break up that wall and do something different…If you take the same 3 million square feet, and that was the brief we were given that that 3 million square feet is a fait accompli, if you build on less land, that’s more height.” Chakrabarti described his plan as “embracing” the density.

This theme of the “fait accompli of density” was also repeated by Walentas when he was pressed by community questioning. “At the end of the day, either this project will make it through the process, or it will not and we will go ahead and build the CPC plan…We spent $185 million on the site and we are going to make a return.”

This attitude is what makes Walentas, as I said in our last blog, “the mutant child of Jane Jacobs and Donald Trump.” For all his talk of “great urban places with a mixture of uses and mom and pop stores,” he is equally committed to maximizing his profits by building huge, so huge that the proposed development threatens to completely overwhelm and transform the surrounding area.

Two Trees paid $185 million for the Domino site, which works out to $55 per buildable square foot considering their proposal for 3.37 million square feet.  TerraCRG reports that the average cost for residential zoned land in Williamsburg in 2012 is $160 per build-able square foot (http://www.terracrg.com/reports/TerraCRG_Brooklyn_12_Market_Report.pdf). There are extra costs involved with the Domino site, including demolition and remediation, building a new bulkhead and esplanade, and renovating the Refinery. But much of this will undoubtedly be paid for by public subsidies. These facts lead one to conclude that a project of 2 million square feet, or perhaps even less, would be quite viable and profitable —  just less so than 3 million square feet.

Any credible city planner or urban designer will admit that 3 million square feet is really a stretch for this site and its surrounding infrastructure, and 2 million or even 1 million would be much more appropriate. At a presentation I attended at Hunter College last year, one of CPC’s leading land use consultants agreed that the New Domino project was far too dense for its context.

Those who attended the 2010 public hearing at the City Planning Commission might remember Chair Amanda Burden cutting off discussion of the first “New Domino” plan’s profit margin stating “we don’t consider financials.” This is a terrible policy that precludes real understanding of land use and development possibilities. A developer cannot build without sound financials (see “Community Preservation Corporation”), and policy makers should be able to discuss and weigh the relative size of the development’s profit margin with the public impacts of additional density.

If Walentas is going to continue to proclaim that he wants to help build a prosperous long-term community, he must answer why he is insisting on building 3.3 million square feet and sixty story Dubai architecture, why he is insisting on building on a scale that will radically change the entire surrounding neighborhood that he claims to admire. If it’s not just a matter of greed, let’s see a credible set of financial projections for the cost of development, incorporating expected subsidies, that shows that 3 million square feet is necessary.

We’ve all seen how well things go when we let developers frame the debate and we “just trust them” to do what’s right for the community. Two Trees has thus far expertly framed the debate as one of their new plan versus the CPC plan and other “boring” waterfront projects. Let’s make sure not to get trapped in that box and to continue to base our judgment on sound urban planning and community impacts.

Battery Park City on Beijing-Dubai Steroids

An analysis by: Brian Paul, Writer for The Domino Effect

Last month, after reading Two Trees’ summary of their community meetings, I wrote a hopeful piece on the future of the Domino site called “Can Two Trees Kill Condoburg?” Community input was highly critical of monotonous sterile condominium developments. Participants in the meetings asked for space for “new creative economy business or light manufacturing.” This echoed the call of the 2002 “197-a” community plan that envisioned high performance light manufacturing within high quality mixed-use buildings.

I was optimistic that Two Trees might come up with an innovative plan including one or two tall towers for profit-generating condominiums, devoting the rest of the site to relatively human scale mixed-use development, but I worried that light industrial/artists spaces might be left out in favor of office/tech space. Thinking of what Two Trees has done in DUMBO, I was expecting the plan to integrate into the existing Southside neighborhood in a more appropriate way than CPC’s plan proposed to do.

Was I ever wrong about that. On Monday, March 4, Two Trees unveiled a proposal for Domino including four audacious towers approaching 60 stories in height. It is a shocking transformation of the site, and by extension of the entire neighborhood, into a Battery Park City on Beijing-Dubai steroids. On its northern end adjacent to Grand Ferry Park, the plan envisions a commercial office tower with a residential tower abutting it. The next building is the most radical of the bunch, a 60 story “donut building” that will be all residential. While the stated explanation for this design is to help open the neighborhood to light and air, the “donut” will allow for some truly spectacular condominiums completely encircled by windows and those million dollar views. The landmark Refinery building, looking almost identical to the CPC design, will be entirely office space, supposedly geared “toward the creative and tech industries.” More questions need to be asked about the price of these spaces and whether or not light industrial firms, artist studios, and other less lucrative types of uses that are desperate for space in the neighborhood will be welcome here.

To the south of the Refinery is now a public plaza where CPC would have placed one of its 34 story towers. This plaza is the selling point for allowing Two Trees to build up to 60 stories instead of just 34 or 40. Putting more square footage in the other buildings allow this area of the site to open up. To the east of the plaza, another “donut” type building that appears to be 15-20 stories high will be built at the site across Kent Avenue that used to the be plant’s parking lot. Finally, at the south end of the site adjacent to the Williamsburg Bridge will be two slender 60 story residential towers. The rendering cleverly disguises the presence of the second of these towers hiding behind the first, making the plan appear less dense than it actually is.

Before we get to a more detailed discussion of the design, lets look at the nuts and bolts of what’s proposed to go inside these buildings.

This is the comparative table released by Two Trees. One thing I immediately find strange is that CPC’s plan is identified as proposing “2400” units while I was under the impression, as was the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/nyregion/developer-to-take-over-domino-waterfront-project-in-williamsburg.html) that the CPC plan called for 2,200 units. In The Domino Effect, Susan Pollock is on screen at Community Board 1 stating “we are proposing to build 2,200 units, of which 660, fully 30%, will be affordable to a spectrum of incomes.”  So it appears to me that the Two Trees proposal actually calls for 84 additional residential units while losing 158,583 square-feet of residential space – meaning there will be a lot more studios and 1 bedrooms than in the CPC plan. And 660 of 2,284 units is 28.9%, not 30%. If the Two Trees plan was proposing 30% affordable housing, there would actually be an additional 25 units, for a total of 685.

The new plan proposes 631,000 square feet of commercial space while CPC’s plan called for 98,000. This is certainly an improvement but we need much more detail on the nature of these spaces – jobs for whom? Will the longtime residents of Williamsburg be included in the economic rebirth of Domino Sugar or will the spaces be purely for a new generation of tech venture capital? Two Trees has stated that rents for commercial space will likely average $25 per square foot, which is too high for many light industrial business who typically pay around $15 per square foot. Two Trees has also claimed they will be subsidizing rents for a certain number of businesses — as they do in DUMBO — but again, we do not know any details about how extensive this program will be.

The new plan increases open space by over 50% but the tradeoff is not only the height of the proposed buildings. The 631,000 of commercial space will attract 3,000 to 5,000 more occupants to the site daily, so this additional open space may be something of a wash.

The table lacks the details on affordable housing but Walentas has stated that Two Trees will abide by the promise of “660 units.” Even without the details on the affordability of these apartments (what income levels they will actually be targeted to, the mix of apartment sizes, etc), comments from Rob Solano and Jason Otano to the Daily News indicate that the promise of “660” seems enough to again win the support of the Southside Hispanic organizations and churches that supported CPC’s Domino Plan (http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/sweet-domino-sugar-factory-massive-makeover-techie-offices-2-000-apartments-article-1.1277452)

It’s important to point out, though, that whatever affordable housing Two Trees will include in the project will not be a gift. In exchange for incorporating 660 units of affordable housing, Two Trees will likely receive over $100 million combined in Federal Section 8 subsidies and low income housing tax credits, direct funding and low interest loans from New York City HPD/HDC, and 421a property tax breaks from New York City. With the commercial space, Walentas could also be eligible for commercial subsidies from the ICAP program, and for the esplanade Two Trees will likely receive additional monies from the waterfront infrastructure grants. “The Edge” – a much smaller development, received roughly $87 million in total subsidies so it’s quite fair to estimate a figure in the $150 million range for this proposed plan. This needs to be repeated and repeated whenever you can because the press never gets it. These waterfront plans are paid for by your tax dollars.

DUBAI ON THE EAST RIVER

CCTV

Vishaan Chakrabarti of SHoP Architects, a tireless booster of mega-development, says the project “has the opportunity to be what the new Brooklyn says to the world.” SHoP (best known for redesigning the Barclay’s Center) and Two Trees apparently believe that the “new Brooklyn” should say “Asian totalitarianism.” The mega-scale futuristic donut construction immediately brings to mind such wonderful democratic architecture as the Chinese communist party’s Beijing TV station and the “Dubai Pearl” development.

Dubai Pearl (http://dubaipearl.com/info/inspired-masterplan)

“An integrated urban community, Dubai Pearl will be anchored by a dramatic tower, a new global landmark on Dubai’s skyline that redefines simplicity of design and efficient use of space. Column free rectangular space and forms will allow complete flexibility of use and capture unobstructed views. At street level, a low rise city centre will interact harmoniously with the symbolic tower and landscape to create a unique character and sense of place. An enjoyable and truly ‘walkable’ city.”

Can’t you imagine Susan Pollock of CPC delivering the same speech during the 2010 “New Domino” hearings? Real-estate fluffspeak is the new lingua franca.

FOXES GUARDING THE HENHOUSE

Vishaan Chakrabarti apparently also stated to a reporter that “Contextualism is an opiate of the masses.” Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Report (http://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-new-new-domino-is-bold-new-plan.html) did a good job digging up a very different quote from Chakrabarti’s 1993 masters thesis, back when he was still one of the “masses”: “Physical intervention should be sensitive to the existing scale of the city, with an emphasis on regulating height, streetwall, and block structure…proponents of large scale urban redevelopment have yet to prove that such projects “trickle down” wealth.”

Since those days, Chakrabarti has learned that kind of talk is far less lucrative than being a cheerleading legitimizer for mega-development. His career in the last decade is an illustrative example of our City government’s control by the real estate industry. Chakrabarti was an urban designer for Skidmore Owings & Merril before running the Manhattan Office of the Department of City Planning during Bloomberg’s first term. He then became Executive Vice President of the Related Companies, one of the closest firms to City Hall and a recipient of hundreds of millions in subsidies and a constant winner of rights to develop public land. Now its ShoP and running the Center for Urban Real Estate at Columbia University — a generously funded megaphone for the real estate magnates. Even his title as the “Marc Holliday Associate Professor” is named after the CEO of one of the city’s largest luxury developers, SL Green.

Many of the crew of Bloomberg operatives behind the 2005 rezoning of Williamsburg have merrily rotated through the revolving door between city agencies and elite real estate firms just like Chakrabarti (http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20130308/ECONOMY/130309882). Two Trees’ lead spokesman and public liaison David Lombino has done the same, (http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20120125/REAL_ESTATE/120129935) moving from working on the Bloomberg rezonings of Willets Point and Coney Island to his new gig working for Walentas. Considering that their cash flow is dependent on pleasing the brahmins of real estate, Chakrabarti, Lombino and their ilk should really be regarded as shills rather than “respected experts” of any kind.

The line between public and private is gone in Bloomberg’s New York where the developers are clearly in charge of land use policy at all levels. The fox is in the hen house.

THE MUTANT SON OF DONALD TRUMP AND JANE JACOBS

I suppose we should not be entirely surprised that Two Trees is pleased with SHoP’s Dubai-esque design for Domino. While David Walentas focused on re-purposing existing industrial architecture, the younger Walentas has shown much greater interest in modernist mega-construction. The Mercedes House on the far west side, with its audacious futuristic architecture, is a direct predecessor to the Two Trees Domino plan.

Jed Walentas’ ideology appears to be a mutant combination of Donald Trump mega-construction and Jane Jacobs appreciation for street life and disdain for commercial monoculture. Jed Walentas worked with Donald Trump right after college (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/realestate/jed-walentas-has-dumbo-on-his-mind.html) and the Trumpian taste for the megaproject seems to have rubbed off on him. Like his father and Jane Jacobs, he believes in the idea of neighborhoods and hates chain stores, but seems equally infused with the Trumpian ethos “If you’re thinking already, you might as well think big” and the Robert Moses’ mantra “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”

Another bold young developer fond of mega-towers

Two Tree’s Domino proposal is certainly different than the bland imitations of Battery Park City that have prevailed on the rest of the Williamsburg waterfront and in CPC’s plan. And since the site was already rezoned for CPC’s plan, Walentas is now forcing us into a choice between his Dubai inspired design and the CPC design.

What a terrible failure of policy that we are left with a choice between transforming Domino Sugar into a either a bland facsimile of Battery Park City or a Dubai Sci-Fi version of Battery Park City. While Walentas’ plan is an improvement from CPC’s plan in offering a much greater amount of commercial space, it is grossly out of scale and out of context with Williamsburg and will completely flip the surrounding neighborhood into a luxury satellite of Planet Domino.

The popularity of neighborhoods like Williamsburg is due to their dynamic, mixed-use, human scale environments — the mega-scale, fascistic futurism of this proposal is anathema to everything Brooklyn stands for.

This epic failure is a direct result of the fact that the Department of “City Planning” does no actual “planning” and instead run by revolving door yes-men like Vishaan Chakrabarti at the behest of mega-developers like Walentas.

New Yorkers will continue to suffer the consequences of these mistakes until we wake up and demand better from our leaders.

Can Two Trees Kill “Condoburg”?

Might we finally see an alternative to endless waterfront condos?

Can Two Trees Kill “Condoburg”?

The Potential of Mixed-Use Development at Domino Sugar

In December, Two Trees held a round of community meetings in Williamsburg to help inform their new development proposal for Domino Sugar.

Two Trees recently released a summary of their findings (http://www.scribd.com/doc/119980448/Community-Input-for-Domino-Site) from these meetings and the results are quite intriguing.

Much of the community’s feedback is a direct critique of the “condoburg” type of monotonous development that has dominated in the neighborhood since the 2005 rezoning (i.e. luxury condos/apartments with retail space at street level, typically occupied by Duane Reade, CVS, or a pan-Asian restaurant, or no retail space at all).

Participants in Two Trees’ workshop bemoaned the lack of commercial spaces for “new creative economy business or light manufacturing.” They lamented that monotonous residential construction is transforming Williamsburg into a “commuter suburb” and destroying the neighborhood’s dynamic mixed-use character.

On the subject of potential commercial space at Domino, community residents called for a minimum of 500,000 square feet to establish a successful economic cluster of “new creative economy” and light manufacturing businesses. A mixture of many different sizes of space should be available to facilitate the ability of local businesses to grow in place. Some participants suggested that the Chelsea Market – with food businesses at ground level and office/light manufacturing above – might be a good model to follow. Others suggested that some kind of educational cooperative like 3^rd Ward or General Assembly would be a good fit. Participants agreed that big box and chain stores should have no place in any development at Domino.

Two Trees’ Workshop Summary Echoes the Old 197-a Community Plan

Intriguingly, these recommendations closely align with those made by the community during the 1990′s and early 2000′s as expressed in the Williamsburg Waterfront 197-a Plan (http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/pub/197will.shtml). As development pressures on Williamsburg began to increase in the 1990’s, the community decided to take the initiative and lay out a vision for how development could complement, rather than overwhelm, the existing neighborhood.

The community board secured the services of the Pratt Center for Community and Environmental Development and the Municipal Arts Society for professional assistance and held dozens of community meetings and visioning workshops over the next year, submitting the completed 197-a for approval by the city in 1998. Williamsburg’s community plan for the waterfront emphasized two main themes: the need for more public recreational space and the desire for contextual, mixed light industrial and residential development to complement the existing economic and social diversity of the neighborhood.

Rather than propose a continuous Battery Park City style stretch of esplanade-tower development,  Williamsburg’s 197-a  calls for the development of light industry and affordable housing on the waterfront to preserve and enhance the existing community:

“develop well designed, high quality industrial buildings that are compatible with housing and open space…[like the] hotels industriels of Paris—mixed use, multi-tenanted industrial facilities…Capitalize on development opportunities along the Williamsburg waterfront to create a mixed-use community…Particular attention should be paid to rezoning to encourage high performance light manufacturing and job retention.”

If Two Trees is at all serious about incorporating the suggestions that emerged from its Domino planning workshops then we may be on the cusp of a new model of waterfront development, one much closer to the mixed-use vision proposed by the Williamsburg community before the age of Condoburg began with the 2005 rezoning.

Is Two Trees Serious?

Is it really possible that a private, for-profit developer like Two Trees could want to re-establish mixed use on the waterfront? After the 2005 rezoning was expressly designed by the Bloomberg administration’s Department of City Planning to cater to developers? After paying $185 million for the Domino Sugar site?

I believe the answer is yes, with an asterisk. First, the asterisk is that Two Trees will likely want to build at least one very, very tall tower of luxury residential. Perhaps as tall as 60 stories.  It should be noted that this kind of height would be completely antithetical to the vision of the 197-a community plan, which always called for strictly contextual building heights.

Yet such a tower of mammon could be the key that unlocks the rest of the parcel to much more diverse mixed-use development. I feel the need to note here that this hypothetical tower of mammon would be totally unnecessary if not for CPCR and Isaac Katan’s incompetence and greed in flipping Domino from a $55 million land cost to a $185 million without a dime of improvement to the site. City government should have never agreed to the rezoning of Domino without a viable financial plan for development. As a result, Two Trees is forced to overcome this sunk cost that could have been much lower.

Keeping this potential 60 story tower of plutocratic penthouses in the back of our minds, I believe Two Trees is indeed serious about developing a significant portion of the site as mixed-use. As I wrote when Two Trees first acquired Domino, the firm is a believer in what I call “Jane Jacobs Gentrification” – deliberately subsidizing a variety of independent local businesses that it believes enhance the long-term livability (and hence value) of the neighborhood. Unlike most real estate developers in New York – especially the fly-by-night LLCs that have built many of the shoddy Condoburg projects– Two Trees understands that the mindless pursuit of the highest possible short-term return is not good for anyone, even developers. If short-term profit is the priority in real estate, this leads to the “self-destruction of diversity” that we see with the Condoburg model. In the long term, much of the New York’s historic economic productivity is based on the creativity and innovation engendered by an eclectic mix of peoples and activities.

Two Trees is no saint. In DUMBO the firm has been dogged by accusations that they have “used” artists and small entrepreneurs to create an attractive neighborhood environment, only to eventually replace them with higher paying residential tenants. I am also concerned that Two Trees will choose to emphasize tech startups over much needed light industrial and artisan spaces.

Nevertheless, it is highly encouraging that the firm is seriously exploring mixed-use plans for Domino Sugar and taking the time to listen to the local community perspective.

How ironic it would be if a mixed-use development model for the waterfront  – the vision of the community’s original 197-a plan — emerges from a private for-profit developer instead of from the City government, the entity that is supposed to represent the public interest.

Clueless commentator blames Williamsburg gentrification on lack of supply

Williamsburg stuck in 1961? Has the author even visited?

Taking my usual Saturday morning survey of recent news on Williamsburg and Greenpoint, I came across a fantastically ignorant post on The Atlantic Cities in which the blogger by the name of Stephen Smith attempts to blame Williamsburg’s gentrification troubles on the lack of supply of apartments and condominiums. Throughout the short piece Mr. Smith betrays a shocking lack of knowledge on Williamsburg that one can garner simply by the following quotes: “the neighborhood is more or less frozen in 1961″ “the industrial zoning along the waterfront and throughout Bushwick is hopelessly out of date.” This article’s appearance on the Atlantic, a generally respected site, had my blood boiling so hot that I ran off a hasty anger-filled comment that admittedly is not my best writing, but is full of rebuttals to the article:

“To say that Williamsburg-Greenpoint is “frozen in 1961″ is the most blatantly false statement I’ve ever seen on the Atlantic. Hundreds of new condominium and high-end apartment buildings have been built with an incredible boom coming after the 2005 rezoning, which removed protections for industrial uses on over 200 blocks. Just take a short walk around the Bedford Avenue L train stop and you will see dozens of new condominium buildings ranging from 6 to nearly 20 stories high (the highest ones built before neighborhood residents won a reduction in density in 2008). These lots used to be home to one story workshops protected by the fine-grained mixed use zoning. And this is not even considering the waterfront, where The Edge and Northside Piers added over 1,100 new units in towers over 30 stories high. There is no industrial zoning on the North Brooklyn waterfront anymore — the entire waterfront is zoned for these Battery Park City style developments. Supposedly the towers on the far northern end in Greenpoint are set to begin construction later this year. The neighborhood has been turned upside down by new construction in the past decade. Where is Stephen Smith writing about?

Affordable housing production has been too low and too ineffective because the “inclusionary zoning” in the neighborhood is only optional — developers can choose to get density bonus for incorporating affordable units. The inclusionary zoning should be mandatory and the affordable housing should be targeted at working-class incomes, the people being displaced the most are making $30,000 and less, not $100,000 household incomes that much of NYC affordable housing is targeted at (due to the HUD formulas based on area median income for the entire region, which is $80,000, not NYC which is closer to $50,000 or specific neighborhoods like Williamsburg where it’s closer to $40,000).

We’re also burning over $1 billion from the city budget every year paying for property tax breaks for millionaires — this is the disgraceful 421a tax break that gifts 15 years of no property taxes to new condominium owners. This is a relic from the 70′s when it was needed to spur investment in NYC, now the politicians won’t kill it because of the power of the real estate lobby, it’s a zombie policy. $1 billion a year could go a long way towards affordable housing development. Zoning for and giving subsidy to high end residential development, the City has put the gentrification and transformation of Williamsburg on steroids.

The remaining industrial zoned areas are full of a diversity of manufacturing, warehousing, distribution, arts and design businesses. Has Mr. Smith ever visited the Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center (http://www.gmdconline.org/), where there is a years long waiting list for affordable industrial space and tenants range from traditional blue collar manufacturing to high-end specialty arts manufacturing? Unfortunately these areas are constantly under siege by residential conversion from the ill-advised Loft Law and entertainment spaces (bars, bowling allies, etc that are unfortunately allowed under M-1 light manufacturing zoning). The average industrial job makes nearly $50,000 a year and these jobs are being displaced every day by residential and entertainment conversion. Perhaps Mr. Smith would have the workers get jobs serving the new wealthy residents in restaurants and retail — too bad these jobs pay half the average industrial wage….does this not contribute to the displacement of the working class if they no longer have a well paying job?

And I’m not even beginning to address the lack of infrastructure to support the kind of density Mr. Smith is talking about — Williamsburg-Greenpoint is totally lacking in the sewage, roads, and public transportation to handle that kind of population, it is straining under the existing conditions. Mr. Smith’s ignorance is again displayed in his suggestion that Newtown Creek become the site of dense residential development — the land around Newtown Creek in Eastern Greenpoint and East Williamsburg (what else would you call the area east of Graham Avenue north of Flushing Ave?) is horribly contaminated from decades of improper industrial waste dumping.

And I’m not even begging to address the advantages of “live-work” neighborhoods socially, economically, environmentally……

I know this is supposed to be an “opinion” piece but the Editor should require at least a working knowledge of the area and policies the author is talking about before clearing the post…”

End of my post on the article. Perhaps another commented did a better job of responding in one sentence: “stephen, this is way over your head. you’d be better off writing about main street in your hometown of bumblefck, wisconsin.”

I will give poor Stephen credit for one thing — some of the zoning and building codes are overly restricting — Williamsburg might be better off by allowing dormitory style developments with shared kitchens and bathrooms to help absorb the transient recent college grads so they don’t split up the three and four bedroom apartments that are needed by families. But he doesn’t even mention this in his article, which is all about how more buildings should be built in Williamsburg Greenpoint because apparently the neighborhood is the same as it was in 1961…unbelievable this as allowed to be published.

Those who are better informed need to counter this kind of bullshit whenever encountered, it is shilling for the real estate industry which has always targeted zoning and rent control and anything that restricts the rights of these Atlases to do their gods work of building as high and expensive as possible.

- Brian Paul, 1/19/13

Two Trees: Planning process will take “over a year” — “interim uses” sought for part of Domino site

Domino Sugar and “Site E” — the former factory parking lot — in Williamsburg

Two Trees has rung in the New Year by issuing a request for proposals for interim uses for the “Site E” area of Domino. Site E is the large vacant parcel across Kent Avenue from the main refinery buildings, and used to be the parking lot for Domino employees.

If the Community Preservation Corporation had proceeded with its development plan, “Site E” would currently be a construction site for a 13 story building of mostly affordable housing with ground floor retail.

Two Trees’ RFP  is yet another confirmation that the company is seeking to redesign the project from scratch. The interim lease at Site E will run from March 1, 2013 to March 1, 2014, meaning that the new planning process will not conclude until at least mid 2014, with construction unlikely before 2015 — more than a full decade after the sugar refinery shut down.

Domino and “Site E”

Two Trees is looking for an “experienced operator” to run uses and activities that will “attract a wide cross-section of Williamsburg residents” Director of Special Projects Dave Lombino told the Brooklyn Paper that the company favored “art or recreation or a market or food.” The most likely outcome seems to be a temporary market like the Dekalb Market that operated in Downtown Brooklyn during 2011 and 2012 — retailers and food vendors housed in shipping crates on a vacant construction site. Such “pop up” spaces are increasingly popular in urban design circles.

Dekalb Market Plan (UrbanSpace & Young Woo & Associates)

The company UrbanSpace is responsible for not only the Dekalb Market but also the temporary holiday markets in Union Square and Columbus Circle. Safe to say that UrbanSpace is the odds on favorite to run the temporary use at Domino’s “Site E” and the use will likely closely resemble the Dekalb Market, which was also a one-year interim use on a similarly sized parcel. Regardless of what applicant is granted the use, efforts should be made to incorporate local community organizations from both Northside and Southside. If the proposal results in a temporary shipping crate marketplace like the Dekalb Market, there should be some space given over to rotating community group use.

Whether or not local organizations are given a place at the site will be an early indication as to whether Two Trees really wants to help build on the strengths of the existing Williamsburg — or simply remake it in the DUMBO image.

Brian Paul, 1/5/2013

Domino Suit Thrown Out, Paving The Way For Factory’s $180 Million Sale

The State Appellate Court has thrown out a lawsuit seeking to block the sale of the Domino Sugar factory, paving the way for the real estate firm Two Trees to close on a $180 million acquisition of the property later this month.

The Katan Group, which owns the site in a joint venture with the Community Preservation Corporation Resources, launched the suit during the summer, alleging CPCR had ignored higher bids for the 11-acre parcel and therefore had not acted in the best interest of the partnership to try to maximize profits in a sale.

Read more at Commercial Observer →

Knocking Over Domino: Two Trees Mulls Overhauling Massive Williamsburg Development, Including Reducing Affordable Units

Exactly two years ago tomorrow, the City Council approved a sweeping $1.4 billion redevelopment plan for the Domino Sugar refinery on the Williamsburg waterfront. One of the biggest concerns at the time (of which there were many) was that the grand promise made by developer CPC Resources to make 30 percent of the project’s 2,200 units would never be realized.

Read more on New York Observer →

Sneak Peek

The Domino Effect is a documentary film that explores the process of real estate development in New York City. The film digs deep to uncover the complex networks of banks, developers, politicians, and non-profit organizations that shape our cities. During the last decade, the North Brooklyn communities of Williamsburg & Greenpoint, have experienced the negative impacts of excessive luxury development and gentrification, more than any other neighborhood in NYC. Told through the voices of longtime residents, this film conveys the personal impact of real estate development in their community while shedding light on issues encountered by residents of cities across the country.

Will your neighborhood be the next to fall?

Full release Summer 2012. For information on setting up screenings in your community or classroom please contact Megan Sperry at megan@thedominoeffectmovie.com

Stay connected with the progress of our film! Follow us on Twitter.

The Domino Effect Movie

The Domino Effect filmmakers with three of the films main characters at a screening earlier this year. Left to right: Manuel Zuniga, Daniel Phelps, Dianne Jackson, Brian Paul, Megan Sperry and Ryan Kuonen in the front.