There will be complaints, I'm sure. But
Caton Flats, at the NW corner of Flatbush/Caton, is promising to be one of the most forward-thinking plans to address the housing crisis I've seen in a long, long time. Something similar could happen at the Bedford-Union Armory, if the financing was done right.
Anyway, I'm no fan of too-tall buildings crowding the skyline. But you can't "not build" your way out of a housing shortage. If all goes according to plan, this is what you'll be looking at where now is the colorful non-housing of the Caton Market. Thx Nathan for the heads up.
2 comments:
There would be far fewer housing problems if the government were not constantly skewing the real estate markets. Aside from getting in the way, there is the issue of actually getting things done.
...the project...was first floated in 2013....the project is expected to wrap construction in 2020...
Seven years, maybe, for one building. How long for 626 Flatbush?
An EDC spokesperson told The Real Deal the project will be “100 percent affordable” ...
It's all about supply and demand. If NY City were a little more like Houston -- easier on zoning laws -- supply would keep up with demand, and rent would reflect the ensuing balance. Instead, we embrace regulations that create supply shortages, which lead to huge demand for the small number of available units. Prices skyrocket. Corruption thrives.
Way past time to build Floyd Bennett City.
If you really mean "a little more," anon, you're right. Many regs are sops/pork/holdovers. But NYC is also ~8x denser than Houston, with a much more significant historic-interest/aged-infrastructure footprint. So loosening of regulations would only do much to speed up and lower the cost of construction, and to creating a sustainably better housing environment.
Also, if you're talking about repurposing Floyd Bennett Field as housing:
1) It's mostly National Park Service land (difficult, but not impossible, to get back)
2) It's a flood zone
3) It's far from where most of the jobs are in this city. Yes, more employment might be coming to downtown Brooklyn and even the Brooklyn College area, but it's not that close to even these, and Manhattan is still the #1 draw. Plopping people an hour+ away from the majority of the city's jobs, with limited public transit options, doesn't help things that much. So then you need to upgrade transit, work on developing closer employment centers (which requires incentives, which invite corruption and inefficacy), etc. Certainly all doable, but not easy or a guaranteed success!
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