Brooklyn Eagle
Dennis Holt
BROOKLYN -- “Clearing the decks” is an old naval term, from the age of sail, meaning to get ready for combat by putting nothing critically needed for fighting below decks or out of the way. A well-trained crew could get the job done in no time.
This week the City Council acted like a well-trained crew clearing the development decks for next year, making a variety of decisions involving major projects in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the Bronx, all of which, in very different ways, will impact our borough.
In sheer size, the biggest deal was City Council approval of the Manhattan West Side rail yard proposal, a dream project of the mayor. This will involve eight tower buildings, a hotel and 5,000 apartments. This will probably take longer to build than it took to start Atlantic Yards.
Its impact on Brooklyn will be those 5,000 residential units. Brooklyn has a lot of apartment space already available with considerably more on the way.
The Council also thumbed its nose at Mayor Bloomberg by over-riding his veto of a bill passed earlier by the Council. The bill rejected a plan to renovate the old Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx for a shopping mall. The problem here was that the developer refused to agree to pay mall employees $10 an hour, instead of the minimum wage of $7.25.
The armory is city-owned, and there is this threat to Brooklyn: Many of the potential development projects in Brooklyn, especially in Gowanus, are on city-owned land.
The council also finally approved the Broadway Triangle project, a controversial development at the junction of Williamsburg, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Bushwick, if only because three different Brooklyn communities are involved and a lot of “turf interests” are at stake. This will bring another 1,851 residential units into play, adding to the already crowded Brooklyn housing market.
Another totally unrelated deal was wrapped up Monday as Thor Equities and the city closed the sale of 300,000 square feet of valuable Coney Island land by Thor to the city. That wraps up that yearlong thorny ownership issue.