Despite Outcry, Broadway Triangle Development Approved

On Tuesday night, Brooklyn's Community Board 1 voted 23-12 to convert a 31-acre area zoned for manufacturing on the border of Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant into 1,895 low-rise apartments. But the highly controversial plan for the so-called Broadway Triangle still faces bitter opposition from community groups who say they were cut out of the planning process. Opponents complain that the city awarded housing contracts to non-profits tied to influential Assemblyman Vito Lopez—the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg and the Bushwick Ridgewood Senior Citizens Council—without putting the sites up for bid. Marty Needelman, a Broadway Triangle Community Coalition lawyer, says the project excludes Hispanic and African-American groups, and his group will file a lawsuit accusing the city of violating anti-discrimination laws. Opponents actually want the buildings to be much taller than the planned eight stories; Needelman says the height cap is a sop to the area's Orthodox Jewish families, who can't use elevators on the Sabbath. He tells the Daily News, "The people who voted yes sold their soul to a corrupt deal." For more on the controversy, Brooklyn Paper takes an in-depth look.

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By John Del Signore in News on July 16, 2009 10:25 AM

Comments [rss]

NannyState

Give them their shtetl and be done with it.

Tower18

Yeah I don't understand why they can't build however high they want, but then if you're an Orthodox Jew, you only live as high as you feel comfortable walking.

inoyourider

So no more elevator buildings because Jewish people CHOOSE not to use elevators on their holy day. Therefore no one can have them.

brooklyn and i

Broadway Triangle Development Approved is the best for the williamsburg Bed-Stuy

thanks for lopaz!!!!

snappaloosa

For two years in the late 90's, I lived on Throop ave at Walton, spitting distance from the JMZ station. The place was an absolute DEAD ZONE. There was nothing there but decrepit housing, mostly 8 units or less, and run-down industrial sites in various stages of disuse and abandonment. It was positively desolate at night. I'd be happy to see *any* sort of improvement in the area.

nycnewsjunkie

Put somthing there. I just google.mapped the "zone" and 1/2 of the lots are vacant or parking lots (vehicle/ truck dumps).

books

ever notice in east williamsburg the public housing is divided btwn jewish and minorities? How does that happen. How did the Jewish familys get the housing with driveways down by the water and the coloreds got the high rise projects?

CR

Simple - they're better organized and connected.

books

don't you mean corrupt?

chris

NIMBY bastards.

Welcome to progress. Your community needs reasonable housing that isn't a vague luxury condo.

books

bs the community needs what they what they decide - not you or the some people in manhattan decide.

chris

if everyone in a community got to decide for themselves what it is needed for the good of the greater area, we'd have no prisons, no parking, no city garages, no utility stations, no non-indigenous residents, no bars, no chains of any kind, and bike only roads.