Saturday, November 27, 2010

Giant school to tower over homes

From the Brooklyn Paper:

City officials did an end run around existing zoning to allow the construction of a large Bay Ridge school on the site of the demolished Green Church.

Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott quietly granted school construction officials a zoning waiver — without public review — in a maneuver that the city frequently employs when it wants to build a public facility that could not be built under the current zoning.

The waiver gave the green light to the 680-seat elementary school at the corner of Fourth and Ovington avenues — which will tower over five attached townhouses abutting it.

And that’s not kosher with the locals.

The override allows the School Construction Authority, which requested the waiver in March, to build to a height of 62 feet along 72nd Street, where existing zoning permits only 32 feet. The waiver also allows the city to build to a height of 75 feet along Fourth Avenue, where a 60-foot-high building is permitted.

The city’s ability to override its own zoning without public review is “unfair,” contended preservationist Victoria Hofmo.

“I’m really concerned about the people on 72nd Street,” Hofmo said, stressing, “I think it’s really wrong. I had no idea that the school was going to block people’s backyards.”

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, right. Try and get this stopped. What makes YOUR backyard better than anyone ELSE'S backyard?

Anonymous said...

That's nothing, wait till those people get and eye and earful of all the noise, little gangstas and traffic. Their quality of life is history starting ground breaking day.

That new school will be busting at the seams in a couple years with children of fence jumpers. Chalk it up to Bloombergs Sanctuary city BS

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