Saturday, March 23, 2013

Live next to Lavendar Lake!

From the NY Post:

They’ve gotten the green light — so long as developers of housing along the toxic Gowanus can keep out the bright-green canal water.

The City Planning Commission today OK’d the controversial plan to build 700 rental apartments along the shores of the highly polluted Brooklyn waterway after the developer agreed to a redesign protecting residents from flooding that might be brought on by a future Hurricane Sandy.

The Manhattan-based Lightstone Group is set to break ground later this year on the project along the shores of Bond, Carroll and Second streets after satisfying new floodplains for the next century set up by feds.

Lightstone is pulling the housing back another 17 feet so that 66 ¹/₂ feet will separate the canal from the closest planned building.

Lobby areas would be raised more than two feet so they’re 10.6 feet above the floodplains. Heating, air conditioning and power systems would be moved out of the basements of each building and relocated to upper-floors.

Lightstone’s project would include 560 market-rate and 140 affordable rental units. The firm insists that the decade-long Superfund cleanup won’t affect construction.

But Councilman Brad Lander, who represents the area, said he “still believe[s] it’s a mistake to move forward with” such a densely populated project near the canal.


Ya think?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ever notice that big projects like this always are rendered in tiny square inches while our politicians get photographed at some tweeding event that takes the entire front page?

Anonymous said...

Well, at least some of the old radioactive Radium, etc. that was deposited in the canal's bottom sludge, will light up the waters in case of an electrical power outage.

It's a great place to raise kids...huh?

Hipsters...for all the smarts they think they've got...can really be a bunch idiots when it comes to common sense!

Many hold the gullibility record when it comes to believing in real estate sales pitches.

Gowanus ain't exactly Venice, Italy you dumb asses!

Man With No Name said...

Both Pathetic and Stupid -

it exposes in hard detail the difference between a self proclaimed world capital of taste and culture to the squalid and scandalous treatment of its residents.

The people that somehow have found their way to power and approve these ideas are more suited for being bookkeepers and takers of sales orders over the phone. They are totally unsuited for making this kind of a decision - one places thousands in harm's way.

Not grasping what they are doing is understandable.

The demands of tweeding photo ops in front of the clueless, and issuing a torrent of street renamings and empty emails in front of us all can eat up one's attention, eh?

But in the final analysis, this is our fault.

After all, as we waste countless hours agonizing over fashion statements, parse the merits of wine and sauces and, like the politicians we scorn, fill our schedule with so many other other 'important' things.

The final irony is how the world reasserts balance.

Those 'smart' movers and shakers will move their kids to places like this.

Anonymous said...

Didn't the hurricane wash that canal out ?
Radium at the bottom shouldn't do any harm if left undisturbed.
In Sea Cliff by the old dial factory the Radium in the creek and marshland kills the Mosquito's.
--No mosquito's in Sea Cliff.

Anonymous said...

Go take a swim in the canal, if you think that undisturbed radium is safe...you dumb ass blowhard!

The hurricane surge probably stirred it all
up and flushed it into neighboring basements.

What's your IQ, anyway, fella?
Maybe you're a realtor's agent or developer, huh?.

Anonymous said...

Just think of the cancer rate here in 20 years.

This real estate company should be put on record to be held accountable for every death that occurs here.

Anonymous said...

the city plan--I believe to be used in college pt is a sheet of plastic, 4 feet of dirt, and a 'buyer beware' clause in the deed------