The NY Times Sheds Light on the Opposition to Affordable Housing in Brooklyn Bridge Park

The New York Times has posted an in-depth look at the recent opposition to housing – notably the “affordable” kind – at Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier 6. After the city added an affordable housing component to the park’s long standing housing plan, a neighborhood group including long time Willowtown resident Joe Merz and lead by newcomer Lori Schomp mobilized this year to at least slow down the process. They succeeded in getting a TRO against the current plan moving forward.

The Times piece sheds some light on who Ms. Schomp and her position:

Lori Schomp, 33, the lead plaintiff in the Brooklyn Bridge Park case, moved into the neighborhood in 2013 with her boyfriend, Martin Hale. Mr. Hale purchased a $7.6 million townhouse on Willow Place through a limited liability company, records show; he is the chairman of People for Green Space.

The home that Hale/Schomp purchased was designed by Joe and Mary Merz fifty years ago. Mr. Merz is the co-plaintiff in the suit against the park.

The Times piece continues:

They make an odd couple of litigants — Ms. Schomp, who wants her view of the water on her frequent runs preserved, and Mr. Merz, who lectures softly on social theory, insisting on separating parkland from development.

“There will be those maybe pointing at us, saying, ‘Aha, you don’t want low-income housing,’ ” Mr. Merz said from his sunken living room overlooking a Zen garden.

He and his late wife developed senior housing in Buffalo, he said, and served as conservationists for Prospect Park.

“That’s an old game because you know very well we do prefer low-income housing,” Mr. Merz continued. “But we don’t want it in the wrong place, meaning there’s a right way to build it.”

Ms. Schomp added: “It has a higher calling as a park than as a place for a few people to live.”

Nina Lorenz Collins has lived in Brooklyn Heights longer than Ms. Schomp and presents a different view of the argument:

“It felt very Nimby, like ‘We don’t want poor people in the backyard,’ ” she said recently.

“After two months of those comments, I sent out an email to everyone. I said, ‘You are making me ashamed to be your neighbor, please stop.’ ”

In a BHB poll posted when the TRO was issued, 83% of respondents sided with Ms. Schomp’s position.

For some reason, this lyric from Pulp’s classic 90s nugget keeps repeating in our head as this battle rages on:

Laugh along with the common people
Laugh along although they’re laughing at you
and the stupid things that you do
because you think that poor is cool
Like a dog lying in a corner
they will bite you and never warn you
Look out
they’ll tear your insides out
‘cos everybody hates a tourist
especially one who thinks
it’s all such a laugh

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  • Joe A

    Oh Patti Cakes there would be no park without the development. You can wish all you want that it would be otherwise but life is always a tradeoff. The development pays for the very expensive upkeep of the world class park we now all enjoy.

    There is an old saying, “the perfect is the enemy of the good” and I think it applies here. Some of us are quite happy with the real world trade offs that we so frequently ave to make in life. Others live in a fantasy world where there is always a free lunch to enjoy.

  • DFlem

    So, Bob Stone’s rallying cry is (apparently), “We COULD have had a park HALF as good! Maybe we still CAN! Stop the Towers that will pay for the park we now HAVE!” Unless the public is a lot less happy with the park that we do now have than is apparent, then I’m thinking this is maybe not such a winning cry.

  • BrooklynBugle

    We were one of the first: http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/67165

    We have a request out for a follow up.

  • Karl Junkersfeld

    Joe and Miracis, you both have captured my sentiments completely. I do have concerns about where children living in these buildings are going to go to school, considering they are zoned for PS8, but this critical issue is independent of these buildings. The argument regarding taking up parkland is not convincing for obvious reasons. Anyone, being objective, looking at the plot of land in question would agree. Residents of One Brooklyn Bridge had to know about this eventuality from day one, I know I did when I was one of the first to look at possibly locating to this condo development in 2007. Lastly, I’m not crazy about 31 stories but for residents of the Heights, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens to complain about vertical density is comical. We are very privileged in this area, due to historic status, to monopolize one of the finest tracks of land in NYC with strict restrictions on vertical construction. If this wonderful park increases its surplus funds via this construction, all the better, monies for emergency funding is never a bad thing.

  • ldny

    I refuse to be slapped with a NIMBY label just because I don’t want a 31-story building overshadowing Pier 6. I don’t care who lives there, or how much money they make or where they went to college or where they work. There’s a reason why there are no other 31-story buildings in this neighborhood. It’s because it’s COMPLETELY out of scale with the rest of the neighborhood! Not all of us who are against this monster object to low-income or middle-income housing. Many of us live rather simple lives in this neighborhood, bought our apartments long ago, when they cost a helluva lot less and we paid our dues. When we bought in 1997, telling a cab driver you were going to “Cobble Hill” got you a quizzical look and the question “is that in Queens?” We helped to grow and nurture this neighborhood and we like the way it’s turned out, with the modern conveniences of Duane Reades and Starbucks and Trader Joe’s alongside the locally-owned and operated gems like Sahadi’s and My Little Pizzeria and Tazza, to name a few. We don’t object to non-rich people living in our ‘hood because WE AREN’T RICH EITHER! And it’s because we are not rich, that we really do appreciate the little things this neighborhood and this park have to offer – without having those things ruined by a 31-story building being built in the most objectionable place it could be. I have no problem with private development paying for our precious park – and I’ve been called a bleeding heart liberal on more than one occasion. But how about 12 stories instead of 31? How about something that looks like it belongs there instead of something that looks, literally, like a middle finger being shoved in the air as a message to the rest of us? I live in a landmarked building (coop) a block and a half from where this new building will be. We can’t even change the paint color on our front door without the Landmarks commissions freaking out because “that particular shade of green isn’t aesthetically in line with the character of the neighborhood” (not an actual quote, but pretty close!) – but a 31-story tower at the end of the block is ok? Does not compute. It’s a bad plan someone needs to stop it. I don’t hold much hope that we will. But this is one losing battle I don’t mind being associated with.

  • Philip Galindo

    My grandma lived on Columbia Place and my aunt still lives on Willow Place. I remember as a young boy, when the Merz house was built. Let me tell you that the neighbor’s all thought that THEIR house was an eyesore, too!

  • johnny cakes

    Crusty, you are a tool.

  • johnny cakes

    Someone is jealous.

  • johnny cakes

    NY State ‘seems’ corrupted by real estate money.

  • ltap917

    Not on your life! My sister hated living in StuyTown. I have a view of the Manhattan skyline from Governors Island to the Chrysler Building. Also have access to the park, subways, etc. Not jealous at all. She had the space but not much else. She used to complain that there was a lack of available subways in her area.

  • Joe A

    Brilliant retort. Mensa?

  • johnny cakes

    Crusty, what is a ‘Mensa?’ A tool is an instrument that is used by others for their purpose.

  • johnny cakes

    You’re jealous. You want everything your sister has.

  • Localloca

    Much of this new building frenzy started years ago with the multiplex on Court Street which the then-head of the BHA (a lawyer who had represented movie theaters in her legal career) said was from a “World-class architect.” Then came the monstrous high-rise apartment building on Montague Street. Then the new stadium. Then LICH closed. Now it’s the public library…and a new high-rise in a park which unlike all the other parks in NYC do not have buildings in them or have to support themselves. And now some guy who overpaid for a house on a kinda cruddy Brooklyn Heights street (Willow Place) is teaming up with his girlfriend and an elderly neighbor to Fight the Power? Good luck with THAT. I have a question: What are you fighting for? The entire neighborhood is encircled with car fumes, the streets are crowded like they never used to be, the old guard is dead, the new people are transient; no one knows anyone anymore. If you try and say hello to a new neighbor, the same one whose nanny has been shoving junk food into their toddler’s mouth all week and then ignoring it while they talk on their cell phone, you will be met with a wan smile and promptly ignored. This is the New Brooklyn. Welcome. You have all been “Discovered.” Enjoy the ride and the over-priced “artisanal” everything. Try not to sweat it all, though. Really: This is just the beginning.

  • Joe A

    Why is someone that has an opposing position a “tool”? Why am I being “used”? I can’t have my own opinion?

    And the fact that you don’t know what a Mensa is confirms the thrust of my sarcasm.