A PUBLIC TALK ON GENTRIFICATION in CROWN HTS - THIS SAT 9/27 7:30 ALL INVITED

THIS SATURDAY 9/27 7:30pm a public talk about Gentrification - Rent Controls & Resistance will take place at the FiveMyles Gallery at 558 St. Johns Place in Crown Heights. 

Everyone is invited to come down and join in. Two short films on the topic as it relates to Brooklyn will be shown, come down and meet the contributors to the Brooklyn Born blog as well as the filmmakers and Rachel Godsil, Director of NYC's Rent Guideline Board, and lenders of the Crown Heights Tenants Union.

Details on the flyer for more information contact Neta Alexander (NA889@nyu.edu)

Brooklyn Heights Public Library Slated for Redevelopment/Partial Sale

Architect's rendering of the proposed new library with residential rental units above.

I just noticed the news that the Brooklyn Public Library is selling the land of it's current Brooklyn Heights branch for $52 Million to developer Hudson Companies who will build a new library and market rate apartments on that space.

The new library will be physically smaller than the current but the press release says there will be more "usable" space in the new than currently available. Market rate for the area which is across from Cadman Plaza will make the apartments among the most expensive in the borough.

Personally I have no qualm with any of this. I don't know the exact number of people who make use of the library but I worked on a BPL project a few years back and the purpose of that project was their constant need to raise funds. Budgets have been tight at the libraries for decades. If the BPL can raise some much needed funds, without entirely closing a branch, in a neighborhood where I'm guess you'll find on average more private libraries in homes than most neighborhoods have books in their own public library, I don't see a major loss.

The libraries do need to continue finding ways to expand the vital services they provide like internet access and skills training so that they can stay viable and fund their branches in less well off neighborhoods. Selling the branch for apartments isn't going to be a revenue stream going forward.

I could be wrong. Do you have any thoughts to share?

News reports from NY1 http://www.ny1.com/content/news/215639/brooklyn-public-library-votes-to-sell-brooklyn-heights-branch-to-private-developer/

Brooklyn Eagle: http://www.brooklyneagle.com/articles/2014/9/16/breaking-brooklyn-public-library-approves-52-million-sale-brooklyn-heights-branch

And the most comprehensive coverage I found was on the Brooklyn Heights Blog:
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/70276

Photo Wednesday 4/3/13 Affordable Housing Edition

I tend to rail against condo developments for their usually high prices relative to local incomes so in the name of balance here's a large residential building nearly complete on Putnam near Classon Av (old Bedford-Stuyvestant-new Clinton Hill). It's called, appropriately, "Putnam Court"

According to the information on posted at the construction site, there are (or at one time were) 24 studio apartments as part of the development available for people who make under $28k annually.

The development on Rockwell Pl. (Near the Downtown McDonald's on Fulton) also a similar affordable housing allocation.

How many people who could really benefit from these deals, do you think know about them?I'll do some more research and see how this information becomes available to the public and publicized.

I very much like the design of the building and its attempts to match the surrounding architecture in a modern way. Frankly I'd love a lot more of the new and recently new Brooklyn condos and rentals if they blended as nicely as Putnam Court.

The project was built by Dunn Developers and details are also on the NY Times local CH/FG blog. 

In addition to providing housing to an a lot that previously was dilapidated and under used, part of the building sits on what had been a vacant lot there for decades) the development is a block away from the Clinton Hill Food Co-op, also on Putnam Ave.

So I just did some quick googling for more info about this project, and boy Brownstowner and I are really in sync lately, they just posted an article about this yesterday. From their article I find that the low rent for the studios translates to $618 per month income dependent.

Additionally I found this page on nyc.gov about affordable housing lotteries. www.nyc.gov/html/hpd/html/apartment/lotteries.shtml Try your luck!