Plans For High Rise Buildings At Pier 6 On Ice

NYMBY my Arse. We are tired of our light and views being blocked by highrises. We are tired of over crowding in the streets and stores and schools and this new park that has proven too small already. We are tired of unneeded over development period. We lose our local hospital, our local library. I look at what happened to the west side of Manhattan with Trump city lining the river front like a wall which in part has given us this unfortunate presidential candidate and I say “no more” Let the super rich go develop Sheepshead bay or Bay Ridge or Bensonhurst for crying out loud. Brooklyn is a big place with lots of neighborhoods that need investment. We have had more than our share already.

Exactly. We can’t allow developers to overbuild on small parcels of land taxing local infrastructure to the breaking point and diminishing the quality of life for everyone. There are a lot of areas of this city that need more investment, but unfortunately don’t have the view$ that developers seek.

A key point missing in this discussion has been the continuous misuse of the words “development” and “investment.” Those terms grace a disgraceful situation with a positive spin. In this case, as in countless others, what a community receives is the opposite of development through greed-based allocation of money (investment).
When the “end of Brooklyn” began to be discussed in relation to such projects, citizens really have raised fundamental questions of what kind of a neighborhood they want to inhabit and what elements of community are preferred. Too often, both real estate and political leaders have collaborated against community wishes.
The selling of the Cadman Plaza library, outlandish building inside Brooklyn Bridge Park and closing of the Brooklyn Heights Cinema are cases in point.

Development is used misleadingly right up there with Progress, instead of the more accurate Change. Replacing parkland with high-rises can in no way be considered Progress.

I agree that the #1 problem with these “development” proposals is the strain it puts on local infrastructure and amenities (as a parent I’m thinking first of school overcrowding).

So, as a purely hypothetical question, what could the developers bundle into their proposals to make them acceptable to us concerned residents? For example, if it was somehow possible, what if they were compelled to build a lavish new UPK thru 6th public school to take up the first 4 floors of a new skyscraper at Pier 6? What if the skyscraper included provisions for a subway extension shuttle between Borough Hall and, say, Ikea, via Atlantic Ave at Furman?

Or, alternately, are people opposed to any development whatsoever, under any conditions, because of an obstinate refusal to see the neighborhood undergo any further change of any kind?

I don’t think you are seeing this development clearly. The real estate industry and the politicians it has in its pockets have made it clear that they are not interested in the neighborhood for anything other than a personal piggy bank. Thus they stole our hospital, library, movie theatre and don’t listen to a word anyone in the community has to say.

Good points. Gothamist shows a real lack of understanding of the basic issues at play. I guess they want to rile up their commenter peanut gallery.

I haven’t read the WSJ report but based on Claude’s report, it probably has a heavy pro-developer slant.

With respect, it seems you missed my point: my hypothetical was proposed as a way to suss out whether opposition to development is conditional upon what that development comprises, and its residual effects upon our already stretched-thin infrastructure and amenities.

It sounds like you’re saying opposition to development should be based on the principle that development happens as a result of corruption, rather than for any reason having to do with the details of the development itself.

For the record, I have no illusions about the corruption that has been embraced within our system of local (and larger) government, which creates a sustained handshake between politicians and venture-capitalists.

You’re Trump’s campaign manager, right?

Indeed. We are also tired of being lied to. They have the money, they no longer need the housing. These lands should now be desiginated park lands (as that was the whole point for having housing in the first place – to build and sustain the park). And legal authorities should now investigate why the John Street property needed to be built, too.

You are missing the point: housing should not be in public parks. This is how the park was planned decades ago. Then the idea of “eyes in the park” came from some quarters and, since it was the Bloomberg era, 360 Furman/1BBP was turned from JW printing facility to luxury condos.

Ok, that building was already there, although a community resource of some kind could have been put there instead. (Now we have a surfeit of “eyes in the park” and our own little-but scary-crime wave.) More and more buildings have gone up, and the potential for more green space has gone way, way down.

I believe, as do many others, that if housing is the way to create or improve parks, only desirable areas will have parks; Brownsville and the like will never see improvement. All of our elected officials are against more building in BBP – except the Mayor. I hear that there’s some green space near Gracie Mansion. Put your money where your moss is, Sir, and build!

Now we have many more condos in the Park, and less park in the Park. The PierHouse is the size of Mt Rushmore. We have a ribbon of park wrapped around an awkward aggregation of condominiums.

We have a sliver of park reigned by bureaucrats who are paid with city tax dollars, yet they don’t have to listen to the opinions of the park’s users. Let this park have its last chance for more open space. Let the last empty “development parcels” stay empty of concrete and asphalt, while we still have the chance. Let what’s left of the Park BE PARK.

What did you expect, a straight financial statement?
There HAS to be personal consequences for those who fomented this.
Someone has to go to jail. or worse.

“…if housing is the way to create or improve parks, only desirable areas will have parks; Brownsville and the like will never see improvement.”

100% agree!

But my understanding is that the BBP isn’t a “park” in the strictest sense…it’s a “development perk” and, clearly, subject only to how much pushback they’re willing to deal with from the community.

Anyway…I posed a hypothetical question, I wasn’t advocating for anything I didn’t explicitly mention.

There’s no money in shilling on local blogs anymore, guys, all the jobs went abroad! :D

The “NIMBY NIMBY!” hurlers are the ones who seem to have Entitlement Syndrome– developers should be allowed to build wherever they want, as big as they want, so the “anti-Nimbyists” can live wherever they want — even if that development has huge negative impacts on the very neighborhoods they’re attracted to…..

Great comment. FYI, OBBP wanted to lease some of the ground floor space to a pre-K program, but BBP wouldn’t allow it under the terms of the OBBP Ground Lease (or allow the Lease to be amended). Then low and behold, one of the Pier 6 highrises would have exactly that, as a way to build support for the development. Hmm…..