Tuesday, August 11, 2009

No-bid process questioned in Brooklyn

From the NY Times:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has made a plan to create housing for half a million low- and moderate-income New Yorkers one of his signature initiatives, driving the rezoning of swaths of New York City to create what city planners call the largest municipal affordable housing plan in the nation.

But in one neighborhood, the rush to build affordable housing, which rarely attracts opposition, has done exactly that — and the rush seems to be part of the problem: A coalition of community groups in Williamsburg say the city and its powerful allies have charged forward with a plan to rezone a 31-acre patch called the Broadway Triangle, ignoring vociferous protests about a planning process they called opaque.

Many of the complaints stem from a decision by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development to grant early rights to develop city-owned sites in the Triangle to two nonprofit groups, the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg, who represent part of the fast-growing Hasidic community, and the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council, without competitive bids — a relatively rare but legal move.

The local community board passed the city’s rezoning plan last month with conditions, including the stipulation that future decisions about city-owned property “be carried out pursuant to a transparent, competitive” process. Ward Dennis, chairman of the board’s land-use committee, called the city’s plan “a good proposal but a bad process.”

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

FBi??? Where are you?? Blooomberg and Simcha felder and his Orthodox community. HELLO???? NJ is nothing compared to NYC. FBI, please visit NYC

Anonymous said...

Where is the city wide presevation community in all this? The zoning process is outragious, Crappy documents it over and over again, and all you guys do is something stupid like expand Brooklyn Heights historic district or the like.

Assholes.

Miss Heather said...

It is also interesting to note that Evan Thies*, who is running for the City Council seat in this district (the 33rd), resigned from the Community Board before this vote was taken. This begs the question how he'll act if (or god forbid when) he is in office.

H

*Who was also Yassky's right hand man.

Anonymous said...

The fact that public money is being used to build an exclusive ghetto in the middle of this city is very disturbing.