A rendering of 77 Commercial. (Photo: Christopher DiScipio)
Councilman Stephen Levin and around 20 others — including an actor you’ve seen in The Departed, Superbad, and Pineapple Express — showed up at City Hall yesterday to fight two massive towers bound for the Greenpoint waterfront.
Having reached the homestretch of the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, developers of Greenpoint Landing and 77 Commercial tried to sell the City Council’s Land Use committee on their respective proposals, which would add a combined 5,000 apartment units and more than 170,000 square feet of public open space to Greenpoint’s northern shores.
Due to the aforementioned delays, hearings on both projects ran simultaneously in two separate rooms, sending Levin scrambling between one room and the other. Kevin Corrigan, the aforementioned actor/activist, left before the meeting popped off, though he did manage to tweet his opposition to Greenpoint Landing.
Councilman Stephen Levin (Photo: Christopher DiScipio)
As with a September hearing before the Borough President, the main concerns here were transportation, toxicity, and affordable housing. Levin was particularly skeptical about the safety of the sites and any testing that had already been done.
“We have myriad of environmental concerns in the neighborhood,” he told a representative of Greenpoint Landing’s developers. “This area, as well as the 77 Commercial area, have been used for many years as an industrial work site. The people of the community have concerns about the location of the public school being so close to this toxicity.”
77 Commercial. (Photo: Christopher DiScipio)
“There are two spills which have been recognized by the developers,” said Kim Masson, of Save Greenpoint. “They are: one spill of a 15,000 gallon fuel underground storage unit, and a 550 gallon tank of unleaded gas that was reported as being removed.”
The representative countered that the school would be built in a way that would prevent any toxic chemicals from spreading and endangering students. Construction would incorporate a depressurization system and vapor boundary — two commonplace preventive measures.
Darren Lipman, of Save Greenpoint, worried that the buildings and their hundreds of new inhabitants would overburden public transportation. “How are people going to pay rent if they can’t even get to work?” he asked.
In response, Greenpoint Landing’s rep said the complex would offer shuttle service to the L and assured that the developers work work with the city to help fix any transportation issues.
There were no final votes placed by the committee; according to Levin, the developers and city officials will continue the discussion in the next few days.