Brooklyn blighted by unfinished buildings

From the Daily News:

As the economy faltered and building boom turned to building bust, luxury housing construction in Brooklyn has stalled — leaving residents living with skeletons of half-erected buildings and abandoned lots with rusting foundations.

Building owners are just as unhappy, saying they’d love to finish their projects but can no longer get financing.

“It looks like a bomb hit over here. It’s just blocks and blocks of everything torn down, and most of the permits are expired,” said Williamsburg housing activist Philip DePaolo about the neighborhood’s large swaths of boarded-up lots.

“What’s going to happen to all these sites?” said DePaolo. “It’s blight.”

Also from the Daily News:

Retired Army Capt. Gary Collier, 63, purchased his house in Brighton Beach 10 years ago hoping to enjoy his twilight years with his wife, Jane.

It was a sweet life in the sweet two-story house for the couple - until a developer started putting up condos right next door in 2005.

It was bad enough that workers putting up the Brighton 4th Condominiums cut Collier's sewer and gas lines and that work on the project caused power outages.

Worse than all that, said Collier, is that after four long years, all that stands on the property next door is an ugly skeleton - and the city has been no help.