Brooklyn battleground: residents rebel against luxury tower
by Sydney Beveridge and Kenan Davis
Developers are building skyward to accommodate the Brooklyn housing boom, but a zoning change and a neighborhood backlash may stop one tall, expensive project from being built in the borough’s Clinton Hill section.
The combined downtown areas of Brooklyn contain 60 million square feet of approved or pending construction, according to Sharon Barnes, chair of the Landmarks Preservation Committee of the Society for Clinton Hill. That equals more than 24 Chrysler Buildings.
Developers, she said, have torn down “every single thing they can get a hold of.” Most residents support transforming vacant lots and abandoned industrial buildings into new construction, but not when it threatens the neighborhood’s traditional two- and three- story row houses.
A16-story luxury apartment building at 163 Washington Ave. would offer sweeping vistas of downtown Manhattan, but irked residents of Clinton Hill are doing everything they can to stop it.
They successfully advocated for zoning changes limiting the scale of new construction. The new regulations, which took effect in July, cap residential construction at 50 feet or approximately five stories in 99 blocks of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, including the Washington Avenue site. The Department of Buildings issued a stop work order but the developer, who did not respond to interview requests, is seeking permission to proceed, arguing that enough construction had started to vest the project.
The developer took the cause to the Board of Standards and Appeals, which rules on land use issues. The developer’s lawyer Ron Mandel said the building’s original permits were valid so the construction should continue.
Meanwhile, residents are trying to prevent the project from slipping through regulatory cracks. At an October hearing before the board, City Council Member Letitia James marched into the room with a parade of community members behind her, filling all the chairs. They assembled to testify against the planned tower.
Residents want to preserve both the neighborhood community and the large concentration of historic pre-Civil War wood-frame houses. The proposed project, the building’s opponents say, threatens that tone and texture.
“It’s a building designed for people who don’t go in the street; who aren’t a part of community life,” said 34-year resident Ragnar Naess, 65, a potter. “We are a human scale neighborhood, and this is not a human scale building.
This controversy also reveals the intricacies of building regulations. “You have to learn so much to fight this,” said Jane Zusi, 44, who lives near the development and has led the fight against it.
With the help of James, Zusi and a core group of volunteers have held weekly meetings to rally residents and build a campaign. Olga Akselrod, 33, of Clinton Hill, serves as a volunteer lawyer. A number of residents monitor construction on the site with video cameras. Zusi keeps everyone informed on demonstrations, hearings and meetings.
The project’s future hinges on one question: did the developer make substantial progress on the foundation? The board looks at the amount and complexity of the work done to make that determination. According to Rebecca Kelly, assistant general counsel to the board, “there’s no exact percentage. It varies from case to case.”
A Department of Buildings inspector determined that 40 percent of the foundation was complete. At the hearing, lawyers for the developer, the GLC Group, argued that it was 72 percent complete. Now, the board must decide which is true and if either is enough.
Akselrod argued that substantial progress had not been made because no foundation walls, which she says constitute the most complex work, had been poured.
“The thing that makes you sort of hold your head and want to cry is when you look at legal precedent,” Zusi said, noting that some buildings have been considered complete with only 30 percent of the work finished.
Akselrod also highlighted safety violations and illegal after-hours construction.
For over two years, the developer did not work on the site, said Peter Eide, 36, an artist and building opponent, but when the zoning regulation vote approached, the cement started flowing. He and other volunteers videotaped at least two after-hours incidents, and residents logged 58 complaints with the Department of Buildings about the construction.
Those practices and their impacts will be the focus of a Dec. 11 hearing before the board, according to James’s aide Alfred Chiodo.
Long before any hearings, residents reached out to the developer several times. “They have been uncooperative and evasive,” said Eide. Initially, the developer advertised plans of a seven-story and a four-story building. They changed that to 16-stories without consulting the community, Chiodo and residents say.
Everyone recognizes that development is coming. They say they want it to fit the neighborhood.
“I would love it if someone would just build according to the zoning,” said Ide. Instead, Zusi said, the Washington Avenue development resembles “a physical flipping of the bird.” |
