City Council Land Use Subcommittee Hears Testimony on Domino Sugar Factory

The City Council “land use subcommittee on zoning and franchises” heard testimony yesterday at a daylong hearing on the proposed development of the Domino Sugar Factory site on Kent Avenue in Williamsburg. The developers have been putting this idea together for five years, and it showed. An impressive array of community and church leaders, architects, real estate people, and assorted beneficiaries of the largesse of CPCR (the developers) came out to support the plan. So too did a representative for Congresswoman Nydia Velasquez; and executives from the two key Latino community organizations in Williamsburg, Los Sures and El Puente. And filing into the chamber were scores of people in bright yellow t-shirts emblazoned with “Domi-YES!”

Opponents of the “New Domino” plan held a rally on the steps of City Hall just before the hearing, and assemblyman Vito Lopez fumed against the “paid t-shirts.”

“It’s outrageous," said Lopez. "No one I know here has any paid t-shirts, and no one I know here stands to make 400 million dollars on this project.”

The costume party did seem to disrespect the hearing and therefore to work against CPCR, exposing a hint of cynicism. As the hearing got underway, you could almost see the gates slamming down over the eyes of the council members seated along the dais. It was no fashion show.

What is was, and what it is shaping up to be, is a face-off between Vito Lopez and his protégé councilman Stephen Levin on the one side, and Velasquez and councilwoman Diana Reyna on the other. Reyna and Levin both represent Williamsburg, although the Domino site is in Levin’s district. Reyna supports it, Levin wants to send it back for revision.

The developers want to build 2,200 units in a complex of towers rising as high as 40-storeys on both sides of the old Domino refinery, with 30% of those units being low-income. A key point of contention is that the developers are claiming the site is exempt from restrictions imposed by the 2005 waterfront rezoning; because the Domino factory was still in operation at that time and had not been rezoned. One opposition group holds that the “New Domino” plan exceeds by 21% those restrictions on size.

Councilman Levin says the site should comply with the limitations imposed by the 2005 rezoning, and he is clearly aiming for a scale-down of the project. He does not, at this point anyway, seem to be considering any kind of a “new vision” for the site. However, in view of what the councilman is up against, I commend him for standing his ground yesterday against “business as usual.”

Levin grilled CPCR executives on the density and size of the project, and he snagged one proponent after another on a simple question — “Would you support this plan if it could be scaled down, but still retain its 660 low-income units and the other community benefits promised in the plan?”

The question was intended to smoke out the fact that CPCR really has no interest in bargaining or compromising on the plan. It worked. Most people he asked were stumped. Only one person said “sure” without blinking. It looked as if the developer’s tactic had been simply to come heavily armed and make a forced march through the hearing.

To be sure, the proponents of the plan made some valid arguments, notably that the plan does address affordable housing, and that it does so forthrightly to the Latino community that has suffered most from displacement on account of gentrification. Diane Reyna cited a decline of more than 14,000 Latinos in Williamsburg in the past 20 years, from a Latino population of over 67,000 in 1990. This decline is a difficult figure to verify, but it is probably conservative.

Assemblyman Lopez underscored Reyna's point in impassioned language. “Six-hundred units! Are you kidding? We need three thousand. I get calls every day at my office from people who’ve been here all their lives and they are being forced out of their homes. We are creating a gold coast here.”

Finally, this reporter’s name was called, and I testified for the plan that Stephen Zacks has articulated on behalf of that loose consortium of urbanists who circulate around, well, Stephen Zacks. His letter and proposal on the Domino site is worth a read:

During the hearing, councilman Levin and many others repeatedly talked about density in the neighborhood, especially overcrowding on the L train in Williamsburg, a situation they say would be exacerbated by the proposed Domino development. I argued that the way to alleviate stress on the subway is to create jobs in Williamsburg so people don’t have to get on the subway. And the way to preserve communities is by creating high quality jobs and industries for those communities. And the way to create those jobs and industries is by starting a high-tech “green” industrial center and business incubator at the site in question … Domino University!

Public speaking is hard. Some people are too shy, some are too theatrical. As I came off the podium, Zacks said my delivery was suitably “dramatic.” But I knew it was a backhanded compliment. (Disclosure: Zacks and I were in vaudeville together years ago.)

It was the testimony of Stephen Zacks that got Levin’s attention and had the councilman pursuing him with questions. Zacks rather surprised the room by saying he has no problem with the height of the towers, no problem with the density, no real problem with the plan in general … except that it is “boring.” It is simply not visionary enough, it does not do justice to the legacy and the grandeur of the location.

This broke with the repetitive theme of real estate and housing that had dominated the hearing, and indeed which dominates most discussions of development in Williamsburg. To be sure, my own group at facebook Urbanum Tremendum has talked about education and business incubation. Another opposition group in Williamsburg has talked about museums and cultural tourism at the Domino site. But the urbanism of Stephen Zacks was a new voice, full of informed ideas.

Zacks talks about a “downtown Williamsburg” with a reconfigured transportation infrastructure, easing congestion on the existing system, flowing commerce and investment “to the east,” rescuing the “hapless” intersection of the BQE and the JMZ and "inclining" it all toward the new landscape design currently underway for the "BQE trench." Zacks dares even to look over the ancient wall of Flushing Avenue into “Brooklyn proper” of all places. All this in view of the potential economic reach of the Domino site, which he compares to the High Line in Chelsea.

And when it comes to leveraging the “creative economy” of Williamsburg, there’s no stopping Stephen Zacks:

“It is a community filled with entrepreneurs busy inventing software, designing spaces, opening shops, crafting objects, making clothing, producing magazines and newspapers and websites, working in and starting some of the best restaurants, fashion houses, and design firms in the city. They’re college graduates turning rooftops into farms, and kitchens into start-up companies selling organic food and creating beautiful and unheard of fusions of ethnic cuisines. They’re milling the interiors and industrial designed products and modeling the high-design spaces of Manhattan and the rest of the city and country. They’re teaching in the city’s expanding universities, creating new musical genres, writing movies, books, and dramas for television. They’re performing scientific and medical research, curing diseases, and transforming our ability to live healthy lives.”

Who, the hipsters? Precisely. But not only them:

“A part of the [Domino] facility would be specifically programmed by stakeholders from the Eastern European, Puerto Rican, Italian, and Jewish communities that have made the area their home, along with the West Indian communities to the southeast whose historical relationship to sugar plantations and Domino sugar is particularly important.”

Finally, the “Zacks Paper” was the only testimony at yesterday’s City Hall hearing that used positive language to address the matter of the Domino Sugar site:

“Don't just vote no. Let's start a process by which we can make this project great. Let's form a working group within the city's department of design and construction in cooperation with the NYC Economic Development Corporation that actively develops sites like these in neighborhoods everywhere around the city. Let's create special places that we LOVE and think of with affection.”

Let us hope our elected officials have that much love in their hearts for Williamsburg. See Zacks' paper — A Call for New Vision for Urban Development at the Domino Sugar Site.

Council-Manic Followup

Well there you go. Our candidate Evan Thies came in fourth of the seven contenders for the city council seat from Brooklyn’s 33rd District. The winner was Stephen Levin, who won by a landslide with 5199 votes, or 33.71 percent of the return. Levin ran with the endorsement of US Senator Chuck Schumer, and was generally considered the candidate to run against.

This was an energetic and very competitive race. But at the same time, voter turnout was abysmally low in this district. Joe Anne Simon came in second (3109 votes), followed by Isaac Abraham (1937 votes), Evan Thies (1915 votes), Ken Diamondstone (1324 votes), and two others with about a thousand votes each.

These numbers are no larger than popular facebook pages. If you could commit 20 friends, that was big. If you could lock in a housing project or a senior center, that was a landslide. And canvassing outside the Park Slope Food Coop, for example, was quite a different thing from canvassing the subway rush hour at Grand Army Plaza. At the Plaza, I was amazed by how many hipsters I encountered who clearly had no intention of even remembering that it were an election day.

I was also surprised by how many Republicans there are in Park Slope, streaming out of the subway in seersucker suits and Tilly hats, into the brownstone neighborhood. And they were politically more alive than most others in the crowd. This is from the street, not statistics, but time and again it was, “Nope, not voting, I’m a Republican.” (Remember, this was technically just the Democratic Primary, but in a heavily Democratic district where the GOP will probably not waste money running a candidate in a final election.)

In theory, had Diamondstone and Thies thrown their support behind Simon, the seat would have gone to Simon. But then the race would not have been nearly as interesting or as revealing of the political dynamics in this part of Brooklyn. The 33rd includes, as I remarked last time, those parts of Brooklyn that you see in the movies: most of the famous waterfront and bridges, all of downtown Brooklyn, and most of the Brooklyn neighborhoods that have gentrified fastest over the past twenty years. It is no wonder this district is heating up politically. Only two of the city’s 51 council districts ran more than six candidates in this election. Most ran three to five. A district in northern Manhattan ran eight candidates, and the 33rd in Brooklyn ran seven.

Evan Thies probably did best in Williamsburg and Greenpoint, where he lives and has a strong base among young veterans of the Obama campaign. He was also the only candidate in the race who lives in the northern reach of the district.

The 33rd is a gerrymandered district whose northern provinces of Williamsburg and Greenpoint have been long subsumed by the political clout of downtown Brooklyn. This is a situation that will probably change as Brooklyn’s industrial north steadily fills up with artists and yuppies, and the area begins to get political traction in the form of people like Evan Thies.

The 33rd district should be reorganized. Its two parts are culturally and geographically quite different. It should be severed at the narrow strip of waterfront that presently connects its northern and southern reaches. Williamsburg and Greenpoint should be joined with their neighbors East Williamsburg and Bushwick (which presently reside in the 34th district) to form a contiguous northwest council district for Brooklyn.

There may be a political archeology to be uncovered in the present configuration, which may point to an attempt to divide and conquer the ancient “City of Williamsburgh.” That city had its own town hall and opera house up until 1855, when it was merged with the City of Brooklyn.

Evan Thies for New York City Council

Evan Thies, candidate for the 33rd city council district

There are seven people running in the Democratic primary for a seat on the New York City Council that has a tradition of being a political hot seat. That may have something to do with the fact that the 33rd councilmanic district takes in both the brownstone south and the industrial north of that part of Brooklyn that you usually see in the movies.

The two parts of this district are culturally and geographically separate. The south part includes the leafy warrens of Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope, and other brownstone neighborhoods. The north part is an area of industry, tenement buildings, and traditionally working class town houses.

The two reaches of this council district are connected by a narrow strip of waterfront, where there is a long-standing restaurant called Giando's. Years ago, I stood on the patio of that restaurant with Ken Fisher, who was the councilman at the time. We talked about development. Giando's had hosted a presentation by the local community board for a housing development on the Williamsburg waterfront. Already, waterfront development had become the subject of a viscous firefight among several factions in the neighborhood.

The Williamsburg waterfront at that time was still a magnificent wilderness of rust. Valleys of surreal industrial jungle were interspersed with the huge gaping caves of empty warehouses. It was an apocalyptic landscape of dense industry in the process of being reclaimed by nature. And it was in this environment that the first big wave of badass college kids in the neighborhood took up what had been a tradition among badass local kids — the warehouse party! Our parties were probably more self-consciously Nietzschean in conception than those of the Brooklyn gangs of the 1970s. But then again, maybe not. You never know. That was the joy and the mystery of it all. One thing is for sure, though, they were better publicized.

If the artists hold some responsibility for gentrification and the ridiculous piles of crap that now stand empty all over Williamsburg — and look like they were airlifted in from Boca Raton — at the very least we can say this: We did gentrification better, and our vision was better. It was during a recession in the early 90s that artists filled the empty warehouses, lofts, and storefronts of Williamsburg with myriad forms of activity.

Today, the real estate developers have botched the game. They have not held up their end of the gentrification bargain, have they now. They have blown who knows how much carbon into the atmosphere, and now they can't sell their pathetic cubicles of sheetrock. Their excuse is the economy. But in the artists' manual, that is a wimpy excuse. It speaks to a lack of imagination. And development in Williamsburg has been anything but imaginative.

We are accustomed to viewing artist culture as a prelude and a part of real estate development, where there is a trajectory from art to real estate. But that model comes into question now. Hipster-bohemian culture continues to expand and evolve in all kinds of ways into Williamsburg, East Williamsburg, and Bushwick. New condo development, on the other hand, not only stagnates, but it is also out of key with the vernacular of both the bohemian and the local culture. Why would you want to move to industrial, gritty, cool Brooklyn, to live like a piece of chatska in a display window? It is not just that the economy is slamming the developers, it's that the developers don't "get it." Their product is fundamentally unhip, in a market that demands hepitude.

It speaks, in other words, to a lack of vision. And this goes for the drones in city government as well, who for decades have systematically ignored the community and kissed up to real estate interests. The result is crap-shoot development. "City planning" in this picture amounts to little more than some landscaping for the high rises on the waterfront. Well, the city and its clients have made their bed and they can sleep in it. They wanted in and out, fast, and they got snagged. Too bad. So much for a fast buck. But worse, they have left nothing interesting, nothing of substance, nothing sustainable, nothing of enduring value to the community.

On September 15th I will vote for Evan Thies in the city council primaries. I believe he is earnest about responsible development in Brooklyn. Thies would also represent downtown Brooklyn, where a major sweetheart deal between the city and a big developer has also stalled on account of a bad economy and a dim vision.

To be sure, the Atlantic Yards area near downtown Brooklyn should be developed. It is presently a fallow holding lot for subway cars. ("It's embarrassing," said one Thies campaign worker.) But the plan that has been force fed to the community is tone deaf. The idea for a Major League basketball arena, for example, is seated in the nostalgia of a few old men. They want to recreate an Ebbets Field, bring back the Dodgers, whatever. It is not where Brooklyn is going. Better to have skateboard ramps and boxing rings.

Moreover, the properties around Atlantic Yards should not be sold off at a fraction of their market value. This cheats the people of New York City. Evan Thies thinks the plan is illegal and he is considering suing the city on that account. Thies wants to put the Atlantic Yards properties up for public auction, piece by piece, and look at a variety of ideas from the real world, and "See what we get."

My assessment of Thies is guided in part by the old maxim of judging the people around the man. There is a strong component of New Brooklyn here, untainted by the kind of cloying patter that so frequently dampens politics in this borough, on the left and the right. There is just something fresh about this candidate.