Brooklyn Community Board

Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn brings us news of the push to rename the corner of Carroll Street and Seventh Avenue after Park Slope activist Jackie Connor, who died last week from lung cancer.

Ms. Conner was instrumental in having the Department of Sanitation pick up trash along Seventh Avenue twice a week instead of once, even changing the can liners herself when they became overfilled.

Would that we all pitched in so well.

Signatures are being collected now, see OTBKB for details; they'll be presented to Brooklyn Community Board 6's transportation committee this Thursday.

-Matthew Grace

Last night, Brooklyn Community Board 7 overwhelmingly voted against HMS Associates' plan to build a 70-foot-high development at 614 Seventh Avenue in Sunset Park.

The neighborhood had recently been down-zoned by the Department of City Planning, and the lot in question has a 50-foot height limit. (See our previous coverage on the down-zoning here.) The community board found that HMS was not vested--meaning that the foundation wasn't completed--before the down-zoning took effect.  read more »

Last Wednesday, Brooklyn Community Board 6 rejected a variance request for a vacant, trash-strewn lot at 146 Conover Street in Red Hook to be converted into a four-story residential building. The lot is zoned for manufacturing, and illustrates the age-old dilemma in Red Hook: How to keep a manufacturing base while also encouraging new residential development?

An earlier article from the Carroll Gardens/Cobble Hill Courier gives a good rundown on the two opposing sides in this battle.  read more »

-Matthew Grace

Brooklyn Community Board 6, at its monthly full-board meeting last night, put the ixnay on Two Trees' long-sought-after proposal to turn the parking lot of Independence Bank, at 130 Court Street, into a six-story residential complex.

Two Trees has gone before the board before to develop the property, which sits on the edge of the Cobble Hill Historic District. At issue then, as now, was the historic district's 50-foot height restriction on new developments; in August of last year the company proposed a seven-story building on the lot, but the community board said no.

The company's latest proposal was shorter: only 60 feet. But 60 is still greater than 50, and the board knows its math. And it appears that Two Trees' insistence on a taller building is getting on the board's nerves. Community Board 6 district manager Craig Hammerman told The Real Estate, "[Two Trees] hasn't shown much interest in community input."

Although the board's decision is strictly advisory, the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which must rule on the project before it can go forward, will likely listen closely to the board before making its decision.  read more »

-Matthew Grace

While condo conversions of industrial buildings are all the rage, Brooklyn Community Board 6 took a stand against the latest attempt at gentrification in the Gowanus neighborhood last night at its full board meeting, denying a variance for 255 Butler Street, at the corner of Nevins.

The planned $27 million development would create 53 market-rate apartment units in the 90,000 square foot building, owned by Nathan and Benjamin Akkad, at the foot of the Gowanus Canal. Currently, the Akkads are moving their business to facilities in Red Hook, leaving the Butler Street building empty.

Community Board 6 district manager Craig Hammerman told The Real Estate that the board ultimately rejected the application because it didn’t meet several criteria necessary under the city zoning code to gain a variance: The developers’ hardship claim was suspected of being self-imposed; there was no genuine effort to find an as-of-right use for the property; and the building wasn’t unique in its design and zoning.

While the community board’s vote is merely advisory, it carries great weight with the Board of Standards and Appeals, which will make a final decision on the variance request. The hearing has not yet been calendared.  read more »

-Matthew Grace

A new 114,319-square-foot, eight-story residential development on the corner of at 253 Atlantic Avenue (corner of Boerum Place) got the green light from the Board of Standards and Appeals last week. Currently the site of a Mobil gas station, the 64-unit development will finally fill in the squalid gap between downtown Brooklyn and Cobble Hill/Carroll Gardens on the Atlantic Avenue strip.

The B.S.A. had to sign off on variances for floor-area ratio, lot coverage and building height requirements.

Views from this building, when completed, will include the lovely, but now defunct, Brooklyn House of Detention right across the street.

This stretch of Atlantic Avenue is booming: the Courthouse, Two Trees' giant newly opened luxe development, is a block away; the Board of Education condo conversion is nearby; and Two Trees' other currently stalled condo project will be atop and adjacent the Independence Bank one block west.

And another Two Trees venture was kicked at and scratched by Brooklyn Community Board 6 last week, but wasn't bitten. The board's land-use and landmarks committee recommended denying Two Trees' application for a rooftop extension on a factory and loft building at 164-168 Atlantic Avenue between Clinton and Court streets. The Italianate-style building was constructed in 1859-1864 and is noted for its stone quoins and bracketed roof cornices.

The property is currently already in the middle of a renovation into an 18-unit, 22,340-square-foot residence. Although Two Trees' has the necessary permits to convert the property, a larger bulkhead, according to board members at the meeting, is necessary because of the switch from commercial use to residential (showers, toilets, etc. take up more hot water, so more mechanicals are necessary on the rooftop).

Despite assurances from Two Trees representative Laura Cheng and attorney J.H. Beyer--who said that the "primary goal is restoration," the bulkhead would be "unobtrusive as possible" and "the spirit of the project is still intact"--the committee was not happy with the changes. Board members called the new bulkhead "distinctly jarring with the antique building," and some suggested "something screwy is going on"--perhaps not pleased that the original plans, already approved by the board, are being changed so drastically. The full board still has to vote on this before it goes back to the Landmarks Preservation Commission for a final decision.

Interestingly, the Historic Districts Council testified before the L.P.C. in 2003 that it had concerns regarding the proposed bulkhead design; it explicitly stated that a historically accurate design be used. Two years later and it's the same old problem.  read more »

- Matthew Grace

... flies only at Sunset Park? The Post reports today that the Department of City Planning is promoting a rezoning of South Slope/Sunset Park to curtail out-of-scale development on the side streets around Fourth Avenue, while at the same time allowing larger developments--up to 12 stories--on the avenue itself.

According to Brooklyn Community Board 7 district manager Jeremy Laufer, residents of the "South South Slope" and Greenwood Heights met with the board in late 2004 to work up a proposal for the D.C.P. to down-zone the area (along Fourth Avenue between 15th and 24th streets) to preserve the character of the neighborhood. Residents have been up in arms over new developments that disregard the scale and character of the nabe.

The D.C.P. evidently liked the plan, and it's due to be certified later this month. A public hearing is scheduled for Aug. 25 at Community Board 7's full-board meeting (4201 Fourth Avenue, Brooklyn, 6:30 p.m.), and it will be voted on later that night.

This is all preliminary, though; its needs to go through the land-use review process, hopefully by September, and the D.C.P. has to approve it before it eventually makes its way to the City Council for a vote.  read more »

D.C.P. spokesperson Rachaelle Raynoff told The Real Estate that the intent of the proposed rezoning is to preserve the character of the neighborhood (including preserving the sight line of the statue of Minerva, which sites atop the Greenwood Cemetery as a tribute to the Battle of Brooklyn that inaugurated the Revolutionary War, to the Statue of Liberty (photo)) while at the same time providing additional housing.

- Matthew Grace

Quirky developer David Walentas and his son Jed--the duo that either ruined DUMBO or made it, depending on whom you listen to--is making inroads into Cobble Hill.

Their somewhat bland Courthouse luxury residential apartments just opened up at the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Court Street, and their company, Two Trees, is already angling for another development on the same intersection.

For now, it doesn't look good.

The company owns 130 Court Street-—the Independence Savings Bank building. Two Trees was seeking approval from Brooklyn Community Board 6 to demolish an extension and to build a seven-story residential building next-door.

But in April, the board unanimously voted for a resolution calling on the Landmarks Preservation Commission to sink the Two Trees bid.

Two Trees needs the L.P.C.'s nod because, unlike the Courthouse complex, 130 Court Street sits in the Cobble Hill historic district. Community boards serve a purely advisory role, but the L.P.C. often takes them pretty seriously.

The main problem, according to community groups opposed to the plan, is that Two Trees didn't care much for the historic district's 50-foot-height limitation on new buildings.

Jane McGroaty told us: "We consider the 50-foot height limit to be sacred."

Diane Jackier, a spokesperson for the L.P.C., said a vote on the plan that was scheduled for July 12th had been tabled.

The Real Estate hasn't yet gotten hold of anyone from Two Trees.  read more »

- Matthew Grace