Developers Take Public Place To The Public

As the Public Place development moves forward on the shores of the Gowanus Canal, representatives of Community Board 6 and the Gowanus and Carroll Gardens neighborhoods continue to exert influence over the mega-project, and the working relationship between the development groups and the community is setting a standard for future development in the area.
The city-owned site on the bank of the canal will soon feature nine buildings with 774 residential units, 65,000 square feet of community and retail space, and three acres of public open space. The site was formerly a petroleum processing facility and will require extensive remediation before ground can be broken.

The city held an open submission process to determine which company would develop the land at the corner of Smith and 5th streets, and after the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and the community pored over the proposals, a selection was made.

The Gowanus Green proposal, which was put together by a group of developers, planners, and designers, was selected and is already in the initial planning stages. The developers introduced themselves and their plans to the neighborhood by way of last Thursday’s CB6 Land Use Committee meeting.

“It’s important that we have meaningful community input,” said Michelle de la Uz, executive director of the Fifth Avenue Committee, one of the groups that is leading the Gowanus Green proposal. “Our goal is to create a mixed-use extension of the Carroll Gardens neighborhood and set an example for sustainable development while working with community organizations.”

At the meeting, representatives from each group involved with the project, including the Hudson Companies, Jonathan Rose Companies, the Bluestone Organization, and the aforementioned Fifth Avenue Committee, discussed the early stages of the project with the community, specifically focusing on the affordability of the units, remediation of the site, and the construction of new infrastructure to serve the several thousand residents who are expected to live there.
Many of the units at Public Place will be targeted towards senior citizens and low- and middle-income families who, without subsidies, would be unable to live in the neighborhood.
More than 100 units will be set aside for seniors, and 70 percent of the total units will be kept affordable to households with incomes between 30 and 130 percent of the area median income. The developers were particularly hopeful that a number of young families would move into the two- and three-bedroom units.

A focus on senior citizens and parents with small children raised some concerns among members of the public.

“I have my doubts that this site can be remediated at all,” said a member of CB6 in attendance. “If I vote in favor of this plan, and one person gets cancer or even sick, I couldn’t live with myself.”
“We’re in full agreement on this,” said de la Uz, who assured the meeting that similar gas sites have been effectively remediated elsewhere in the country. “This is a contaminated neighborhood, but the Public Place site is a bit isolated, and we can remediate it and cut off future contamination from seeping in.”

The developers are currently working in anticipation of the residential rezoning of the site. Neighbors at the meeting, upon seeing the timeline of the project, expressed concerns that the site would be residentially rezoned before it was remediated, and that, if the Public Place project somehow fails, it could open the door for less scrupulous developers to build on possibly toxic land.

The developers explained that, in order for the project to be completed by 2013, the ULURP and rezoning would have to be conducted prior or simultaneously to the two-year remediation project, and assured neighbors that they would carry out the full remediation before any ground was broken, and that the design of the project may be adjusted to accommodate the remediation.

Seemingly in defiance of the site’s history and the existing conditions of the Gowanus Canal, the proposal plans for the retail stores to be focused on the health of not only the residents, but the entire neighborhood. Retail tenants will include a bike shop, doctor’s office, restaurant, plant nursery, and daycare center.

Additionally, the new infrastructure that will be created for the site will be “green,” featuring planted roofs, innovative landscapes, and a storm water removal system that will create a small river running throughout the development. The public park, accessible to both residents and non-residents, will take advantage of the Gowanus Canal by offering canoeing, boating, and waterfront educational programming, which will likely encourage interest in the health and cleanliness of the canal itself.
Members of the Land Use Committee and the community were pleased that the developers of the Gowanus Green proposal were open to their concerns.

“We came to you today to give you a flavor, a sense of the project,” said de la Uz, who is currently working on an effective way to provide the community with ongoing updates about the project. “We expect to have many more conversations with you.”

A rendering of what the future holds for the Public Place site. These plans and more were discussed at length by the neighbors at a recent meeting of the CB6 Land Use Committee.

By Jeffrey Harmatz

Brooklyn Downtown Star