Greenpoint residents furious over high-rise plan near Bushwick Inlet

GREENPOINT — A PLAN TO BUILD two high-rise towers on the north side of Bushwick Inlet on the Greenpoint waterfront is drawing the ire of locals, who want the parcel of land to instead be folded into nearby Bushwick Inlet Park, reports Greenpointers.

The site, 40 Quay, is currently owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and used for vehicle storage. The developer selected by the authority for a public-private partnership, Gotham Organization, is now seeking zoning changes that would allow for the construction of a 600-foot and 450-foot skyscraper complex, including around 1,000 apartments, at least 25% of them affordable and senior housing, as well as a home for the Monitor Museum, retail space, and MTA facilities.

The MTA would receive around $40 million in exchange, money that the authority says it urgently needs and ”has a statutory obligation” to pursue; the developer would also be obligated to make annual payments to the Parks Department and to construct public spaces, including a waterfront walkway and open throughway.

Area residents, led by Friends of Bushwick inlet park and sister group Save the Inlet, have strongly condemned the plan, and have done so since the MTA first announced its intention to seek a developer in 2019; Community Board 1 and other politicians at that time sent a letter to then-Governor Andrew Cuomo, advocating for the purchase of the parcel for parkland instead, describing it as the best-possible use of the land for the community.

Save the Inlet characterizes Bushwick Inlet as a vital wildlife area – one, as the Eagle reports, currently undergoing environmental remediation – and warns that light-reflecting glass towers could pose a risk to migratory birds. The group also believes the 3,000 new residents would overwhelm the already-crowded neighborhood, that the luxury status of the building could lead to further gentrification, that the MTA’s price for the development rights is too low, and that building just 50 feet from the waterfront could create a flood risk with future climate change.

The city recently finished demolition on the CitiStorage building located on the final parcel of the park’s planned area, first promised in 2005 as a part of then-Mayor Bloomberg’s Greenpoint-Williamsburg waterfront rezoning. That move saw large chunks of the Northern Brooklyn waterfront rezoned to allow for residential tower development, in exchange for open, public green spaces.

The CitiStorage site at that time was identified as part of the future park, but progress moved slowly, enough so that its value eventually ballooned to $160 million when the city finally negotiated the sale with its owner a decade later. Residents now say that the MTA’s site would represent a golden opportunity to expand the park for a substantially lower cost.

The northern edge of Bushwick Inlet was always slated to be included in Bushwick Inlet Park. Planning documents from 2004 through 2006, however, show that the city at that point considered the MTA’s more inland parcel a “potential development site” for residential towers of heights up to 400 feet with affordable housing commitments. Illustrative massing images from 2004, featured in a 2006 Department of City Planning presentation on area zoning amendments, projected blocky buildings rising on the inlet’s north side as one possible site configuration, in keeping with what the city described as its “waterfront development principles.”

While opponents warned that the proposed towers would cast long shadows over the park and inlet, a shadow analysis conducted by the city in 2005 did find that “No new incremental shadows from the projected/potential development would extend into the Bushwick Inlet or the portion of the proposed Inlet Park located north of the inlet,” – although, since this analysis was conducted under lower height assumptions than the 40 Quay proposal’s 600-foot peak, it’s unclear whether this conclusion still holds.

A Community Board 1 hearing on the project will be held starting at 6 p.m. on April 1 at the Polish and Slavic Center at 176 Java St.

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