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June 24, 2010
BQE planners take Heights off the hit list
The Brooklyn Paper
by Gary Buiso
Eminent domain is off the table for BQE renovation in Brooklyn Heights. But it's still on the table for less fancy neighborhoods — and, of course, for big private real estate development projects.
State officials have slammed the brakes on a controversial plan to eviscerate part of historic Brooklyn Heights in order to modernize the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, conceding on Wednesday night that the shocking scheme is untenable.
A week after our exclusive report that the state was considering condemning buildings in the northern part of the neighborhood as part of a long-term project to widen the roadway, the Department of Transportation announced that it would simply need to buy too many homes and businesses near Willow and Middagh streets.
When they finally did a ground survey, state inspectors discovered that 300-400 residential units and 80 commercial properties would need to be condemned, admitted Peter King, a project manager overseeing the $300-million first phase of the renovation of the BQE between Atlantic Avenue and Sands Street.
“You cannot talk about an alternative that runs roughshod in a neighborhood, regardless of what benefits you might have,” King told a stakeholders group that met at St. Francis College on Remsen Street.
Apparently you can, however, if the benefits inure mostly to a private developer.
But just because homes in the northern heights have been saved, doesn’t mean that eminent domain is off the table.
That’s because other possible scenarios to cure the aging highway include lower-impact designs that would involve little new construction and no property takings, but also three tunnel alignments that would involve property takings at the south end of the tube, at Kane Street in Cobble Hill, and at the northern portal at North Portland Avenue in Fort Greene.
“Depending on what we do, there may need to be takings,” King said. “Eminent domain is a tool, but taking away property is a very serious issue.”
NoLandGrab: We're not advocating for the use of eminent domain, least of all for a highway that cuts through a dense, vibrant urban neighborhood. But only in New York is eminent domain verboten for a highway project but just peachy for a basketball arena and 16 privately owned high rises.
Posted by eric at June 24, 2010 10:10 AM