Condo Towers Will Rise at Brooklyn Bridge Park, Despite Fierce Neighbor Opposition

• Renderings courtesy of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS, NY — The morning after a 23-year-old pizza shop employee was murdered at Pier 6 in Brooklyn Bridge Park, the City Hall-appointed group in charge of developing the park, the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation (BBPC), approved two new condo towers for the green parkland adjacent to the crime scene.

The planned towers, known among neighbors simply as "Pier 6," are opposed by pretty much every community group with any clout in Brooklyn Heights and next-door Cobble Hill.

"It would really be unfortunate to have those towers looming over the nice playground we have there," Richard Ziegler, an attorney for the Brooklyn Heights Association, told Patch by phone Tuesday, after the towers were approved.

"I view it as quite tragic," he said.

Another familiar face in the anti-Pier 6 crowd, Judi Frances of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Defense Fund, spared no scorn when she said in an interview with DNAinfo at the meeting: "This disregard for the community is unfathomable."

Some city and state politicians agree.

"Perhaps deafened by the volume of the opposition, the [BBPC] Board has failed to consider the community, local elected officials, the best interests of the park and the rules that govern it," State Senator Daniel Squadron said in a cutting statement Tuesday.

Eric Sumberg, spokesman for NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer, whose job it is to investigate any sketchy goings-on within city government, got even feistier:

“Today’s decision by the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation to ignore the settlement agreement and push forward only increases the risk of additional litigation and is bound to escalate the animosity with the local community. This kind of top-down planning disempowers local neighborhoods and strips residents of a real voice in shaping their communities. The Comptroller’s office has made multiple requests to the BBPC to incorporate community-based planning and financial transparency into its processes. Unfortunately, the City has chosen to ignore these issues and turned its back on the many legitimate questions and concerns raised by the community.”

Park officials and their supporters have insisted all along that the rent money generated by the Pier 6 development will be crucial to keep the park afloat financially. (Community groups have wholly rejected the cash-flow argument — and they've presented some pretty compelling evidence.)

So what happens next, now that the Pier 6 towers have been approved by the BBPC?

A spokeswoman for the BBPC said that since the group's board members are appointed by elected NYC politicians, and are therefore an extension of the people's will, no further City Council or community board votes will be necessary. Pier 6 is a done deal, she said.

As planned, Pier 6 will consist of two towers, one 28 stories and the other 15 stories, containing 266 apartments between them. Of these, 126 will be luxury condos, 40 will be market-rate apartments and 100 will be affordable apartments.

Construction will begin in 9 to 12 months, and will be completed by 2019, according to the BBPC.

The only thing that could possibly stand in the way of Pier 6 construction crews? More litigation.

And the Brooklyn Heights Association, for one, is fully prepared to take that step. Ziegler, the group's attorney, said Tuesday that he plans to file a lawsuit "soon."

Brooklyn Bridge Park officials likely knew more court time was coming. For years, they've been fighting off lawsuits from community groups who claim condo towers have no place in a public park — especially one as iconic and view-rific as Brooklyn Bridge Park. Much of that litigation has centered on the park's General Project Plan, and the plaintiffs' opinion that the BBPC is shirking both the spirit and the specific language of the plan in favor of a build-build-build sensibility.

"They're dead set on doing massive real-estate development," Zeigler said of park officials.

Recent reports that NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio may have accepted donations from major city developers in exchange for political favors have only served to fuel community paranoia that Pier 6 could be one such favor.

The dots aren't difficult to connect. In 2015, RAL Companies, the developer behind Pier 6, reportedly threw money at de Blasio's personal nonprofit, the now-defunct (and notorious) Campaign for One New York. Just a month after making a donation, RAL was chosen to build Pier 6, according to the New York Times. And another Pier 6 investor, the Chinese company China Vanke, is reportedly being investigated by the New York State Attorney General's Office for its involvement in a different Manhattan real-estate project.

Those questionable ties were enough for the BBPC's big big brother, the state's economic development agency, to pull its support for Pier 6 last month.

Yet despite this shock move, the city decided to push Pier 6 forward without the state's blessing Tuesday morning.

Empire State Development "had no role in approving the plan that was voted on today by the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation," Jonah Bruno, a spokesman for the state agency, told Patch.