Who is the Crown Heights South Association?

As you know, much energy and creativity continues to go into the fight to prevent the Department of City Planning from re-zoning our neighborhood in particular, Empire Boulevard. If Empire is changed from commercial to residential, Black Crown Heights will become Williamsburg. No amount of landmarking will prevent that. Empire is the fight.

Just as we are in court to fight CB9's illegal resolution letter to DCP, we are also fighting a PLGNA "study" of our area (not theirs!) funded by our elected officials, because any "community-based" study can be characterized by DCP as a request for a re-zoning. We have been successful in holding off DCP for over 2 years, an extraordinary achievement. That is why I am writing to convey my concern about the upcoming Town Hall Meeting and Landmark-Weekend organized by Crown Heights South Association. Landmarking requires studies.

I can't find any information about CHSA's membership. They have an email address and a Facebook page; that is all. This makes me suspicious. The Borough President is 100% eager to deliver Empire into the hands of the developers; CHSA could be a front organization.

I say this with assurance: There will be no landmarking in Crown Heights, just as there will be no downzoning. This is true throughout the city, not just here. In fact, earlier this year the Landmarks Commission DE-calendared 60 buildings that languished for years without being considered. All those de-calendared proposals involved hundreds of hours of research, documentation, analysis and substantial fundraising (I worked to protect a threatened landmark for 15 years; I have had a lot of experience in this area). And all those proposals were back-burnered, especially if in minority neighborhoods.

Through their bought and paid for shills on the City Council, the real estate industry is seeking to impose a time limit for landmark consideration, after which any proposal will be rejected, as opposed to, say, increasing funding to the Landmarks Commission to insure timely consideration.

To suggest, as Crown Heights South Association is doing, that "Automotive Row" (Empire between Flatbush and Rogers) is a viable candidate for landmarking is naive at best. To actually create such a proposal would be a yuuuuuge waste of scarce resources of time, effort and money.

I suggest that it would be more useful for CHSA, whoever they are, to join our ongoing fight to prevent the Dept of City Planning (Plotting) from rezoning Crown Heights, and in particular Empire Boulevard. If DCP succeeds in rezoning Empire from commercial to residential, Black Crown Heights will become Williamsburg. No amount of landmarking will change that.

Disgraced Crony is Eric Adams' Pick

I don't read the New York Post, but maybe I should because so far the paper is the only one covering this shameful story, under the headline, "Community Board Feeling Heat To Hire Disgraced Politician's Crony," concerning Eric Adams' backing of serial offender CARMEN MARTINEZ to replace the ousted Pearl Miles as District Manager.

The last time Martinez earned $140,000 a year from the City (the DM job could pay as much), she was working in the Comptroller's office. In 2014, she was allowed to "retire" after having been accused of stealing 14 YEARS of public service while acting as the head of the Comptroller's Community Action Center, according to Conflicts of Interest Board documents. There were also other, unspecified, charges of misconduct.

Martinez continues to associate with convicted felon and former Kings Co. Democratic strongman, Clarence Norman, Jr., a regular at CB9 meetings in suits for which I think he paid too much. Released from state prison in recent years, Norman has been looking to re-consolidate his power. He certainly had/has his eye on the Bedford Armory development; a second community meeting to discuss its future is scheduled for tomorrow night at First Baptist, where Clarence Norman, Sr. was long the pastor. Junior would be a shoe-in if his father were alive.

We wondered why, at the last general meeting of CB9, Chair Demetrius Lawrence suddenly announced that the Search Committee tasked with identifying qualified candidates for the District Manager job had acted improperly and that the whole process would have to begin again. You could see the shock/embarrassment on the face of committee chair Hector Robinson, the Board chairman's go-to guy, who has chaired, however briefly, as many as 3 committees in his first year on the community board (got to be some kind of record).

The Post article asserts that the Search Committee re-boot can be traced to their collective failure to identify Carmen Martinez as a qualified candidate, even though they never properly advertised the job in the city newspapers because it is so expensive [I transcribed the tapes of one or more Search Committee meetings during evidence gathering for our case against CB9 in Brooklyn Supreme, which started this week]. Perhaps they actually identified qualified candidates! Poor Hector. What's a yes-man to do while still pretending to integrity?

I would be disappointed to learn that the terms of Martinez's retirement did not contain a promise not to pursue another high profile and high-paying job with the City of New York and I will be asking Scott Stringer just that. That Eric Adams would choose to return power to the likes of Clarence Norman and Carmen Martinez is, to me and mine, evidence of his growing desperation in terms of delivering Empire Boulevard to the Big Real Estate interests that got him elected. At the end of June, he will have failed for two years running; that's way past leg-breaking time.

The Unblackening Continues Apace

The New York Times, of all real estate-driven papers, reports this morning on the extent to which the disappearance of the 421-a tax break will "dampen" the number of so-called affordable units ever to be built in this city under the fantasy housing policy known as ZQA/MIH.

On the one block-long street where I live, the Unblackening (to borrow Larry Wilmore's monumentally shaming, heart-breaking phrase) continues. Three houses have sold in the last year, all to white people. I can think of two, probably three more destined for the same change, currently owned by aged black people, retired civil servants. My white boyfriend has been an owner on this block for 30 years: He was always made to feel welcome, loved for his curious choice of neighborhood. Now, we agree that once Black Crown Heights comes to fully resemble Park Slope, we're moving to Mexico. There ought to be a happy medium, but there's not; neighborhoods just turn over from one group to another. That's America.

If City Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo thinks that these white newcomers are going to keep her as their representative, she is courting delusion. I have written her again today, urging her to stand with her current constituents in order to keep her office. We are watching.

1000 Words

Photo taken at Brooklyn Museum. Artist unknown.

A Cautionary Tale: Results of CB8's Resolution to City Planning

The well-organized, fully functional community board for Brooklyn's District 8, working in concert with former Borough President Marty Markowitz, made several requests for "corrective action" to their zoning status. According to a document distributed by MTOPP at the last meeting of CB9, not a single one of CB8's specific requests or Markowitz's "recommendations" was granted.

NOT ONE.

What was asked for? Mandatory affordable housing for any buildings taller than 60 feet (NO); New affordable units to be built on site or within CB8 (NO); A 50% preference for CB8 residents applying for affordable units in the district (NO); Affordable housing income requirements to reflect the median income of CD8 residents (NO).

As for Marty's recommendations: Noting that upzoning had not enticed developers to build any affordable housing, he asked that increased heights and floor area rations be limited to developments that provide permanent affordable housing (DENIED); That R6A zoning on residential streets allowing for excessive heights be rezoned to R6B to preserve the character of the neighborhood (DENIED); No upzoning in areas where 3-4 story buildings on small lots predominate (DENIED); Creation of a Special Enhanced Commercial District on Franklin Avenue to insure that the new development, potentially as much as 50% of the area, preserved the retail corridor (DENIED).

So if you think that the Department of City Planning and their overseers in Big Real Estate care one fig for what the residents of any neigborhood have to say about their future, or if members of CB9 think anything postive can come of a resolution to City Planning, no matter how carefully worded, they are mistaken unto delusional. The only hope we have of defeating BRE plans to turn this neighborhood into a luxury tax haven is by denying CP permission to study us at all. For our collective good, Empire Boulevard needs to be removed from the parameters!

They Never Sleep, Much Less Listen: The New "Alternative Draft" Resolution to City Planning

The rescinded draft I wrote about on Feb 15 has been rewritten. I wish I could say it has been re-written to the liking of those with the most to lose, but that is not the case.

The hapless chair of the ULURP committee, Ben Edwards, began this week's committee meeting with a call for a vote on the new draft, a document which had not ever been seen by the community at large. Immediately, a chant of "NO VOTE!" went up, with Alicia Boyd of MTOPP attempting to point out that at least 2 members of the committee were illegally appointed (by district manager Pearl Miles, without authority) or had not been formally re-appointed, as in the case of blogger Tim Thomas. Amid the shouting, Thomas then entered a motion to "use the alternative draft," which was met with more shouting. Thomas and the former Chair, Rabbi Goldstein, made a motion to vote to continue, whatever that means. I heard one committee member say to another, "What are we voting on?" Such was the chaos in the room.

Once again, NYPD was used to silence dissent at a corrupt CB9 meeting, Alicia Boyd of MTOPP was cuffed and carried from the room at the behest of Edwards and Miles. This time she was formally arrested and charged with Disorderly Conduct. More shouting. A cop sneered at one of the MTOPP members, "I can't hear you. I'm a Transit cop." His hatred was palpable.

Edwards was thus cowed into allowing the document to be read aloud paragraph by paragraph and opened to public comment, few of which were in favor of it as written. People stood to assert that 8 stories were going up at the former gas station lot on Eastern and Bedford; that area senior citizens were seeing their rents skyrocket from $300 to $1000 or more without warning; a gentleman from the Union St Block Assn. offered the fine idea that the word "Affordable" be defined based on area incomes in a year preceding gentrification, adding that the resolution just "gave away" the neighborhood to development by "putting the cart before the carrot" and noting that 421-a tax breaks had been a net loss in the billions for NYC while doing nothing to address the city's affordable housing crisis. Diana Foster, formerly of CB8, spoke with passion of the 30,000 applications received for 23 "affordable" apartments in her area.

Requests to reconsider the "parameters" of the study were dismissed. Amid repeated calls for Empire Boulevard to be exempted from the resolution while the subject of a community-funded study by Hunter College, Ben Edwards asserted that "Empire Boulevard will be included in the resolution," because he has his marching orders.

At this point, a new face (to me) rose to introduce into evidence a new document from City Planning, "Zoning for Quality and Affordability," issued to all Community Boards citywide on March 2. He handed out copies to the committee and asked Edwards if he had seen it; he said had not. No one tells Ben Edwards anything, other than said marching orders. The document asserts that ALL zoning regulations will change citywide in the next few months. One member was prompted to observe that if what he was reading is true, it would change everything, which indeed it would; that is its intention. Enough of this community resistance!

There will be one open meeting for public comment on the "Zoning for Quality and Affordability" scheme, on Wednesday, March 25 at 4PM at 22 Reade Street in lower Manhattan. I can assure you that community groups citywide will be out in force to protest. If we allow the city to convince us that current regs "allow for more parking than is needed," among other things, I have a bridge to sell you. Written comments will be accepted through April 6. The instructions are all buried in the doc.

Former District Manager Renee Collymore rose to allow that, "This conversation makes me sick," that we should all be "outraged" by the Mayor's proposed 80/20 split between market and affordable for the future of our city, that it "has to be 50/50," adding that it's clear, "They don't want us here, no way," and advising everyone to, "Get to your elected officials!!!" Maybe that's why she isn't an elected official anymore. I voted for her. She came by our house and spoke to us at length. We liked her.

Committee Member Fred Baptiste, in answer to my question, allowed that "private studies [such as we propose for Empire] may go forward at the same time as the entire parameters are studied as long as you pay for it." Backpedalling, he noted that "The Empire piece is critical and we should not take it out or concede it." Thanks, Fred. He actually thinks that once City Planning gets the bit in their teeth, they're going to pay so much as a moment's attention to what Hunter College and community residents who live nearby think should happen there. My question had begun with an assertion of the historical fact that, "City Planning is the handmaiden, the creation, of the real estate industry!" He nodded his head to indicate he understood that, but clearly he does not. He just thinks he knows more than I or any other community resident knows about real estate, the shadow government of New York City. But until a few months ago, I'm guessing, he had no power to effect change. Now he does, so he pretends to knowledge. It's what people do.

And so on. Edwards called for a motion to vote on the alternative draft, but was shouted down by the assembled. He then attempted to adjourn, but was advised somehow that he could not. Instead, a motion was offered to table the res and add in a few specifics about it, like what is meant by the words "modest," "incremental," and "specific" (!), referring to height restrictions. By now, Tim Thomas had returned to the room, having stormed out in a huff after shouting, "I don't give a fuck!" into the public record. Looking straight at Edwards, he asked if he was being asked to vote on whether to table the motion in order to "put this matter to bed" at next week's CB9 meeting. Gonna be a humdinger.

Disgrace at CB9

Text of my letter to Borough President Eric Adams today: "I am a resident of Stoddard Place, a quiet street I know you know, hard by Empire Boulevard. I am very interested, intrigued and mostly concerned about what happens there, as are all my neighbors. We turned out in huge numbers for the last meeting at Medgar Evers, which spilled out onto the street and was then canceled. I attended the re-scheduled meeting, at SUNY Downstate, far from the ground zero in this matter. On the CB site, the announced address for the meeting was 450 Clarkson with a click for details link. In the link, it was revealed that the actual entrance was at 395 Lenox Road. Wouldn't want to make it easy for people to find. Distance and difficulty was reflected in the attendance; the auditorium was not close to full. As I recall, the link also displayed a bold red line reading "This Meeting is Convened for Public Comment" or words to that effect. What actually happened was that the evening wound on with discussions of speed bumps, slow zones, liquor license applications, some kind of stone monument and was then summarily adjourned by your newly installed president, Mr. Nicholson, who displayed an appalling lack of knowledge of parliamentary procedure throughout. Perhaps he could take an online course; put a better face on his ambition. The conduct of CB9 in this matter has been and continues to be contemptuous of the desperation of your former constituents, the most immediate of them, in particular, those who live close by the state senate office. They know what they have here, what beautiful housing stock and access to the park and gardens they have that has the developers salivating. They know that they got it as a consequence of white flight, too, and that Whitey has changed his mind. I say Whitey because I am one and so I can. I moved to this area for love 2 years ago, to a man, also white, who has been here for thirty (30) years. I was raised in Park Slope and returned there in 1985. I don't care to live there anymore. A city slated to become a playground for the global oligarchy with 20% of us waiting on them hand and foot is not what anyone ever had in mind for, or ever loved about, New York, much less Brooklyn, a city with its own legends and place in the world's imagination. Obviously, if you play ball with the shadow government that is real estate, then the indictment will never come down and you can come out of the seclusion you've maintained since your election and more enjoy the fruits of your winnings. We'll be your mirror."