Lincoln Tower Meeting: A Recap

Blog reader Timmy posted a recap of the PLGNA/CRGPLG meeting about the Lincoln Road Tower in the comments section of our earlier post. From the sound of it, our misgivings about the meeting were spot on.

We appreciate his comprehensive comments and, because his feelings mirror our own, we thought they deserved a more prominent placement. His recap is below the fold.

(Please make any comments about the meeting itself here, instead of below the meeting notice.)

I went to the meeting last night and left disappointed by the tone of the meeting and the failure to truly let the community speak for itself. This is a long post, so go get a cup of coffee and some refreshments.

I thought the meeting was intended to provide an open forum for members of the community to learn about the project and to talk about it. While the gentleman who outlined the scope of the project did a fine job of presenting the facts of the building, speaker after speaker that followed him treated this meeting as a rally to oppose the building for reasons such as: (1) impact it will have on affordable housing (2) it is out of context, (3) it will kill migrating birds. The organizers left all discussion until the end of the forum after we listened to person after person talk negatively about luxury condos, development and this project generally. This didn’t create an environment where people felt comfortable discussing the project’s positives and negatives. I felt like I was at an organizing rally to mount opposition to this project and I certainly didn’t feel comfortable speaking about what I mostly feel is a positive project for this community. It seemed to me that the organizers had created the appearance of an open forum, but in reality the speakers that were called on to present, the format and overall atmosphere predetermined an outcome of opposition to this project and development generally in this community.

The link b/w this project and affordable housing is completely misleading. These points have absolutely nothing to do with each other. This building is displacing no one (no one was living there) and is not reducing the amount of rent stabilized apartments in PLG. There were a couple of small businesses that knew about this project for a long time and choose to stay there until the end. I completely support the need to preserve and create affordable housing in Brooklyn and in PLG. PLG has a huge inventory of rent stabilized apartments, unlike other neighborhoods that have experienced gentrification (ie Park Slope, Ft. Greene, etc.). PLG has a lot of 1 family homes which are owner occupied. So a large number of tenants in this neighborhood are afforded protection under the rent stabilization laws. It is up to the landlord to comply with the law and the government to enforce it. If landlords are being abusive and harassing tenants, better enforcement must happen and perhaps changes in the laws are necessary. We as residents need to hold our government (agencies and elected officials) accountable on the enforcement of the laws intended to keep affordable housing affordable. They need to step up to the plate and provide more funding to agencies who enforce these laws and less money to not for profits run by their wives or nephews. Somebody said, we need to raise some hell, amen brother. Call the guy from Met Council and organize tenants in your building. I’ll be there with you. I think affordable housing is one of the top three or four issues facing NYC right now. We need to be screaming about this issue. But the need to protect and provide for affordable housing exists whether or not this project gets built or not.

As for the creation of affordable housing, again, this is also the responsibility of the government not a private developer which is not using public subsidies to build the project. Developing real estate is a profit making enterprise, just like every other business. The developer on Lincoln Rd. owns the property, is building what the zoning allows and is not seeking any tax abatements which require the inclusion of affordable housing. I know he is seeking to qualify for the old 421(a) tax abatement program and that the new program would require him to include affordable housing. If you were the developer and your money was invested, what would you do? He is seeking the highest return on his investment, which is what he is supposed to do. The developer does not have an obligation to provide affordable housing any more than I have an obligation to give away my salary to the Red Cross or some other charity. This is the government’s job to fund affordable housing. I would also support reviewing existing zoning to provide for inclusionary zoning which allows developers to build more units if a certain percentage of units in the project are affordable which is being done more often in NYC now. But it is not a developer’s responsibility to build affordable units as someone said earlier. We need to hold our elected officials accountable, why aren’t they providing the funding, why aren’t they doing anything to ask City Planning to review PLG’s zoning to include inclusionary zoning?

I also felt like the developer was being mischaracterized as this greedy “developer” who has no interest in getting input from the community. Representatives from PLGNA and CRGPLG have unsuccessfully tried to meet with the developer. Put yourself in the developer’s shoes, would you want to meet with a group that is opposing the project before they’ve even met with him. He’s building a building which the current zoning allows. If you don’t like the height of the building, call your Council Member and tell him this is a problem. Call up City Planning and tell them you have a problem w/ a 23 story building in a neighborhood where 8 stories is the highest building. Call up the Community Board. The developer is not monkeying around w/ the zoning rules ala Bob Scarano. I tend to agree, a 23 story building is too high, but how high is too high. You don’t like glass, are we really telling a property owner to not build a glass tower b/c it might affect bird migration? Or is this just a weak attempt to find another reason to add the laundry list of other weak arguments against this project. The developer doesn’t have to build it that high, he is choosing to do this. However, if you want to have a chance of affecting change in a project where the community has very little leverage, you start off w/ having a conversation, let him know that you speak for the community and talk to him about the community’s concerns.

This is where the problem lies, PLGNA and CRGPLG don’t speak for the community, they speak for part of the community that is afraid of change. I don’t blame folks who are residing in a rent stabilized apartment from having very serious concerns about harassment and keeping their apartments. As I stated before, I share their concerns and would work with them to stop the harassment and keep all apartments stabilized that should be stabilized. However, I think it is wrong when people play on these fears to mobilize opposition to something that has very little if not nothing to do w/ these problems.

This project should be used to start a conversation on what we want as a community, learn more about the community’s concerns, develop a plan to address them and then work toward executing the plan. This didn’t happen last night and given how the meeting was run last night, I don’t think the community could reasonably expect PLGNA or CRGPLG do it in the future. Now maybe I’m overreacting, but I’ve been to community visioning/planning sessions and this was so far from that and I didn’t get the feeling people wanted to engage in a real community based planning process. The outcome had already been determined. Let’s put it this way, PLGNA may say they want to, but last night said otherwise. This blog got it right the first time when it read the flyer.

Jessica, Mr. Herbst probably gets 25 phone calls a day. He’s working on a June 30th deadline, the dude is probably a little bit busy and he doesn’t know who you are. If he misses this deadline, the project is probably dead in the water. From what I’ve read and heard from others, I think he’s open to community input, but right now his project is hanging in the balance. Starting in July, he's open to conversation and it won't be too late for him to scale down the height of the building. This also goes back to having a group that truly does speak for the community, can identify the legitimate issues that need to be discussed and have that conversation. Right now there aren’t any groups here like that, so if I were Mr. Herbst, I’d keep my head down and get my work done too.

Comments

[Brooklyn Boy]

Thanks for the excellent recap of the meeting. I can see that all the impressions I got from the tone of the flyer were correct. I can't wait to see the new tower!

[Sara]

I think tenant harassment is wrong. But it seems like no matter how often people are told they cannot be removed from their rent stabilized or rent controlled apartments by new development they always flip out.

Also, home ownership is good for a neighborhood it anchors a neighborhood and keeps it from going downhill into crime and blight.

Affordable housing is key in NYC to keep it vibrant. But home ownership is key to keeping our neighborhoods safe.

I look forward to seeing this tower and the new retail development it will bring to PLG. I think it will go a long way toward stabilizing a neighborhood that is already well on its way.

[Charles Star]

I agree with Timmy and Sara about the importance of tenants' rights and affordable housing; I also agree that the proposed construction has very little to do with either of those issues. If this project causes people to come together to address the other, real issues, that's great, but I don't want it to be at the cost of the development of a blighted site.

[dt]

I also think it's wrong to connect this tower to the bad practices of other building owners. I'm looking forward to some new retail where this crumbling mold grower now sits.

[babs]

As a member of Concerned Residents of Greater Prospect Lefferts Gardens, I would like to repsond as follows to Timmy's post:

"I thought the meeting was intended to provide an open forum for members of the community to learn about the project and to talk about it." That is correct, and I think many people learned of the proposed tower for the first time at this meeting -- this is why so many people responded with shock that such a structure would even be contemplated for the neighborhood.

"[T]he gentleman who outlined the scope of the project did a fine job of presenting the facts of the building." That he did -- including pointing out how such a structure is completely out of context with the rest of the buildings in the neighborhood in terms of height and also that there are potential safety issues to be looked at due to construction occurring right next to the uncovered subway platform at Prospect Park Station.

"It seemed to me that the organizers had created the appearance of an open forum" How odd, when everyone else was criticizing the flyer by saying it seemed too one-sided against the project.

"The link b/w this project and affordable housing is completely misleading. These points have absolutely nothing to do with each other." Indirectly, they do -- more luxury housing equals higher home prices = higher rents for units rented out in those places and greater incentive for owners of existing properties to raise rents. Certainly some of the buyers of luxury condominiums will do so for investment purposes, but when they look to find rental tenants they will also be looking to charge enough rent to cover their mortgages.

"So a large number of tenants in this neighborhood are afforded protection under the rent stabilization laws." Only tenants in buildings with six or more units built before 1976 are covered by rent stabilization. While there are a good number of rent-stabilized units in PLG, there are also many rental apartments in 2 and 3 family houses -- these tenants have absolutely no legal protections. I am not advocating expansion of rent stabilization to cover these units (although some might), but this is a situation we all need to be aware of. Incidentally, Fort Green does have large numbers of rent stabilized units (or did), causing problems of landlords trying to push out long-term tenants in order to get the rents over $2000/month and off of stabilization. See the recent Brownstoner post on just this problem: http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2008/02/tenants_charge.php. This is exactly the sort of situation we are trying to head off in PLG, and it is happening already with the tenants of numerous rent-stabilized buildings, including 50 Lincoln Rd. and 10 Midwood St. (both managed by the same firm, NYC Management in Manhattan) receiving repeated spurious eviction notices for non-payment of rent which had, in fact, been paid.

"Call the guy from Met Council and organize tenants in your building. " Joe Catron from Met Housing attended the meeting and spoke in order to make people aware that his organization exists for just such a purpose -- not everyone is as aware as you apparently are Timmy of the resources available to them to assist them in protecting their rights.

"The developer on Lincoln Rd. owns the property, is building what the zoning allows and is not seeking any tax abatements which require the inclusion of affordable housing. I know he is seeking to qualify for the old 421(a) tax abatement program and that the new program would require him to include affordable housing. " Agreed -- the old law was badly flawed and the new law changes this. 421(a) tax abatements are indeed government subsidies, because they amount to revenue that the government is giving up in order to encourage construction of new housing -- using it to build luxury housing, while not violating the letter of the law, was clearly violating its spirit. Mr. Herbst is hardly alone in this, and in terms of characterizing him as "greedy" I'd say he's no greedier than most other real estate developers, from Donald Trump to Bruce Ratner, etc. However, we don't need to stand idly by and let this happen because other people are doing the same thing elsewhere.

"We need to hold our elected officials accountable, why aren’t they providing the funding, why aren’t they doing anything to ask City Planning to review PLG’s zoning to include inclusionary zoning? " An excellent question, with the answer probably stemming from the fact that no-one ever asked our elected officials to do any such thing -- and most elected officials will wait until their constituents make them aware of their concerns. The presence of City Councilperson Matthew Eugene and a representative from State Senator Adams's office shows that elected officials are now becoming aware of the situation -- and we will keep reminding them of it as long as necessary.

"If you don’t like the height of the building, call your Council Member and tell him this is a problem. Call up City Planning and tell them you have a problem w/ a 23 story building in a neighborhood where 8 stories is the highest building. Call up the Community Board. " Done (as evidenced by Matthew Eugene's presence at the meeting), done, and done -- and now, thanks to their being made aware of this project, many other community members will be doing this as well.

"You don’t like glass, are we really telling a property owner to not build a glass tower b/c it might affect bird migration? " It's not that anyone doesn't necessarily like glass, it's just that it has been shown that large glass structures do affect migrating birds' sense of orientation, causing them to veer off course and even fly directly into the building. This is especially worrisome right next to Prospect Park, given the large number of birds that fly through this area in the spring and fall migration periods. This is hardly a weak argument; check out this article on the problem: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/05/02/birds/ There are solutions; our goal is to work with the developer on implementing them.

"However, if you want to have a chance of affecting change in a project where the community has very little leverage, you start off w/ having a conversation, let him know that you speak for the community and talk to him about the community’s concerns. " As noted earlier, Henry Herbst has not responded to inquiries about this project from many different organizations, a fact that you seem to attribute to his concern with getting the construction started ASAP in order to get in on the 421(a) program. You also say that "Starting in July, he's open to conversation and it won't be too late for him to scale down the height of the building. " How do you know he'll be any more responsive in July? Do you (and Brooklyn Boy, apparently) have an inside track here?

"PLGNA and CRGPLG don’t speak for the community, they speak for part of the community that is afraid of change." This is patently untrue; change is a constant and there are certainly changes we would all welcome. We just want to make sure that the community has a voice in these changes. Our community will not be hijacked.

"This project should be used to start a conversation on what we want as a community, learn more about the community’s concerns, develop a plan to address them and then work toward executing the plan." No -- the idea of this project should be used to start that conversation and it has. The fact that the conversation seems pretty one-sided thus far is due entirely to the fact that there is no-one from the other side taking part in it -- probably because no-one can come up with a coherent, logical response to the legitimate concerns about this building that have been raised. You think the argument that migrating birds could be harmed by this building is weak? Please provide evidence to back that up -- I just provided one of many links that says the opposite (just google the words, "bird migration glass buildings" for a good many articles on the subject. You say yourself that you believe a 23-story building is too high -- so why not add your voice to those of the concerned residents who are speaking out about it?

As I've said before, we are all in favor of responsible, inclusionary development. We'd all love some new retail options in the neighborhood, and there are many other sites for such businesses as well. As those of you who attended the meeting heard, we are seeking to form four working groups to address the following issues: tenants' rights and protections; homeownership concerns; real estate development and zoning; and small business. By expanding into these four groups we will be able to focus separately on these particular areas and hopefully lead to positive improvements in all areas.

"If he misses this deadline, the project is probably dead in the water." Actually, I've heard that that may already be the case, but I would like to know more. And yes, maybe his 23-story glass tower may be dead in the water, but maybe that will then inspire him to work with the community to arrive at a positive outcome for all.