Press

September 17, 2014, BHB Exclusive: Q & A with Martin Hale & Lori Schomp of People for Green Space
September 17, 2014, WSJ Opposing Reports on Cost of Brooklyn Bridge Park Financial Analyses Could Help Decide Fate of Proposed Apartment Towers
September 1, 2014  Funding can be raised to maintain Brooklyn Bridge Park without building high-rise housing on limited park space The park will reap a huge tax increase as tax breaks expire, raising as much as $200 million over 50 years. Revenue from proposed 31-story and 15-story towers would then be unnecessary
August 11, 2014, Daily News Towers grow in Brooklyn The city must proceed with a planned development deal to fund a wildly popular waterfront park — and no more
August 8, 2014, The Brooklyn Paper Brooklyn Bridge Park honchos: No LICH, no problem
“The grim reality of the LICH site across the street, is that there’s a good likelihood that there will be luxury condos included in the final plan,” said state Sen. Daniel Squadron (D–Brooklyn Heights) at the meeting. “The closure of LICH was certainly not contemplated a decade ago.”
August 7, 2014, BHB Battle Royale at Borough Hall: BBPC Board Shoots Down Pier 6 Opponents
Senator Squadron, who during opening public comments affirmed his opposition to housing in any city park, stated too much applause that “Brooklyn Bridge Park has been wildly successful –beyond anyone’s expectations… That very success, however, is one reason to re-evaluate the [Pier 6] proposal. The assumptions of park use from ten years ago have frankly proven insufficiently ambitious.”
August 7, 2014, Brooklyn Daily Eagle Brooklyn Bridge Park board to move forward with Pier 6 development
“Part of the frustration comes from sticking with a 10-year-old, Bloomberg-era proposal,” said John Raskin, a CAC member appointed by state Sen. Daniel Squadron. “Brooklyn has changed, the local community has changed, the world has changed – but our park plan hasn’t changed and that’s the problem.”
August 7, 2014, Metro Development at Brooklyn Bridge Park continues despite the local dispute
“We want the conversation to focus on the park and its visitors — now and in the future — and we don’t think that’s happening,” said Lori Schomp, 32, who said she moved into a townhouse near the pier in 2013. 
August 7, 2014, NY1 Residents Speak Out Against Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Plans
“Assumptions made a decade ago about revenue from housing are way off base,” said state Senator Daniel Squadron, whose district covers parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn. “The development of the park is reaching a point where we’re all very, very seriously concerned,” said one resident.
August 7, 2014, Curbed Designs Unveiled for Controversial Brooklyn Bridge Park Sites
Bridge Park Corporation members will discuss this at a meeting today. Seeing as how that meeting is slated to be staked out by protesters rallying against high-rise construction in the park, and the Times devoted a bunch of words to unpacking the scuffle just this past weekend, it seems that—despite these shiny new renderings—this project won’t scurry along to completion as speedily as its wildly successful condo neighbors to the north, One Brooklyn Bridge Park and the under-construction Pierhouse.
August 4, 2014, Brownstoner Why Affordable Housing Is Now Possible in Brooklyn Bridge Park
“Brooklyn Bridge Park is doing better than expected financially, so building affordable housing in the park is now feasible…The opponents would rather see less housing or no housing in the park, and are worried about traffic and overcrowded schools.”
August 1, 2014, NYTimes The Battle of Brooklyn Bridge Park
“I don’t think there should be a 31-story tower or park development of any magnitude,” he said. “I renovated a 19th-century house in Brooklyn Heights. My objective was to leave Brooklyn better than it was before.” What, he wondered, would this mayor’s legacy be? Perhaps part of the legacy will be the discussion itself. “The debate is at times like the park,” Mr. Cohen, the park corporation member, said. “Sometimes it’s a little loud, sometimes it is a little raucous, but at the end of the day, it’s necessary.”
July 19, 2014, Brooklyn Heights Blog TRO Issued on Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier 6 Towers
June 9, 2014, Brooklyn Daily Eagle Fractious board meeting pulls Pier 6 in different directions
June 6, 2014, The Brooklyn Paper Activists on towers: Not in Brooklyn’s front yard
Board member John Raskin asked the board to consider activists’ full list of concerns. “It was 10 years ago that we looked at this,” he said. “And the world has changed.” Councilman Steve Levin (D–Brooklyn Heights), who also sits on the park’s board, backed up the request, citing the shortage of school space as a major reason why new construction should be viewed critically. “School crowding is an unmitigated impact of all the development going on right now,” he said. “I think it’s appropriate to consider these items now.” The park’s president, Regina Myer, said she feels just fine about sticking to the original script. “We are very comfortable moving forward with the General Project Plan,” she said at the meeting.
May 23, 2014, Brooklyn Daily Eagle Save Pier 6 campaigns for more proportional development in Brooklyn Bridge Park
May 10, 2014, Cobble Hill Association Brooklyn “Skyscraper” Park?
… For years, the Cobble Hill Association has advocated for the creation of Brooklyn Bridge Park to serve the growing borough’s needs for active recreation and green space. We are glad to see tens of thousands now come to the waterfront each day to enjoy the developing park, but have long felt private housing should not be in the mix. We need a park, not a large scale project with private high rises. Unfortunately, that has been the path towards the creation of Brooklyn Bridge “Park” and it shows no signs of stopping…
May 8, 2014, WSJ New York City Seeks Affordable Housing Units for Brooklyn Bridge Park
At one point, the city and local elected officials reached a deal to approve a proportional reduction in the size of the buildings, if nearby buildings long owned by the Jehovah’s Witnesses were sold and received additional residential building rights. But the agreement expired at the end of 2013 without any height reductions. State Sen. Daniel Squadron, a Democrat who represents lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, said a change in the housing should require a new review process. “A large coalition has long opposed the plan to build housing at Pier 6,” he said. “This sounds like a new plan, which means a formal public process and community engagement” is needed.
May 5, 2014, WSJ Brooklyn Park Condos Sizzle Sales Pace Raises Questions on Whether Park Land Was Undervalued
Now Toll Brothers’ bet is paying off. Since Pierhouse at Brooklyn Bridge Park went on the market in late February, it has set a series of records for Brooklyn condo sales… at an average price of $1,800 a square foot, a record for Brooklyn. That is more than 25% higher than the developer projected last fall for the property. Since the launch, prices have been raised six times to a total of $503.8 million… But opponents of condominium development in the park say the high prices achieved by Toll Brothers raise questions about whether the city had undervalued the parkland and whether it should have been used for housing at all.
City property records show the park turned the land over in 2012 to Toll Brothers for $42.5 million under a 97-year lease in the first place. “This is yet another reason we shouldn’t put any more housing in Brooklyn Bridge Park,” said state Sen. Daniel Squadron, a Brooklyn Democrat. Fred Kent, president of the Project for Public Spaces, a nonprofit planning group, said the strong sales by Toll Brothers weren’t a surprise but represented a mistake. Without the need to create a “pleasant place for people who live along the waterfront,” he said, the park could have been designed to serve “people who live in inner Brooklyn.”
July 15, 2011, The Brooklyn Paper The fix is in! City cuts big developer’s taxes in Brooklyn Bridge Park
August 4, 2010, The Brooklyn Paper Still not a park! The new city board has only two open space pros
January 15, 2005, The Brooklyn Paper Bridge Park developers have no ‘principles’
…13 principles also paved the way for the 2000 Illustrative Master Plan, which led Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg to sign a Memorandum of Understanding in May 2002 committing $150 million of city and state funds to the park effort and to fund a Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation, a subsidiary of the state’s Empire State Development Corporation, which was charged with planning the park. 

That body now stands accused of ditching a key element of those founding principles, by adding market-rate housing.

“It was always viewed as sort of the golden rule of the park,” said Marcia Hillis, the founder of the DUMBO Neighborhood Association. 

“I think a lot of people in the surrounding communities were surprised to find the new park proposal didn’t respect the 13 Guiding Principles,” she said, which were drafted by community members “from all over the affected neighborhoods.”

“It bound all the communities together,” Hillis said…

Here for you

savepier6@gmail.com

Where to find us

People For Green Space Foundation, Inc. PO Box 22537 271 Cadman Plaza East Ste 1 Brooklyn, NY 11201