GREENPOINT, Brooklyn (WABC) — A community in Brooklyn is concerned about gentrification and being left behind over a new high-rise along the East River.
Those who’ve lived in Greenpoint since before developers were clamoring for a piece of the East River waterfront are asking, does the neighborhood really need more luxury high-rise towers?
The answer isn’t a simple one.
“The inlet is the last piece of undisturbed land on the East River. Yes, we need housing, but not here,” said Scott Fraser of Save the Inlet, who is also a Greenpoint resident of 40-plus years.
The inlet is the Bushwick Inlet.
The project, called Monitor Point, would develop 40 Quay St., which is currently an MTA facility.
The agency would lease it to the developer, the Gotham Organization, to build two nearly 60-story towers along with some public waterfront space and a museum dedicated to the historic civil warship, the USS Monitor.
“I am very, very skeptical about any real benefits to the project,” said Kevin Hickey, a Greenpoint resident of 17 years. “As it stands, it’s zoned for 14 stories, and this is a naked profit grab by people that don’t live in the neighborhood and won’t have to live with this for the rest of their lives. I think it’s nonsense.”
At Tuesday’s community board meeting to discuss the rezoning it would need, the developers and architects assured the skeptics that the environment has been thoroughly studied, and of the 1,150 housing units, 460 will be permanently affordable.
Some neighbors like that idea.
“I think at the end of the day, it’s very needed in a city that is experiencing a housing crisis,” said Luke Loreti, a Greenpoint resident who supports Monitor Point. “And like, I don’t live on the waterfront, but I’d get to walk over there, I’d get to enjoy it.”
But many worry it’ll just drive up their rents, and not make good on a decades-old promise from the city and MTA of expanding an existing park into the space.
“The idea of this mega-rise development to be squished up against this sliver of land, that is our only bit of public park that the community has been fighting for more than 20 years, like a generation, is heartbreaking,” said Katherine Thompson of Save the Inlet, and also a Greenpoint resident of 30-plus years.
“We need to see a healthy majority of any housing that’s built will be truly affordable for our community,” said New York City Councilmember Lincoln Restler. “And we need a fully-funded Bushwick Inlet Park with a clear timeline for when it’s going to be built.”
Tuesday’s meeting at a community center is an early step in a long process. The community board has yet to vote on it.
The proposal presented on Tuesday has already been adjusted after getting community feedback from neighbors worried the market-rate two- and three-bedroom units will be just as expensive as others on the waterfront that rent for $10,000 to 13,0000 a month.
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