We are a volunteer organization of residents who seek to preserve and enhance the unique qualities of our neighborhood through advocacy, education and community building.
I love the story of Hoyt/Schermerhorn. No — not this bad story. This awesome bringing-the-neighborhood-together story. How it took years of dialogue among residents and politicians. How a plan came together that made sense, fit into the neighborhood, made its strengths stronger and erased its weaknesses. Unlike other developments.
Just happened to read this article on Brownstoner today, which contained the following hint:
The second new development up for discussion was 470 Vanderbilt Avenue …. the developer is looking for a supermarket for the site and announced that Whole Foods is under consideration for the site.
I know I’ve heard that Whole Foods is still interested in moving into their lot at 3rd & 3rd, but with that lot being a toxic soup…well, maybe they reckon it’s easier to launch a “health food” store at a place that doesn’t glow at night? (Truth is that Atlantic & Vanderbilt is closer to BH than 3rd & 3rd, anyway. Score.)
It’s kind of a wonder this wasn’t already the law — that you’d have to clear up existing violations before you can continue building.
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/05/21/2009-05-21_bill_to_derail_deadbeat_developers.html
Hot off the presses, it’s the latest edition of the BHA Newsletter! In this issue:
Boerum Hill Bulletin – April 2009 (PDF, 1.3 MB)
Come on out it will be GREAT fun
The Boerum Hill neighborhood is vastly underserved in terms of open space, with less than one-fifth of the recommended public open space for a NYC neighborhood. Given that the neighborhood is largely built out, there are few available sites for future open space acquisition. With high-density residential development slated for the northern portion of the neighborhood between Atlantic Avenue and Livingston Street and the potential rezoning to residential around Gowanus, the neighborhood faces a significant increase in residents, which will place further burden on its limited park resources. The report explores the neighborhood’s open space needs and suggests key strategies to pursue to augment the quality and amount of open space in the community. Major concepts include
This report was commissioned by the Boerum Hill Association in 2004 with funds from the JM Kaplan Fund. It was produced by the planning firm of Phillips, Preiss, Shapiro and Associates.
DOCUMENT TITLE: PRINCIPLES FOR RESPONSIBLE COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT ON THE VANDERBILT RAIL YARDS
SECTION 1: BACKGROUND
In 2003, residents of Brooklyn heard for the first time that Forest City Ratner Companies (FCRC) was making development plans for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA’s) rail yards at Atlantic Avenue and for several surrounding blocks – an area totaling some 23 acres of land. Subsequently, neighborhood and civic groups affected by the proposed development met to discuss the FCRC proposal and the potential of the
367,000 SF (8.4 acre) rail yards for development.
At the Boerum Hill Association’s June 15, 2005 meeting at the Belarusian Church, architect Douglas Hamilton presented his Pacific Plan to the Boerum Hill community and answered questions afterwards.
In addition, Mr. Hamilton distributed copies of his testimony (PDF, 199KB) to the Economic Development Committee, and his editorial “The Farce Is With Us” (PDF, 124KB) regarding the MTA RFP (Request For Proposal) process for Atlantic Yards.
The UNITY Development Plan is an alternative to Forest City Ratner’s proposal for the Atlantic Yards site. The Boerum Hill Association is cosponsoring a presentation of the UNITY Plan at the YWCA on Wed, Feb. 16th at 7pm.
The evening’s agenda will feature urban designer Marshall Brown presenting the UNITY Plan, a review of the efforts to develop the railyards to date, and an analysis of the potential economic impact on taxpayers of Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards proposal.
Reprinted from:Â http://www.parkslopeneighbors.org/railyards/unityfaq.htm
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The UNITY Plan is a community-based development vision for the Atlantic Yards site. Hundreds of people from the neighborhoods surrounding the site (bounded by Atlantic Ave., Pacific St., 5th Ave. and Vanderbilt Ave. in Prospect Heights) gathered last spring to generate ideas about how the site might best be developed to the advantage of all Brooklynites. People broke into small groups to generate ideas, fed their ideas into the larger group, and architect Marshall Brown volunteered to work out a real plan based on the community’s vision. You can download a copy of the UNITY Development Plan at:Â http://www.dddb.net/public/UNITY.pdf
In short, the UNITY plan epitomizes community-based, bottom-up, organic development. It is both a development *process* as well as the development *product* and may be contrasted with the kind of top-down plan that the Forest City Ratner Corporation (FCRC) is seeking to impose upon the community.
FCRC is obviously interested only in their own plan.
People who have seen the UNITY plan have been highly supportive of it. We think you will be, too. The local Community Boards, in their reactive roles, have not fostered much discussion of the UNITY plan, so this is a good opportunity to learn about it. The FCRC plan has been presented in all the papers and in several community forums, but there has been little public opportunity for discussion of the UNITY Plan.
Both plans have the potential to impact all of the surrounding communities in many ways. We think the UNITY plan’s effects will be largely positive, while the FCRC plan has the potential to affect the community in a number of adverse ways. Ultimately, however, we believe that there should be a more open process, and more public debate, about the future of the railyards. Come find out more about the existing plans, and lend your voice to the process.
BOERUM HILL ASSOCIATION SEEKS CONSULTANT TO HELP PLAN OPEN SPACE
As announced in early June, the Boerum Hill Association was awarded a $20,000 grant by the J.M. Kaplan Fund to support the Association’s proposal, Opening up Downtown Brooklyn’s Residential Community: A proposal for the Creation of Open Space in Boerum Hill.
On September 30th the Association issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) to engage the services of a consultant to assist the community in identifying sites which might become available for use as open space and to begin to identify a community process for determining programmatic solutions to this problem.
Read the full press release here (PDF format)
Download the RFP here (MS Word format))
The BHA thanks our business sponsor:
