BH’er Lori Schomp Gets BBP Op-Ed in Daily News

Lori Schomp, founder of Save Pier 6 and co-founder of People for Green Space—along with Martin Hale and Joe Mertz—has an op-ed piece in today’s New York Daily News on how to sustain Brooklyn Bridge Park without building additional housing in the extremely popular waterfront park.

Consistent with the arguments Ms. Schomp and her supporters have successfully presented (so far) in fighting off plans by the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation to erect two large residential housing towers on Pier 6, the DN piece punches holes in BBPC’s insistence that further housing is needed to fund park operations and annual maintenance.

The park is poised to reap a seven-fold tax increase from one building alone as tax breaks expire in coming years – raising as much as $200 million over 50 years, which would more than cover operations as well as a one-time pier repair.

Other expiring tax breaks on residential and commercial property should yield an additional $30-40 million over the next 50 years, excluding several buildings where information is not yet publicly available. The Corporation based a recent analysis on fiscal year 2018, just before the tax breaks begin to expire.

The park’s annual income will be 30% or more above its operating budget even before any rise in property taxes. Ignoring that revenue lowballs projected income and creates an illusory need to build.

Ms. Schomp, a frequent commenter on BHB topics, lives in Willowtown and is pursuing a masters degree in public health from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health

Share this Story:
  • johnny cakes

    Sure thing. Build, baby, Build.

  • johnny cakes

    Don’t build on a flood plain. Simple enough.

  • gatornyc

    And you sound like an immature child whose sole ability is to toss petty barbs because he/she is too dimwitted to contribute constructively to a conversation.

  • johnny cakes

    You sound like a tool. Build, baby, Build. Who cares about community services… schools, hospitals, libraries. Who needs them? Brooklyn does…. that is who. So, call me names. You are what you are. A BBP tool.

  • gatornyc

    I care about community services, that’s who! I just don’t agree that there is a singular way of delivering them. It’s a new age and we need new ideas. The old model has been broken for a long time. I fought for LICH, I am fighting for more schools in the area, and I want a library to remain in BH but disagree with those who say that oppose the sale of a valuable asset to make it happen (and benefit the entire library system to boot). What have you done except call me a pro-developer tool?

    You are a part of the problem when all you can do is deride those who disagree with you. Become part of the solution.

  • johnny cakes

    Meet me tomorrow at 3:15, after school, in the alley behind the ice cream store. I know where you live – under Regina’s skirt. You are a fraud.

  • johnny cakes

    Gator is a fraud.

  • johnny cakes

    Where were you? I was there. A Toyota Prius pulled up, and a fuggly-looking woman dressed in a gold and silver-stripped moo moo got out.

    When she saw me she shrieked, she pulled up her moo moo and got back in the car and drove away.

    I noticed 4 ankles under the moo moo. Was that you, Gator?