Mark Shames on politics and zoning

I welcome it when people ask me to explain myself on issues or the votes I take at the community board. You don’t even have to beg my pardon.

I am acutely aware that my neighbors in “Brownstone Brooklyn” are basically content with things remaining as they are. If you look at the projects approved for City Council participatory budgeting, you see that upgraded schools, beautification, parks and greenery, and safety particularly for our own kids are foremost on people’s minds.

I respect and share those concerns, but I have other concerns that sometimes rub against an agenda limited to enhanced personal lifestyle and quietude. We are also part of a larger community that has serious supplemental needs that must be pragmatically addressed rather than endlessly opined about over $4 cups of coffee.

I understand the bias toward the familiar and the desire to preserve what we have that is good in our lives, There is an “as built” residential character to our brownstone neighborhoods that is largely frozen in time through historic preservation. I support this nod to a past that we have grown to love.

Residential needs
However, the needs of the City can’t be met by trying to replicate the past everywhere. I have come to concentrate my relentless pursuit of opportunities for affordable housing at the periphery of our neighborhoods. These opportunities exist in portions of our waterfronts. They clearly exist in the largely anachronistic “manufacturing” areas, that when not romanticized, are rightly seen as ripe for reorganization.

Many of my neighbors reject any substantial changes in density in adjoining areas as an unacceptable threat to their quality of life. The views will be impaired. The light and air will be limited. The schools and subways more crowded.

Against these negative possibilities is the certainty of increased homelessness, if we fail to act. There are large-scale re-zonings in the offing. We cannot ask the people in Brownsville or East New York faced with such re-zonings to suffer disruption and the press of increased density while holding our own wealthier sections totally harmless. Yes, strive for as seamless a transition as possible but let us ask everyone to pitch in.

It is in the post industrial areas where we can both maintain most current non-residential uses and add many units of both affordable and market housing. At the same time we should also concentrate resources toward modernizing and consolidating necessary manufacturing and distribution areas. If we fail in these pursuits, then we will either evolve into an even more gentrified and inequitable City or fall back into a dystopian one. Given my age and experience, I fear the latter more than the former but failure ought not be an option.

Gowanus in transition
My mission, accepted by more neighbors than I had hoped, calls for the rezoning of entire Gowanus area from 4th Avenue to Bond Street and from Douglass to 3rd Street. You might ask, what will be the interim uses until then? Apparently, as has happened in other transitioning neighborhoods more and more entertainment venues

Many living near the Gowanus Canal are extremely upset that the community board, on my motion, voted to conditionally approve a liquor license for a 157 person capacity outdoor barbeque restaurant on the shores of the bucolic canal at Union Street. I do not speak for the board – only its Chairman and District Manager speak for the board, – but I am pleased to explain myself.

The restaurant in question is on land that is privately held. It is zoned for such a proposed use. Given the set back requirements for new buildings along the canal there is a prohibition upon building a structure on much of the footprint of the restaurant and to the extent building might be allowed it is very expensive to build at the canal, even where pollution isn’t at its worst. This explains why what is proposed is an outdoor space.

It is normal that businessmen would want to use their asset productively. The State Liquor Authority’s mandate is to properly regulate businesses where alcohol is to be consumed but it is not in the prohibition biz. When there are numerous licensed locations near a proposed location there is a hearing with regard to need, but that is not the case here. The sole basis for restriction is the community board’s expressions of concern for the quality of life of the community. Even here while the community board has a significant role to play it is still limited and strictly advisory.

How to use such power? There are two schools of thought and the breakdown in this and many other votes reflects the two approaches. One point of view is, if you don’t like something you just say no and let the chips fall where they may in a zero sum game.

The other approach is to use the “soft power” that emerges from a willingness to engage the applicants, gain concessions that make a venue friendlier, if not ideal, and ultimately accept a compromise. If the applicant does not offer reasonable concessions, the board’s subsequent denial gains greater authority.

The Green Building’s agreement to a reduction in hours of operation to conform with the closing times of other open space venues, together with the hiring of an acoustics consultant, were the concessions that led to conditional approval of a license for the venue.
There will be more of the same, until the Gowanus is rezoned.

Special Elections
The results are in from the two special elections that were held on May 5. They confirmed a few things about elections in general and particularly special elections for me.

The past remains prelude. The result in the Staten Island/Brooklyn Congressional race confirmed that Republicans have an edge when it comes to non-presidential and off schedule elections in potentially swing districts. A larger portion of the Republican base is still more likely to show up. Even controversy that might have motivated North Shore voters failed to do so in any significant way. Although Councilman Gentile is generally conceded to have run a vigorous and professional campaign, he still came up 20% points short.

The race in the 43rd Assembly District showed the importance of party labels or “branding”, as well as, the importance of union support in low turnout races. The Democratic Party line was vacant. The woman who had been the presumptive Democratic Party candidate, instead running on the Independence Party line, garnered less than a quarter of the vote that was barely more than the Republican candidate received. She would have likely won or at least been far more competitive had she appeared on the Democratic Party line.

In this race, other than the UFT, the major unions lined up behind the winner Diane Richardson. Union members tend to vote in greater numbers then the general Democratic electorate, and have an inclination to support their union’s endorsee. In this case Ms. Richardson had the added advantage of running on the Working Families Party line; a line on which union members often have previously voted. I congratulate Ms. Richardson, who by the way has a compelling biography of perseverance over difficult circumstances.

I have had reports back about the Lambda Independent Democrats (LID) fundraising luncheon at Woodland on Flatbush and that of my former club the Independent Neighborhood Democrats held at Marco Polo on Court Street. I am told that both events went off well. At LID, Michael Czaczkes, who I admire and who once worked for former Assemblywoman Joan Millman, was a most deserving honoree.

At IND, among the honorees, was Josh Skaller, 52nd AD Democratic Leader. I now owe Josh a public apology (I have already apologized privately but I have not yet been forgiven) for revealing that his friend, playwright, and Central Brooklyn Independent Democratic club President, Bobby Carroll, was looking to unseat the sitting District Leader in the adjoining 44th Assembly District. He had assumed I would treat this information as confidential. I mistakenly thought it was well-circulated gossip and used it to fill out a column.

I am new at this newspaper-column writing thing but I try to learn quickly and in the future I will handle things differently. On the plus side now Josh is able to openly host a fundraiser for Bobby with the other 52nd Assembly District Leader and the 52nd Assembly District Assemblywoman. Like the Landmark Preservation Commission, I have never been averse to meddling in other people’s backyards. Let the games begin.