Long Island City’s Hunters Point South housing project moving forward
Proposed Hunters Point South development rendering, Long Island City
It looks like the City is taking another step towards building Hunters Point South, the dream middle-income housing utopia on the Long Island City waterfront. Yesterday, the City started soliciting bids for the construction of what will eventually become seven 30-story high-rises with 5,000 apartments, retail, the middle/high school and a 10-acre AstroTurf waterfront park.
The plan is to begin construction in 2012 and deliver the first 1,000 apartments and the school in the first phase of completion. But as the Times reports, there is some controversy regarding the ‘middle-income’ designation of the project:
At least 60 percent of the apartments would be reserved for families earning $63,000 to $130,000 a year. Rafael E. Cestero, the city’s housing commissioner, said the city expected to provide about $90,000 for each of the first 600 subsidized units. The city would continue to own the land, but the developers would own the buildings, and the subsidized apartments would permanently remain affordable for people in the middle-income range.
Adam Friedman, director of the Pratt Center for Community Development, a policy and planning group, said that because the median family income in Queens was $51,290 a year, “half the families in Queens” earn too little to be eligible for the subsidized units.
Mr. Cestero said the city needed to address the needs of the middle class, including teachers, firefighters and construction and health care workers.“The vast majority of housing we create is for low-income families,” Mr. Cestero said. “But we also know that people with moderate and middle incomes have significant housing challenges. We don’t want them to have to leave the city to find housing.”
Given the lull in residential construction since the recession, Mr. Cestero said the city was expecting that large-scale developers, like Avalon Bay, Douglaston Development, Related Companies and Gotham, as well as the city’s traditional builders of affordable housing, would compete for the first two construction sites at Hunters Point. The competition could result in a larger number of middle-income units.
Hunters Point South would be the largest middle-income complex built in New York since Co-op City in the Bronx and Starrett City in Brooklyn in the early 1970s.”
#1 you are absolutely correct. The city should sell this land to a private developer, find suitable land at a discount to build subsidized housing, and use the difference for basic city services. This waterfront property is incorrectly and inefficiently being utilized.
Who’s to say the direct city views will be the subsidized ones? I’m betting the ones facing East/Queens and lower floor apartments will be subsidized. The west-facing upper floor apartments will be the condos that you can buy.
Just a guess.
Why stop at less expensive land in NYC? Maybe we should just build NYC’s affordable housing in Newark, or Philly for that matter? Think how much the city would save!
And heck, while we’re at it, we could replace the Hunter’s Point senior center with one in Florida for 1/5th the cost! Why build it in an area with $600/sq foot real estate when you could build it in a state with plenty of sub-$100/sq foot construction?
Subsidized housing reduces the inventory of units available at market rate and by that drives up prices for regular families. Having subsidized housing also for “middle income” families just exacerbates the problem. Where should families making $150k a year live? They sure won’t afford anything at market rate in LIC…
If there one thing this this economic crisis should have taught us is that government has no role in socially engeneering society. #2 is right. Sell the land to the highest bidder and get money in the door to defry the crushing debt burden the city has. Instead we will spend more money that we don’t have on bribing developers to go along with this silly plan.
Completely agree. This HPS project sucks!
Wow #6, what a great idea. Let the free market do whatever it can. Power should only be in the hands of the powerful. I don’t think anyone ever thought of that before. You are a freakin’ genius. I can’t imagine that backfiring in any way.
Leaving a comment here since I can’t do it on the June 7th thread. Is there a fundraiser planned to help keep the senior center opened? I hear it’s closing at the end of this month.
The first part of the queens west project was built using the same fre market conventions and I think its an overwhelming sucess. What is this big backfire that you were alluding to?
“Still, Jimmy Van Bramer, the City Council member whose district includes Hunters Point, said the project had “the potential to transform the area, which right now is either abandoned or underutilized land, and make it into a thriving community where people want to live.””
What a moronic thing to say. It’s an astroturf park built cheaply and disorganizedly by the city. Is van bramer a pawn of bloomberg? Our politicians are honestly such a disgrace.
Sorry i meant it ‘has’ an astroturf park, not that it is one. And judging by the way the city is soliciting bids, this is going to be the cheapest, most shittiest construction in LIC. I’d prefer the current quiet wasteland, to the failed development that’s inevitable. I also agree that the private developers of QW did a good job overall. It should be market rate and done privately, #2 is absolutely right.
Citylights was partially market-rate partially subsidized and it’s a HUGE success.
Wait, Hunter’s Point has been developed in a purely free market way? You mean the city’s socially-engineered 15 year tax abatements have had NOTHING do to with spurring development in LIC? The state-chartered Queens West Development Corp has not master-planned the development of the neighborhood?
C’mon.
About half of the comments here sound like a schizophrenic libertarian talking to himself. I needed that laugh.
Thank you #14 and several previous commenters (same person?) for adding some sanity to this ridiculous thread!
Here is a question I’ve been meaning to ask the brokers in the area. I fit into the ‘middle’ income bracket (by a lot), and am currently looking to buy in one of the new construction buildings in LIC. So… how am I supposed to ever sell my place in the future when potential buyers can go get a similar place below market??
The tax abatements really don’t benefit the buyers. This HPS development constitutes government handouts. It is ridiculous entitlement grabbing.
I believe the tax abatement approach will prove to be a mistake. It’s like throwing out hundred dollar bills into a crowd. It’s not real economic stimulation, it just causes a momentary frenzy.
18- Disagree. The abatements are not really to the benefit of the buyer, but they are still beneficial. It allows for developments to be profitable where they otherwise may not be, which spurs needed development of better-quality housing.
Tax abatements had nothing to do with the sucess of queens west, it was the city’s commitment to the area and investement in street, parks, and infrastructure as well as the master plan that made it possible. No smart developer would have built any building here without that level of commitment.
There is no 15 year abatements. Each of the new building pay PILOT payments (payments in lieu of taxes) which are the same as RE taxes. I believe they phase in over 15 years. (In year 15 there is a full assessment of taxes.) The building are also required to make contribution towards to upkeep of the parks and public space.
There were no developer handouts. Each building was built using private funds – no government subsidies. This is the a complete opposite from the way hunters point south is being handled.
What I meant by “backfiring” is that the ditto heads who like to associate modest governmental protection with the concept of social engineering either do not know history or are intentionally twisting facts. “Backfiring” is for example the lack of oversight that allowed the financial melt down. Or it is the free market “drill baby drill” mentality that is particularly poignant now. Some degree of government regulation is necessary because corporate entities – whose basic goal is essentially power and profit – can gain leverage over society as a whole. This is not to say that corporations are evil. It is that larger conglomerates of any kind can become mindless and amoral. Why do people keep forgetting that our country was founded to protect its citizens not it’s business entities.
Waterfront development is a complicated issue. We need to get away from the fake hyped luxury crap. We need housing and business space and business opportunities for the average middle class who have been shunned by government and business alike. Admittedly government screws up as well and often. Astroturf is a bad idea however and it reflects how badly thought out other aspects of HPS may turn out to be.
The moral is be involved.
#20, you imply there were no abatements but there were. And the government did indeed do everything in its power to throw an easy pitch of the property and infrastructure to mega development. It did not have to do it this way. There could have been smaller parcels with opportunities for local smaller scale development that might have fit in more naturally with the neighborhood’s than emerging growth. Whatever. I just think it’s hypocritical for people to say government should not interfere when it applies to affordable housing but remain act like nothing happened when government in effect subsidizes upscale development.
21 and 22- you are diverging from reality. The developments at Queens West had to be large because of the remediation costs. And large developments are appropriate- this is a world-class location in New York City.
As for regulation- smart, effective regulation is a helpful function of government, but please stop demonizing business. Without productive private-sector business, there is no robust citizenry.
22, thank you. The tax breaks, incentives, rebates, and whatever other giveaways that wealthy individuals and corporations in this city and country get dwarf anything in proportional terms that working class individuals and small businesses get.
When government money is showered on the rich, it’s inevitably called stimulative and always spun in positive terms. But when the poor slobs get their pittances, it’s called welfare, and the red-faced “libertarians” (i.e, you know, the rich white Republican men) go apoplectic and cry foul.
24, your response is to typical. the minute someone expresses a desire for fiscal restraint the first response is well what about corporate welfare you are in favor of that right. Well guess what – any true fiscal conserverative is against handouts of any kind. I’m against bank bailout, farm subsidies, tax credits, etc., so take that argument elsewhere. When LIQ posts and article regarding corporate welfare I will speak out against that, but this is about social welfare and there is no business for the city to bribe developers to go along with this affordable housing scheme. We don’t have the money for it and it would be far better for the city to sell the land and let the market dictate what gets built there.
22, just because you say it doesn’t make it true. Please identify the specific abatements that you are talking about. Remember that we discussed the PILOT payments already. Every builidng in Queens west was constructed using private funds. The city paid for infrastructure – nothing more. Small scale development is completely unrealistic. The cost of land alone makes it financialy unattainable. I love when people who never spend a day in their life in finance, real estate, construction, etc. make statement like that. It really reflects just a fundamental understanding of how our markets work.
23, I did not demonize business. I own three. I merely pointed out that the primary focus of business is to make money and that business is generally amoral.
As for a large development being appropriate, true but not of necessity. I could easily see a world class development of an entirely different character that might be equally profitable or at least not as ugly and lifeless.
25, same thing can be said to you. Just because you say so doesn’t make it so. There are countless ways to show that small scale development works. I don’t have all day to educate you but I will give you one easy case that I think most can understand. Queens west managed to spit out one building within its first two decades where it had a lock on the land. Smaller scale development would have taken place sooner and perhaps without the same degree of displacement the existing neighborhood has experienced. Or just add up the population of the partially filled buildings and ask yourself how quickly would two to five story town houses have filled up? Another point is that remediation costs have been primarily a function of digging deeper than necessary. And even if I do not include PILOT abatements, all of the shilling and side funding, and custom tailored infrastructure that State & City government has done for the private developers could have just as easily been directed toward local growth.
By the way, I’m fine with subsidies when fairly and equally distributed. The lop-sided sense that only large enterprises deserve our attention is IMO misguided.
Remediation wouldn’t have been necessary had it not been for corporate polluters…
27, if you worked a day in your life in finance you would know that you are living in a dream world. Back in 2001 (before the real estate market got frothy) Pepsi sold its land to Rockrose for $50M. The Pepsi site was about 21 acres. How many townhomes would you need to sell in order to recoup just the land acquisition costs alone?
back in the real world Rockrose bought the parcel from Pepsi and gave the land to the Queens West Development Corporation and leased it back for a nominal amount. Rockrose built the infrastructure: streets, utilities, parks and bulkhead. In addition to that there was the demolition cost and the environmental remediation. There was the cost of construction, finance charges, sales and market budgets all that get added to the cost of the land. How many townhomes do you need to sell now to make the project economically viable? Can you fit the number of townhomes you would need to just break even on the size of this parcel?
To say that the purpose of business is to make money is too broad brush. The purpose of any good business it so provide the best goods or services that it produces, given the costs and resources.
24- I see you don’t add any facts to your incorrect statements. Over 40% of the households in this country pay no federal income tax. That is a lot of middle and low income people who are getting breaks.
29, you are among the naive newcomers who think life here began circa 2000. You need to dig further back to the late 1970′s if you are going to have an accurate picture of how the waterfront development came about. Also please don’t patronize me with your supposed greater knowledge of how things work as a the financial world insider you pretend to be. The very fact that you do not see an alternative to mega-development reveals your lack of insight and more notably your blind spots.
What in the world do you think was the alternative to high-rise development on the LIC waterfront?
#30, the number is closer to 50%. We have a tax system that exempts almost half the country from paying for the programs that benefit everyone, including national defense, public safety, infrastructure, health care and education. It is a system in which the top 10 percent of earners pay about 73% of the income taxes collected by the federal government. The bottom 40%, on average, make a profit from the federal income tax, meaning they get more money in tax credits than they would otherwise owe in taxes. For those people, the government actually sends them a payment. Its a great deal if you are among those 50% who are getting something for nothing.
#32, The alternative is what it was prior – undeveloped trash strewn fields. Even if you go back to the 80′s why wasn’t any of this so-called “organic” development done before the city got involved?
People like 33 love to present it as mega high rise versus “undeveloped trash strewn fields”. It’s a gross oversimplification. There are countless development scenarios worldwide that take a more contextual approach. The question as to where was this organic growth before the City got involved is ludicrous. That organic growth was just that.. i.e. organic growth.
You clearly want to argue that nothing would have changed, grown, or evolved without the government stepping in and handing the land over to mega developers. So, first off that should be offensive to the supposed free market individualists. But my argument is different, I say that if the City stepped in – which I do consider useful – and had supported development that was more closely scaled to the community, there would have been the exact population if not more by this time and there would have been an equal surge in value with less economic disruption.
But see, I’m not a genius like some are here. I am willing to admit I am only guessing. Others are so brilliant and sure of their ideas that no one can dare offer any diverging opinion.
The $50 mil valuation on the land was predicated on rezoning for high rise towers. If the city hadn’t bent over and rezoned in order to artificially spur development, then the land would never have sold for that price. This idea that things just had to happen the way they did is absolutely false.
Yes, corporations DO benefit from government largesse.
Again 34, you mischaracterize what happened as “handing the land over to mega developers”. Nothing was handed over and in many cases as noted above the developers bought the land (at inflated prices according to 35) and GAVE it to the city. They further built the streets, parks and other infrastructure that the city now owns
Yes the city stepped in and developed a master plan that developers could execute. A plan that was economically feasible. Has the city stepped in a designed a plan that is not economically feasible – like a low rise development plan, or the Hunters Point South Plan it would also need to step in and provide incentives for it to get build. To a free market individualist I have no problem with Queens West. I do have a problem with the government sponsored/funded Hunters point south.
The bigger issue here is the fact that this HPS is just terrible for the neighborhood. These huge buildings will ruin the waterfront, cast huge shadows over Gantry Park, will bring extra people with no extra transportation, the park will have astroturf which will be hot and dirty. The list goes on and on.
I plan to leave the neighborhood now long before this ever gets completed.
We need to get organized people! Are there any active groups in the area that are currently trying to influence the development?
36, I do wish you would occasionally do some fact checking on your own words. I am not aware of any situation where private developers ‘gave’ property to the City. In fact you don’t even have the ownership correct. Gantry park for example is a State Park. Much of the waterfront land was under the Port of NY Authority’s ownership by the way before being passed to the Empire State Development Corporation (another quasi government body) that ended up under cloudy circumstances and then became the Queens West Dev Corp. QWDC was very closely and cozily aligned with the development industry by way of its appointees from the private sector.
And let’s set the record straight, the plan has proved just barely economically feasible after some 30 years – not the ten years originally forecast. The so called geniuses in the incestuous financial world love to dictate what is “financially feasible” and then hem and haw about unexpected market conditions when their predictions are crap. In the same arrogant breath they love to dictate what is “not financially feasible” but they never actually even run the numbers. I know for fact having many opportunities to be an insider. The simple reason is the veracious desire to turn the fastest buck. There is no interest in the community.
Anyway, only difference between Queens West & HPS is luxury versus OMG middle class. Both projects are equally draining.
On a slightly different topic, or two, does anyone know what they are building on 50th Ave between 5th St and Center Blvd? It looks massive, who’s the developer and what’s it gonna be? Also, any details on the new yellow awning on 50th Ave. titled “Bistro”? Thank you.
38, my observation is that only a handful of people attend and speak at Community Board meetings. But this is one of the only ways that the Board – particularly its members from farther away from Hunters Point – become aware of our local concerns.
#38 – Unfortunately it’s basically too late. The city pushed this project thru years ago and purposely didn’t call much attention to the details. Remember that this land was originally going to be used for Olympic Village.
The best we can hope for is that developers get scared off either from the financials or it turns out that this land is polluted and not safe to build on (which is possible)
39, do some fact checking of your own:
The transaction closed Friday and was described yesterday by the participants. Rockrose bought the land from PepsiCo but the title transferred directly to Queens West, which is leasing seven parcels back to Rockrose for 99 years at $1 a year. PepsiCo donated 11.65 acres of waterfront land worth tens of millions of dollars, said Dave DeCecco, a spokesman for Pepsi-Cola North America.
Rockrose estimates that it will pay $100 million to prepare the site: $65 million to the Queens West Development Corporation, a subsidiary of the Empire State Development Corporation, to construct bulkheads, streets, parks and utilities; $20 million to PepsiCo for the property; and the rest to meet planning, design and financing costs.
Clearly the economics work to Rockrose’s benefit- they’re not a company motivated by greater social good. Giving the land to the QWDC in exchange for a 99 year lease actually absolves them of significant liability and is a shrewd business decision.
And it’s no largesse on PepsiCo’s part- they donate land to the state to avoid having to pay for the remediation themselves, and they write it off their corporate taxes. Big deal.
The bottom line, though, is that anyone opposing HPS is pretty much screwed, because this is a Bloomberg pet project, and if you want to stop it, you better have better political connections and resources than him… good luck with that.
As far as the astroturf goes, that’s a city-wide meta issue. NYC Parks is replacing ALL natural grass fields with astroturf fields, because they’re lower maintenance (and while there’s no shortage of capital funds for new projects, no one ever funds operating budgets to the level they should be funded). All of the ones I’ve seen are just fine. Look at the grass field in Gantry, for example. Even with a full time staff, after only one year, the natural grass field is already a mess with clumps of weeds.
From the city’s perspective, they can either subsidize housing for lower middle class city employees to keep them in the city, contributing to the city’s economy, or they’ll have to increase salaries for public employees to compete with the cities and counties outside of NYC where those folks can afford to live. I’m friends with plenty of NYPD and FDNY folks, and they ALL live outside the city because they can’t find the standard of living for their families inside of NYC. And with PD’s in Nassau and Suffolk paying better wages than NYPD, you’ve got a real drain- all the good folks get out when they can. So the city government has identified this as a priority- building pockets of attractive middle class housing with preference for city workers. Maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t, but it’s not simply a do-gooder liberal plot to spend taxpayer money…
42, thanks – do you know what testing they are supposed to do check the pollution levels? I read the EIS and it’s clearly stated there that there is additional testing to be done, but I don’t know how to find out what they are actually doing. Any suggestions?
40, are you referring to the building next to the Powerhouse? (50th Ave between 5th St and Center Blvd)? It’s the same developer as the PH, it will be residential condos or rental (still not decided) 12-storey building with a parking underneath. He apparently is also planning to build on the north side of the PH, but I heard he is still looking for financing
44, still no justification for astroturf – it’s toxic, unsafely hot during the summer and who is going to cover yhe maintenance of washing off the birds’ sh…t? typically you don’t have a huge issue with the latter, but being on the waterfront it needs to be considered. There was a big discussion during the public hearing last fall, but the City just ignored the arguments. So typical
I don’t think it’s too late – there are changes to the project plan that can be made if people get together and write letters / collect signatures and send them to elected officials. The folks in the City are just useless paper-pushers
43, are you really that naive to think that constitutes a gift and that there was no government subsidy? Also again, you are not digging back far enough to even understand how the land was acquired and transferred two decades earlier. Maybe you weren’t born yet so it’s hard to go back that far. Anyway, it really doesn’t matter as Queens West truly is a done deal and if all the big unfilled boxes looks like progress to you, I can’t change you. Strange that the same people who love Queens West hate HPS. I see them as pretty damn similar. The whole baloney argument about subsidies is a smokescreen. The reality is QW folks got suckered into thinking they had some exclusive waterfront thing and now they see that that’s just one of the ways they were taken. Hey forget it. You have a reasonably nifty place, enjoy it. Life is short.
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I love how people insist that they are right and then proven wrong and then come up another lame bs excuse of not “looking far enough back” I guess some government official bought the land from indians way back when. Is that what you are referring to?
44, that is a bunch of nonsense. You just insulted the great middle-class family neighborhoods in Queens and Brooklyn. There are plenty of good neighborhoods for middle class families in NYC. They shouldn’t get an entitlement to a world-class waterfront location.
52, you are the one using a lame ploy to cover your lack of knowledge and maintain your pretense of financial expertise. I already told you that the history of government and quasi government subsidizing private development for Queens West goes back to the late 1970′s. Your problem is that if you can’t Google it, it’s not real.
50, I pretty much knew that was your concern. I guess the glut of over-hyped over-priced poorly built and badly designed condos does not worry you one bit. I think the true agenda is that you have had the comfortable illusion of exclusivity promised to you by brokers. Bloomberg is really the one that sucker punched you.
53′s comment is yet another example of who bought in to the exclusive luxury hype. What you want is to live in a gated community. While there are the those who pretend to be from the older neighborhood and love to repeat the tired waterfront wasteland routine, the simple fact is that Upzoning ripped up the fabric of this neighborhood. Few Condo buyers knew that and many did not give a crap. Now you are experiencing an almost exact upheaval that we did. Only difference is that our values were primarily about community and a peaceful place. Yours seems to be about investment value and what class of people you will have to rub shoulders with.
No, the problem is that I don’t live my life by reference to events that took place 50 years ago. Its really sad when you think about it.
What’s done is done. Now those who live here want what is best. Are you saying we all should allow the neighborhood to be ruined further just because you don’t like what has happened already?
I totally agree with the basic view that those who live here want what is best. The hard part is gaining an effective consensus on how to prevent further ruin. I doubt we can go against Bloomberg and stop HPS. We can I believe be a continual irritant and voice that should be heard. But if we as a group are going to destroy ourselves with infighting and not discover common ground, we will all lose.
It is too late to stop the entire HPS project but I have no doubt we can at least influence it. Things such as pushing for additional subway service and parking which there will be very little of, limiting the height of certain buildings towards the north end where most of us currently live (the previous height restrictions were lifted just for HPS project) and so on.
Sorry my math is off 1970 was 40 years ago not 50 I stand corrected. 1970 is however as irrelevant to today as 1960 is. Join us in the 21st century.
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57, I guess I’m a little confused when you say HPS will “ruin” the neighborhood. Can you give me some specifics about how exactly the area will be ruined, beyond the obvious issues of crowded subways (which, by the way, the EIS said would NOT be the case)?
The only other impacts I can imagine are similar to those that have already taken place in the area for nearly 20 years now — more people, noise, toxic remediation, etc. If I remember correctly, many of the new condo residents were resigned to those things because they saw it as just part of the necessary effects of redevelopment. So what’s different now?
Why not look at the bright side? There’s an obvious upside to the new population in LIC, as new shops and services will eventually move in. It’s difficult for me to understand your impassioned pessimistic arguments when I don’t know what exactly you are so freaked out about.
#61 Be real. Tthe degree of overcrowding on the #7 train will not be the same with and without HPS and the seven 30 floor towers with 5,000 apartments it is going to bring. The only saving grace is that the majority of people going into HPS will not have jobs so they wont have to ride the train on rush hour.
As for people hating on City Lights they should also be real. Before it arrived there was nothing in LIC. It is and always will be the neighborhood, which is why everyone is jealous and wants to live there.
honestly theres no crowding between queens boro to times sq at all.
the train is crowded between flushing and qb. lol then a drove of ppl get off at qb, and leaves the train pretty empty and seat grabbable between qb and times sq. lol trust, i had to take the full 7 train commute for 10 years.
on top of that, both the local and express service qb thru times sq!!!
if you want to see crowded, try getting onto a l train on bedford during morning rush.
Is HPS that many builidngs/appartments? That seems like the addition of another 1.5x to 2x the number of appartments that are in Queens West today. HPS seems like it is going to engulf the area. I can understand why people are so upset. They should have built it in Greenpoint where it is still heavily industrial and it wouldnt be as likely to drop the property values of existing owners.
Blaming Van Brammer for the HPS mess isnt going to do much. Granted it would help if he was less supportive of it. However, it is way too far along to stop at this point. The people who deserve the balme are people like Eric Gioia who did nothing to stop it when there was still a chance. As it stands now, Queens West is way too crowded with all the new Rockrose buildings. With HPS, it is going to be unbearable.
I’m not blaming Van Bramer for anything, except continuing to blindly praise this project. Sure, Gioia probably had a chance to fight this, but he had other priorities, not the future of LIC. Van Bramer, sorry he’s a great person I’m sure, but as a politician he’s not helping LIC either by just jumping on this bandwagon. Besides, he probably has other aspirations also so he doesn’t care so much to really see how this is going to hurt the neighborhood unless it’s done properly. If van bramer really cares about the future of LIC he would help get rid of the plastic park and make sure they do the school right, not just publicly pat the mayor’s back. Oh yeah, and what about that library?
HPS is going to be a positive thing for LIC if they keep the middle income restrictions. We must make sure that it does not become a section 8 or low income project. LIC already has its fair share of low income housing with the Queens Bridge Projects.
The new middle income residents will bring additional amenities to the area. While it will have an extra burden to the 7 line, we must remember that the LIRR will in the near future have a stop in Grand Central Station which will reduce the crowd of commuters that transfer on Hunters Point from the LIRR to the 7 line. We should also push for better bus lines that take people directly into the city or why not a pedestrian bridge across the East River.
By the way CB2 is about to give away more FAR for the library. Didn’t they learn last time?
Where did you hear that #72? They better not. They can’t even find funding for the small library they were going to build, if they make it bigger where will the money come from? And it better not be for condos on top of the library!
Condos on top would at least make sure it gets built. That the problem w/ government funded transactions – they never happen because the money is never in the budget. Why do you think QW was such a sucess and why HPS will be a failure. Private enterprise can don anything that government does better and more efficiently.
70, that’s a populist generality that sounds great in principle but does not really hold up to reality. There are plenty of examples of successful well run operations by government and plenty of failures by big business. The knee jerk reaction that just because it is a government project, it will be a failure is illogical. Also to say that QW is successful is only true if you ignore its first two decades of failure.
These Pratt people are ridiculous. Why should anyone be entitled to a brand new, beautiful waterfront, Manhattan view apartment at a subsidized low rent?