Unlike the Gowanus Canal or Newtown Creek, two other Superfund sites in the city, there has been little advocacy or controversy around the site on Irving Avenue.
‘How do you reconcile 30 years of change within the Bushwick community? How do you make sense of development and the subsequent displacement that occurs?’
Families and homeless students makeup the majority of homeless people living in Bushwick. 1,039 of the neighborhood’s 1,462 shelter residents (71 percent) lived in family shelters in April.
The building at 299 Troutman Street has eight units with only four units being utilized. The other four units sit burned and empty on the third and fourth floors after a 2008 fire.
With a major rezoning looming for Bushwick, it’s time for another deep look. So, over the next four weeks, City Limits’ reporting staff will spend the bulk of its time in Bushwick, looking for stories, interviewing people and distributing information.
There are some similarities between the community and city rezoning proposals but the differences are important to Bushwick community members who say they have waited for decades for serious public investments in their neighborhood.
The discussion about development, housing, rezoning and gentrification in New York City is sometimes painted as a tug of war between those who embrace change and those who resist it, hopelessly. In Bushwick, it’s clear that picture is inaccurate.
Some are worried proposed height limits leave too much room for developers, or too little room for homeowners who want to sell. Affordability options and a playground project are also on residents’ minds.
The names of the city’s real builders, who labor for decades in the toughest neighborhoods, are nowhere. Their accomplishments, everywhere. One of the greatest of these, Luis Garden Acosta, died last week at the age of 73.
The plan calls for the environmental review to include ‘alternate methods for predicting secondary displacement.’
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