Another Example of Anti-Development Foolishness

We have another example of anti-development foolishness. This time across the river in the Lower East Side. A homeowner is building a six-story condo which people decry as being “out of character” with the neighborhood. I’m sorry but I have NO sympathy with this CRAP. If a six story building is too high for you move back to Nebraska. This is NYC we’re talking about. Streets filled with six story buildings (55-60 feet) are not oppressive. Some of the most beautiful spaces in NYC, Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope, the West Village are replete with six story buildings.

Douglas Brenner has lived on the block for 25 years; he is a physicist, not a developer and he is getting grief for doing what this city desperately needs. He is building housing. We should be applauding his actions, not putting impediments in his path. Douglas, other people and organizations may revile your actions but More Housing Now applauds you and urges you on.

The story, as it is being presented by the New York Post has Mr. Brenner combining his existing home with the new building – it was a vacant lot next door – and creating one six-unit condo. What possible rational could there be against this project?

An immediate neighbor may loose sunlight for his plants. This is a real issue and, we the residents of this wonderful city, should arrive at a standard compensation for the loss. This should not, for any reason, be cause to stop construction but some form of compensation should be arrived at. See Open Posts: Loss of Sunlight at the right for discussions on this issue.

Construction brings noise and inconvenience to neighbors. Lots of things are annoying when living next to people: music, arguments, honking … and if you’ve every lived on a busy avenue you know that there can be an infinite amount of annoyances. But this is one of the prices we pay to live in the big city. Move to suburbia or the country and you won’t have these annoyances but you’ll have plenty of others. We have dealt with construction by limiting work hours, the rest you have to deal with. If it comforts you at all you can remind yourself that these are homes that are being built. Families are going to live here and that is good for NYC, good for the country and good for the planet.

You don’t like change. I sympathize but chances are you, or your parents, were part of an earlier change; and the people that were there before were not happy about you and yours changing the feel of their neighborhood. I’m not belittling your experience but this is the New York experience.

You don’t like middle and upper-middle class people. You think these yuppie scum should live in their own repulsive neighborhoods and not come to your neighborhood. Well, if there was enough housing for them elsewhere they WOULDN’T be coming to your neighborhood. If people like you didn’t stop the development elsewhere chances are you wouldn’t be seeing your own neighborhood being developed. If you had any brains you would have been promoting development in other neighborhoods. Now yuppie scum are coming to your neighborhood. Reap what you sowed.

So Who's a shill?

So what motivates the anti-development forces? Many seem to think that people who promote new development are “shills” for big developers. In that vein are anti-development folks shills for large Manhattan landlords? Are they just fronts for rental apartment owners who don’t like the fact that Brooklyn is siphoning off people who otherwise would have been competing to live in NYC apartments? Are they shills intent upon helping Manhattan landlords drive apartment prices up and vacancies down? Yeah, that’s the ticket, anti-development folks don’t believe a word they say; they’re just shills for Manhattan landlords.