Boymelgreen Gets Some Gowanus Love
We knew that these flyers had gone up in Smith Street and elsewhere a couple of weeks ago, around the time that some emails went out about a website called shayaiscoming.org. The flyers came down pretty quickly (although the website most certainly didn't). We captured this pic way down Smith Street near the Gowanus Expressway, where the flyers have survived. As for the website, well, it declares that "Shaya Boymelgreen's irresponsible development of Brooklyn must be stopped" and includes an online petition calling for higher wages, more affordable housing, etc. It comes from the Laborers Eastern Region Organizing Fund:
Boymelgreen’s projects are manned by underpaid workers laboring in dangerous conditions...His pricy apartments displace the local low- and moderate-income families and destroy the unique character of Brooklyn.We're not sure about the Boymelgreen "is coming" angle, as it would seem to us that came a looong time ago, but there's much more over at the website.
posted by rsguskind at 7:35 AM
5 Comments:
Luxury housing does not displace low income individuals. It expands housing for higher income individuals. The Gowanus Housing will mostly replace industrial buildings or vacant land.
re: above post.
you, sir, are correct.
low vacancy rate = high rent.
more places to live -> less competition for a crummy non-luxury apartment -> better for those of us who aren't loaded.
wow, on what planet is luxury housing not a vehicle for gentrification. Luxury housing drives up prices in neighborhoods thus raising rents on surrouinding non-luxury buildings.
Yes, anonymous 11:47am and 1:30 pm either don't know what they're talking about or were hired by the real estate companies. Studies of gentrification since the 1960s have shown, conclusively, that luxury housing raises the property values and rents of surrounding buildings, which often leads to displacement. This is not debatable; the data are ridiculously clear. And for one small piece of anecdotal evidence, take a look sometime at one of the many tiny, crappy, rat-infested tenement apartments in the East Village that are going for $2,000 and up.
Any improvement to a neighborhood potentially gentrifies it. Replacing an eyesore building/parking lot with a new building makes the surrounding area more attractive and thus more people will want to live there and thus rents will increase. but the same thing happens when crime goes down. so, should we fight lowering crime rates so that neighborhoods don't gentrify. It's a no win situation. Any improvement can lead to gentrification so maybe we should just never make any improvments.
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