As we’ve reported, architect Robert Scarano is apparently changing the exterior design of his building at Second Place and Smith Street from metal to red brick. However, Carroll Gardens residents say their opposition is as much about the scale of the eight-story building in the neighborhood of two- and three-story brownstones as it is about the metal finish on the rendering on the architect’s website.

Mr. Scarano told a community leader yesterday that “the images we have been seeing are ‘misleading.'” The flyers that residents have been posting are said to “exaggerate” his intentions for the Carroll Gardens site. (The rendering is still on the Scarano Architects website, however.)

“I know what they’re saying out there,” Mr. Scarano also told the Brooklyn Paper’s Ariella Cohen. “But now we’ve studied the area, and the building is going to be less modern.”

A neighbor of the proposed development wrote GL to say:

It’s wonderful to hear Mr. Scarano has become more receptive to our community but I think it’s far too early to break open the champagne. First of all, saying something and actually doing the thing you say you are going to do are not the same thing! Frankly spoken, talk is cheap. Plus, the height of the building is still insane…brick or metal, 8 is still too high!

We live in 2-4 floor residential brownstone buildings over here…. many of us on beloved landmark blocks our grandparents built. Six floors is still higher than almost everything around here. Six is fair, not 8!

Plus the subway plaza used by thousands of commuters weekly needs to be respected as a neighborhood gathering place where people of all ages spend there time waiting for the train to go to work and elsewhere. It’s a neighborhood tradition and no one wants to wait downstairs!

While no one over here is opposed to development per se, we don’t even have a supermarket here anymore due to recent development! Furthermore countless family businesses like pharmacies, video stores, cafes, xerox places, hardware stores, notions stores and others… businesses owned and operated by neighborhood families for years have suffered and or closed their doors entirely in the name of “recent development’ in the past few years so where does it end?

One resident noted at the Community Board meeting that the neighborhood wants “beautiful architecture that respects the design and scale of our historic Carroll Gardens neighborhood that many of our grandfathers built. Is Mr. Scarano going to live next to it we wonder?”

She credited the blogs that first reported the neighborhood opposition and posted renderings of the building (including Gowanus Lounge and our coverage on Curbed) for bringing attention to the story:

As for the local newspaer coverage: it’s about time! where have you been? we already tried to get the newspapers down here and nothing was even remotely fast enough to handle our issue. Power to the blogs!!

Interestingly, GL has learned that the Second Place brownstone adjacent to the development is being sold. Our source indicates he has reliable information that the likely buyer is the developer of the controversial Scarano building.

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Smith Street Could Get Very, Very Shiny
Smith Street Revolt Brewing Over Shiny New Building
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