It looks like the race to get a fourteen-story Karl Fischer building in the ground at Grand Street and Driggs Avenue before a downzoning is moving full speed ahead. The building was approved last year under current zoning by the Department of Buildings. A rezoning, which must still work its way through the city’s land use review process, would limit a building on the site to 40 feet. The current design would be 159 feet tall. Here is an email we got about the site:
The Grand St merry-go-round is happening full force. Developer’s crew was out working at 8:15 Sunday morning – also Saturday. They might have had a permit but no permit allows 8:15 work on Sunday. There were workers without hardhats, dust, trucks parked the wrong way on Driggs etc. Neighbors called 311 on DOB issue and also DEP regarding lead laden dust. I think DOB inspectors arrived this morning and natch, workers were wearing hard hats today.
How can we facilitate speeding up the zoning amendment approval process in City Council? The site manager at 227 grand told me yesterday that they plan on working at least the next 4-6 weekends!! No sleep for neighbors – with the bars traffic on Friday and Saturday night and construction in the morning….maybe we can throw eggs out the windows. Breakfast meetings???
Community activists were trying to get the downzoning fast tracked and Community Board 1 actually voted quickly to approve it. If the developer has the foundation of the building in place before the downzoning, it can be built to the 14-story height.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Anonymous // Jan 29, 2008 at 8:36 am
wonder if the site has been property tested for toxic material? Further given all these incidents of petro smelling non natural gas aromas up and down Grand St..i wonder if the site should have the City,State and EPA etc look at bit more closely at its history and the migratory streams under the lots which may have polluted even thought the site itself historically had non toxic businesses on top of it. (I hear of one long time artist here who smelled the stuff back over in the Haveymeyer Driggs area of southside a few months back).
There is a vast underground stream system that exists in this part of williamsburg–northside/southside–for hundreds years, the sceientist and historians know this but of course the City the State and the Developers just want to sell overpriced condos to dopes from manhattan and europe and pocket the sales taxes!! and future tax revenues.
2 mik3cap // Jan 29, 2008 at 11:03 am
If people are witnessing violations of safety and codes – why aren’t they taking photographs and sending those to the authorities???
3 Anonymous // Jan 29, 2008 at 2:05 pm
The rezoning maintains Grand Street at R6B which is at the current heights for the street: not even R6A making the tower height is all the more insane.
Photos have been taken.