I have been on vacation here in South Carolina for one week now and it seems that I am missing much action in Carroll Gardens. Let me see: The building at 360 Smith Street has gotten several permits from the New York City Department of Buildings. That is big news, but hardly surprising. After all, the building is As-Of-Right.
The newly formed neighborhood group that calls itself CORD (Coalition for Respectful Development) has been hard at work trying to stop the project. They have put up signs all over Carroll Gardens, got about 8oo people to sign a petition against the developer and a moratorium on further building in C.G. They also started their own blog.
They made two major mistakes right from the start.
1) They thought they could count on some real help from our Councilman Bill De Blasio,
2) They have picked on one developer ( Scarano) instead of joining forces with the Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association. C.G.N.A. is a much bigger neighborhood group that has worked for months to get the neighborhood rezoned to limit the height of any new building.
Of course there is room for two groups working towards the same goal. The more the merrier. But I believe that CORD is starting to realize that Bill DeBlasio was never willing to do more than to seize a photo-op when he showed up a month ago at the Carroll Street Station to demand Scarano's architecture license. Did anybody really think that slick Bill was going to actually do anything more?
It is starting to dawn on Cord that DeBlasio is no help, judging by their latest email blasting our Councilman.
And as far as going after one architect,it is naive to believe that it will stop the project.
What we need in Carroll Gardens is to rezone at the very least and to expand our very small existing landmark district. That is the only way to protect our bownstone neighborhood. Lets all work together on this.
CORD Blog
0 comments:
Post a Comment