At some point, the developments at 360 Smith Street and at 340 Court Street could end up in foot race to see which one wins a neighborhood popularity contest. The 360 Smith building would have an advantage, having had almost a year’s head start. (It also helped spawn a neighborhood-wide downzoning push and a call for a building moratorium.) 340 Court, however, has been riling up the neighbors too. The graphic on the right, which actually refers to the Carroll Gardens downzoning rally called by Council Member Bill de Blasio, is from the building’s fascinating Wiki. Once glance told us it’s something that more and more organized neighbors will be (and ought to be) doing to create a record of the issues with their friendly neighborhood project. In any case, 340 Court made the Daily News yesterday, and the article featured a neighbor whose home had been damaged, which we’d featured last week. Here’s part of a comment left by someone for that story that indicates the nature of neighborhood issues with the building:

The general infrastructure and specific components (e.g., clay drain lines, wooden cornices atop homes) are very vulnerable to damage — Mr. Lantz’s cornice has already begun to detach from his building and could pose a hazard to passers-by. This, coupled withe the way the asbestos removal was handled, has catazlyzed myself and my neighbors into pursuing increasingly substantative forms or protest.

We simply do not feel a builder has a right to damage our homes without detailing any plans to compensate us for the actual damage and dislocation to our livelihoods it also entails. We are organizing increasingly substantative means of exerting political, economic and social protests and activism to combat this. If Clarett chooses to address our concerns (and conduct the work at 340 Union) in a forthright way, we’ll be glad to work with them. But if things continue as they have gone, I believe I speak for a large number of my neighbors that we will become increasingly active against them.

Sounds like the community is looking for some Make Nice from the increasingly combative developer.