Wednesday, March 5, 2014

A pyrrhic victory?

From Crains:

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced late Monday a deal under which Two Trees Management Co. would add more affordable housing at its 2.9 million-square-foot Domino Sugar refinery project on the Williamsburg Waterfront. In exchange, the city will grant the necessary permits to allow the re-imagined development to move forward.

"We set out from day one to get the best possible value for the public. This partnership delivers on that commitment," said Alicia Glen, the deputy mayor for Housing and Economic Development, in a statement. She added that the agreement is "a win for all sides, and it shows that we can ensure the public's needs are met, while also being responsive to the private sector's objectives."

The agreement sets in stone a requirement that 537,000 square feet of the project, which will translate to roughly 700 out of the total 2,300 units, be set aside for affordable housing for various income levels, according to the city.

Mr. de Blasio touted the agreement as adding 110,000 square feet of affordable housing beyond the developer's current application, under which just 427,000 square feet of such housing would have been built. And while that is true, Two Trees had already agreed throughout the project's public review process to build roughly 70,000 additional square feet if the city would chip in extra subsidy, though this agreement was non-binding.


Wow, so the developer agreed to 40 more units of affordable housing? That's not like putting a bandaid on a sucking chest wound or anything. Either stipulate that the majority of new units need to be affordable, or don't make any affordable. A little here and a little there, when most people living in the city need "affordable housing", is pretty lame, even though it will be trumpeted as a victory.

All this soul-selling to preserve the Domino building, which will be dwarfed by other buildings after this project is complete. If the City Council passes it, which is still a question mark.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Prime waterfront affordable housing? Yeah, right.

Anonymous said...

NYC needs to start controlling the population..... too many people in one small area is not a good thing.

J said...

the tower plague is not going to end even under mayor zero vision and his fountainhead zoning staff.

there are maps showing the prospect of land erosion all over the internets that should have put the kibosh on this type of zoning.the next hurricane sandy will destroy this building and whatever surrounds it.

has it been only 3 months,and blaz is already a lame duck.

something is starting to stink about his utopian plans,especially his obsession with pre-k.



Anonymous said...

I agree - just go to Corona and you'll see tons of extremely young girls dragging 3 or 4 kids around.

They're out late at night, they're in the laundry-mat, they're in the big box stores.

The situation is totally out of control. You know these kids are not going to get a proper education.

These are nothing more than anchor babies. Citizenship should not be automatically granted at birth unless both your parents are citizens or have green cards.

georgetheatheist said...

Who designed this crap? Lego or Tinkertoy?

BP said...

Hey Queens Crapper, for the real story on Domino check out www.thedominoeffectmovie.com/blog

J said...

in my rage,I did not even look at the picture.

is that 2nd building to left an O?

it looks like a building from the jetsons.

Anonymous said...

The developers won't be happy until a 30 story solid curtain of development conceals all views the East River and Manhattan from the rest of Queens from Newtown Creek to LGA.

Anonymous said...

"just go to Corona and you'll see tons of extremely young girls dragging 3 or 4 kids around."

Go to Brooklyn and see how many kids the "Chosen people" are having, 3 or 4 is considered a small family, and they do use up every social service possible unlike the mexicans in corona who don't have legal status.

At least the mexicans work. They don't spit at you and call you a "goyim" to your face when you're in the neighborhood.