Washburn’s Model Block squished by BSA, Column by George Fiala

I actually had my column all written before this.

This is the month when the City Council, led by local Councilmember Brad Lander, will most likely allow the transformation of Gowanus from a gritty, funky, artsy/industrial neighborhood, into a modern, affluent community dominated by high rise luxury apartments. It will end up resembling countless high-rise affluent neighborhoods throughout the world.

I had planned to say that in a process deemed inevitable by the one person who has the power to make it not happen, Councilman Lander, the Council will turn the speculative bets of real estate developers, made over the past decade and a half, into huge payoffs.

I was going to be all upset because once again, political ambition, greed and rationalization would force radical change on a neighborhood.

However, every once in a while ,I see communities win. Once was when an application to build a nursing home in Red Hook was rejected. Another was when the ferry terminal was placed where we wanted it, in Atlantic Terminal, not where EDC planned to put it.

Back in January, there was a buzz in some fancy magazines about a “Model Block” that a Van Brunt St. architect was planning. That architect was also a city planner, lecturer and professor, and made a name for himself locally after Sandy in the push for resiliency. Nobody really knew he was also a real estate developer.

Alexandros Washburn’s, was the architect/developer. His plan included a 15 story residential building with river views, as depicted on the cover our February issue which you can see to the right.

The thing I’m very much against is for Red Hook to become Williamsburg, which to me defines the sterilization of a neighborhood.

Washburn and his investors planned a residential tower in an area not zoned for it (the IBZ).

I thought that his hired hands would get the permission he needed from the Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA). My mistake was that I didn’t really know anything about the BSA – I just assumed they were as crooked  as the city council when it came to real estate.

Turns out I was wrong.

They are five professional architects and lawyers and engineers and public servants appointed by the mayor to make educated decisions about building requests based upon existing law.

The Chairperson, Margery Perlmutter, turned out to be a pretty cool person, and brooked no bullshit from anyone, as I saw from watching all the hearings that day.

Washburn’s application was heard on October 5. In the morning session, the Commissioners spoke of the many shortcomings of the Model Block. Things got only worse during that evening’s public session, where Washburn himself made his presentation.

Perlmutter’s response to Washburn is better written than anything I could put together, so here is part of what she said:

“I am not understanding your encouragement to residential there, because it was specifically stated by both the Bloomberg Administration and the current EDC that the purpose of the IBZ is to retain industrial uses, and to promise NOT to rezone these areas to allow residential use.

So I am very confused by this kind of touchy-feely discussion about how nice it is to have residential in a manufacturing district, and especially in an IBZ, because since you were at City Planning for so long you know very well that the MX districts were a complete failure because the arrival of residential uses into manufacturing districts have the effect of pushing ALL the manufacturing or any other kind of disagreeable use OUT of the districts because people didn’t want to live next door to them, or above them, or below them or anything. It sounds so sweet, that maker business, that everybody just makes cupcakes, but actually, industrial users are not cupcake makers only… they’re welders, they’re clanky, noisy—even recording studios, they are all kinds of things that people hate to live next to.

So I don’t understand why you need residential in this IBZ. There are so many other ways to create work… create create create. I know residential makes more money, but that’s not really the issue here.

At this point Washburn invites her to come to Red Hook and see his idea in person. She cuts him off saying:

I’ve been to PioneerWorks many times, I’m a regular in Red Hook, so I really know this area, this is where I play.. I play because it has so much that’s NOT residential to offer. It has so much that’s gritty to offer, and there’s hardly any place left in New York that has that grit—that allows a PioneerWorks actually to exist, and at the same time have restaurants to feed the people that enjoy participating in those kinds of activities.

This BSA is not ready to basically destroy the IBZ. That’s a job for some other administration if they decide that for whatever reason the IBZ’s are no longer relevant somehow, and that it was a nice idea back in 2004 up until 2001 and now it’s the end of the IBZ and we’re going to take that away, and we’re just going to whittle away at the manufacturing districts on a major scale… that’s a City Planning job, really.

There are contaminated sites in every IBZ area, and if we were to say that this site is entitled to residential use, that opens the door to residential units in every manufacturing area in the city.

The idea of children living in these residences running around on the streets of an IBZ, thereby preventing any type of real industrial use—I think all the Board members here have made it clear—it’s not going to happen.

So I think you ought to get off of this wagon, and look at a different solution.

This Board is not open to residential use, so you all need to go home and have a drink or whatever it is that calms you down, because we’re not doing residential on this site.

And with respect to affordability—we’ve already talked about that. This affordable housing is more expensive than your market rate—so if you’re truly looking to house people from Red Hook, you can’t have just 20 units in your whole building be very low income units. They all need to be. Otherwise, don’t go there about housing local residents. It’s not true.

What you are doing is as Commissioner Otley said so aptly – you are pulling Manhattanites. I’m not even sure that I can afford these rents, but it means my friends might move to Red Hook now because there is such a cool building in this location—and by the way, it’s around the corner from PioneerWorks.”

You can view the hearing for yourself – the Red Hook application starts at about 8 hours in…

George Fiala

George Fiala has worked in radio, newspapers and direct marketing his whole life, except for when he was a vendor at Shea Stadium, pizza and cheesesteak maker in Lancaster, PA, and an occasional comic book dealer. He studied English and drinking in college, international relations at the New School, and in his spare time plays drums and fixes pinball machines.