Thor Equities and their land use lawyers and engineers held an informational meeting led by Councilman Menchaca at the Red Hook Recreation Center on April 19.
Originally meant to be a private meeting at the councilman’s office, it was shifted to the Rec center as word got out to locals interested in asking questions about flooding and Thor’s piles of Sitt, as detailed in the March Star-Revue.
The property has been vacant for a decade and Thor is threatening to build two commercial buildings on the site, once home to a sugar refining plant. However, they said they are not close to getting approval to begin construction, and they have no commitments from prospective tenants.
There is some controversy over he ultimate end use of the property. Real estate broker Victoria Hagman, Red Hook resident and CB6 member, brought this question to Thor. Hagman pointed out that Thor has a history of getting approvals to develop properties just to flip them.
She pointed out that their proposed rental is not realistic. “I don’t know where you got your market research from, but $50 a square foot, that is not happening in Williamsburg or DUMBO,” she told them. “Asking something that is out of line with market means you aren’t really interested in getting tenants, because you aren’t actually interested in making the project happen. If you were asking a reasonable rent, you would have tenants lining out the door, because there is a huge demand for that kind of space in Brooklyn.
David Cohen, Vice President of Development, said in response that their intention is to be a good neighbor to everyone near the property.
In an effort to try to prove their commitment to building this project he said that Thor has spent tens of millions of dollars so far on this site, an answer that sort of begged the question.
Then he said that the cost of construction in NYC is expensive, and “and in terms of making our business plan, that is what we have to ask,” he continued.
Hagman pointed out that Thor has numerous empty store fronts on Smith Street, Atlantic Avenue and other parts of Brooklyn.
Renae Widdison, Menchaca’s new land use specialist, introduced herself. She will be tracking this project closely and wants to be the community’s contact.
Ethan Goodman, with the law firm Fox Rothschild, basically announced the reason for this seemingly ad hoc meeting. “We are planning a six-story office building, two buildings next to each other, with a public waterfront esplanade.” He went on to explain that they are currently taking the project through the public approvals process. The final step in that process is with the local city councilman, who was sitting off to the left.
Chris Milano, from Langan Engineering, spoke about the flooding. He is a civil engineer with an expertise on storm water. He mentioned the recent rains.
“We all saw what happened in the last two weeks with significant water on the surface,” Milano said. “Our direction from Thor was to make sure to take a hard look at the underground stream first.”
Milano and other engineers looked at maps of Red Hook and went through other research and claimed no evidence of underground streams.
“The city fills in shore lines to create more land and that is how the city grows,” Milano said. “We haven’t found anything that shows underground streams in this area.”
He basically blamed the flooding on three factors, all the fault of Red Hook itself. The first is that we are a low lying area. The second is the surface grade of the streets, with water draining towards Beard Street. The third is that sewers are not doing the jobs they are supposed to be doing.
“It makes sense that if something isn’t working right with the sewers, this is where we would see flooding, he told the disbelieving audience, many of whom remember no flooding issues before Thor starting messing with the shorelines.
Milano’s assertions about the absence of groundwater was highly disputed by Carolina Salguero of Portside, who claimed encountering an overwhelming rush of underground water flowing constantly and exposed during the IKEA excavations. Most in the room agreed with her assessment—not Thor’s.
Piles of dirt next
Michael Bogen, Thor’s environmental attorney, explained that the mountains of dirt were from the old bulkheads that they replaced. They didn’t barge them away as they thought that they would be able to dump them back in the water.
“We have met with the DEC over the past four months to address the community’s concerns about the stockpiles, and have now entered into a consensual agreement with DEC called a consent order,” he said. “It’s been signed by us, we are just waiting for DEC to co-sign it.”
The consent order binds them to take additional care of the stockpiles. Bogen emphasized that the dirt is not toxic—a point highly disputed by John McGettrick, head of the Red Hook Civic Association. McGettrick points to previously identified “hot spots,” as well as historical pollution due to the usage of the property. Red
Hook used to be home to many heavy industries, which is why today the ballfields are closed, awaiting remediation, and the length of the Gowanus is under a Superfund plan.
Robbie Giordano is a local fisherman who has lived in Red Hook for years. He claims that the fishing in the Erie Basin has never recovered from the bulkhead construction. In addition, he believes that all of Red Hook’s soil is polluted to some extent, and he would never eat tomatoes grown in our native soil.
This is why many residents have been upset at the piles of dirt, and why the NYC Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has ordered Thor to do something with the dirt.
“We will apply a tackifier, which is basically glue to those stockpiles,” Bogen said. “It’s a spray on glue and we will use the type that DEC wants. We will apply that material to the stockpiles in the next couple of weeks. He called the glue “monkey snot.”
There is also an issue of the dirt’s eventual disposition.
From a legal standpoint the stockpiles are lawfully where they are allowed to be, but DEC told them they must be removed by November. Bogen said they would love to figure out how to use the dirt, instead of trashing it.
“This is not a transfer station,” Bogen said. “I have been involved with this site for a decade. This is a homogeneous site. The materials you see, if you take a sample here or there, it’s the same material. The samples have been reviewed by DEC and all meet commercial standard.
Gita provides an out
Gita Nandan, of Red Hook’s NY Rising committee, suggested that a way they could fight and prevent soil erosion is by planting.
At this, Bogen became so excited you might have thought he’d jump up and hug Nandan.
“That is exactly what we wanted to do,” Bogan said. “Our proposal to DEC was to hydroseed. Thor Equities said let’s get the hydroseed out there, but DEC said we don’t want it. They said the hydroseed is not going to work in this medium.”
After the meeting McGettrick chided Nandan in a group email for potentially giving community support for a plan that would keep the piles in place. McGettrick and others wants it gone and can’t understand why a company with over $10 billion in assets wouldn’t simply just pay to barge the material away. They could then actually BE a good neighbor, rather than just saying that they want to be.
The most sensible question of the entire evening came from the police. NCO Officer Jovan, in the last question of the evening, brought up trucks.
“My question is, while you are doing construction, do you have plans with the city to get a new truck route to allow trucks to get onto Van Brunt, because one of the main issues is going through the one way streets,” Jovan said.”
Thor said that they aren’t in the stage of the process where they would figure out how traffic will be impacted.
“That is clearly a dialogue we need to keep going with you guys because you know the community more than we do as far as what the best plan is when we build,” the engineer said. In another deflection, he added: “luckily, it is a big site, so you don’t need to take a lot of the street width in order to take cranes up and build this thing. It’s mostly park land.”
In closing, Menchaca said that in relation to DEC saying no to putting in the plants to reduce the dust that they have the political power that is willing to flex and has used their power in the past. Menchaca encouraged Thor to be a good neighbor and told them that they are in a place that wants to be a good neighbor to them.
Menchaca thanked the two 76th precinct NCOs for showing up and offered that their question showed that everyone is connected and that they are looking out for the community.
The Thor representatives were seen laughing and joking before the meeting began, and nothing in the evening’s meeting could have dampened their joy.
UPDATE:
Menchaca provided the Star-Revue with documents that Thor promised to provide the community. Among them was the DEC order, excerpted here.
9. On September 1, 2015, NYSDEC issued permit 2-6102-00130/00004 (“the Permit”) to Respondent Thor 280 Richards Street, LLC to install a bulkhead.
10. Natural Resource Permit Condition 6 of the Permit (“Best Management Practices”) provides: “Best management practices will be employed to prevent the loss of construction materials, debris and sediments from entering the wetlands or waterways. Such practices may include, but are not limited to construction fencing, staked hay bales, silt fencing, floating platforms, netting, containment booms.”
11. Natural Resource Condition 9 of the Permit (“Clean Fill Material Only”) provides: “All fill will consist of clean sand, gravel, or soil. The use of material such as asphalt, slag, fly-ask, recycled concrete aggregate (RCA), broken concrete, or demolition debris is strictly prohibited.”
12. Natural Resource Condition 12 of the Permit (“Demolition and Construction Debris”) provides:
“Should any demolition and construction debris fall into the waterway or enter the tidal wetlands, it must be removed immediately.”
13. Natural Resource Permit Condition 14 of the Permit (“Post Construction Photographs”) provides: “Post-construction photographs of the work area must be submitted to the NYSDEC Bureau of Marine Resources, 47-40 21st Street, Long Island City, New York 11101 within 30 days of the completion of work.”
14. Natural Resource Permit Condition 19 of the Permit (“Failure to Meet Permit Conditions”) reads: “Failure of the permittee to meet all the conditions of this permit is a violation of this permit and grounds for an order to immediately cease the permitted activity at the project site.”
15. On November 16, 2016, NYSDEC staff observed that Respondents had:
a. Failed to follow best management practices for debris removal, containment of stockpiled material with silt fencing and hay bales, and containment of petroleum sheens on the water as required by Natural Resource Permit Condition 6.Failed to immediately remove demolition and construction debris which entered the waterway or tidal wetlands as required by Natural Resource Permit Condition 12.
16. On December 1, 2016, NYSDEC staff observed that Respondents had again failed to follow best management practices regarding containment of stockpiled material with silt fencing and hay bales as required by Natural Resource Permit Condition 6.
17. On October 26, 2017, NYSDEC staff observed that Respondents had again failed to follow best management practices regarding containment of stockpiled material with silt fencing and hay bales as required by Natural Resource Permit Condition 6.
18. On December 4, 2017, NYSDEC staff observed that Respondents had again failed to follow best management practices regarding containment of stockpiled material with silt fencing and hay bales as required by Natural Resource Permit Condition 6.
19. Although work was completed on or about June 8, 2017, Respondents failed to submit postconstruction photographs until December 7, 2017, in violation ofNatural Resource Permit Condition 14.
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