The Department of Transportation’s 700-foot-long parking lot and storage facility in South Williamsburg has some of the best Manhattan skyline views around, and much to Community Board 1’s dismay, the city doesn’t want to give up that valuable waterfront real estate. Last week, Community Board 1 voted to ask the city to turn over the land on — Kent Avenue between South Sixth Street and Broadway — to the parks department. The site actually used to be a park many years ago, and the community wants it back, thanks in part to the proposed 2,200-unit Domino Sugar factory development nearby that would reduce the per capital open space in the neighborhood. “The Department of Transportation has a carpentry shop there. There’s no reason why it has to be on such pristine land,” said Community Board 1 Parks Committee member Dewey Thompson. [Brooklyn Paper]

Down the road from the fledgling Domino Sugar factory development site on the Williamsburg waterfront, another large-scale residential complex is having better luck in getting off the ground. The Department of City Planning has approved a rezoning proposal for the three-building, 801-unit complex that developers Abraham and Isack Rosenberg dubbed Rose Plaza on the River, in a 7-5 vote that allows the plan to proceed. It will now move on to the City Council for final approval, as part of the city’s public review process. A vote from the council is expected by early May. But the success of Rose Plaza could be a good sign for the developers of Domino Sugar, who were dealt an overwhelming rejection from Community Board 1 last night. Rose Plaza, which offers relatively little affordable housing — just 160 units — has been largely unpopular with the community throughout its public review process as well and was vetoed by Community Board 1 in December.

The Community Preservation Corporation’s $1.2 billion Domino Sugar factory redevelopment project got a resounding “no” last night from Community Board 1, because of doubts about whether the group’s planned skyscrapers would benefit the neighborhood. The 23-12 vote backs another “no” vote last week by the board’s land use committee, though neither decision is more than advisory. Borough President Marty Markowitz will hold a public hearing on tomorrow before he makes a decision, which will also act as a suggestion to the City Planning Commission and ultimately, the City Council. Plans call for a 2,200-unit waterfront apartment complex, which would require the Kent Avenue site, just north of the Williamsburg Bridge, to be rezoned from manufacturing to residential. The developers have promised to create an open, public space on the waterfront and to designate 30 percent, or 660, of its units for below market-rate housing, far more than what is required by current zoning. The land-use committee last week had objected that the affordable housing in the complex would not necessarily be permanent, but the developers have since insisted that it would be. [Brooklyn Paper]

The Community Preservation Corporation’s $1.2 billion redevelopment proposal for the Domino Sugar factory in Williamsburg was shot down last night in a 5-3 vote by Community Board 1′s Land Use Committee. The vote isn’t final — the full community board will hear the proposal March 9, after which Borough President Marty Markowitz, the City Planning Commission and the City Council will all have a say — but it is the first public rejection of the project, which entered an eight-month public review process in early January. The plans call for a 2,200-unit waterfront apartment complex, which would require the Kent Avenue site, just north of the Williamsburg Bridge, to be rezoned from manufacturing to residential. The developers have promised to create an open, public space on the waterfront and to designate 30 percent, or 660, of its units for below market-rate housing, far more than what is required by current zoning. Last night’s panel objected that the developer’s affordable housing commitment, as it currently stands, is only 15 years long and that the building plans were too dense. [Brooklyn Paper]

The new Spruce Street school

From the February issue: Newcomers are moving Downtown for a host of reasons, from deals on apartments to historic surroundings. And increasingly, another lure is good schools. They seem to be such a selling point that many of them are now seriously overcrowded. “They play a huge part in bringing people here,” said James Attard, an associate broker with the Tribeca-based Tabak Real Estate, who’s been selling homes there for six years. Top-ranked P.S. 234 on Greenwich Street, which many call a neighborhood jewel, appears to be significantly boosting property values, even when compared to P.S. 89 in Battery Park City, which is itself prized. Indeed, from 2006 to 2010, homes in the P.S. 234 zone were listed at prices about 30 percent higher than those near P.S. 89, according to StreetEasy, the real estate data company, though other factors may be at play. That may explain why even residents who don’t have children are upset over plans by the city to alleviate the overcrowding by reassigning kids from P.S. 234, which is jam-packed, to other District 2 schools through a large-scale rezoning. Adding two schools and carving up the neighborhood into new districts is meant to address crowding. Temporary rezoning was instituted last spring; a controversial rezoning was finalized in late January.

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After ongoing pains due to a split-share agreement between New York City and New York State, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is moving forward with a plan to take total control of Governors Island, the Villager reported. So far community groups are backing the proposal, which would result in a single-ownership arrangement and more funding from city officials. The Governors Island Alliance is one such group behind the city’s idea. “The island could be better off having a single owner and a single management structure,” Rob Pirani, executive director of the Governors Island Alliance, said, adding that the island sometimes “gets put on a heap and sometimes gets held hostage to other negotiations.”
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A proposal for a mixed-used Williamsburg waterfront apartment complex was overwhelmingly vetoed last night by Community Board 1. The developers, Abraham and Isack Rosenberg, did not allocate enough affordable housing for their 801-unit, three-building Rose Plaza on the River, CB1 members said, especially for a project that sought a zoning variance for the heights of the three 18-, 24- and 29-story towers. The site, between Division Avenue and the Schaefer Landing complex, currently sits in a manufacturing zone, which means the developers would otherwise need to work within a height limit of 185 feet. “I didn’t think the committee vote was ‘no way,’ we just want to see the project to become better,” CB1 Land Use Committee chairman Ward Dennis said at that hearing, noting that that board has “always pushed for 40-percent affordable housing for new projects.” In the Rosenbergs’ proposal, just 20 percent of the units were designated as affordable.

A Battery Park City play area scheduled for demolition could have a new lease on life. Under a current plan in place, the state Department of Transportation would close Tire Swing Park on Oct. 13, then remove its wooden playground equipment and mature trees to make way for new equipment. But community protest has caused state officials to rethink the agenda. The DOT has agreed to consider residents’ input and will present two alternative park plans to Community Board 1 on Oct. 6. If the renovation takes place as scheduled, state officials said that the park will reopen by Memorial Day 2010.

Developers began construction today on an affordable housing community that will house thousands of South Bronx residents. The project will include eight new buildings containing a total of 640 units on Eagle Avenue and 156th Street in the Melrose neighborhood. Jackson Development Group and Joy Construction expect to complete the first phase of construction, six buildings costing approximately $169 million, in about two years. The project has been in the works for around three years, in a neighborhood that “desperately needs new opportunities for housing and development,” said Community Board 1 District Manager Cedric Loftin. Residents’ income will determine eligibility and qualifying families will be selected through a lottery.

Tribeca’s Community Board 1 decided this week not to create an inclusionary housing zone in northwest Tribeca that would allow taller buildings and require the construction of more affordable housing. The community board was considering allowing developers to construct buildings up to 120 feet tall on the northwest Tribeca block bounded by Canal, West, Watts and Washington streets, in exchange for making 20 percent of the residential units built there affordable. Instead, the community board has agreed to create an inclusionary housing zone around the Holland Tunnel, but there are very few sites there that could be developed into affordable housing, the city said. The city said that about 50 affordable housing units could have been created on the block bounded by Canal, West, Watts and Washington streets. [more]