14 MAY 17, 2018 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Residents rally against zoning changes near Ridgewood border
BY RYAN KELLEY
RKELLEY@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
TWITTER @R_KELLEY6
Since news surfaced in February
about a proposed housing development
next to their loft buildings,
a group of tenants living just across
the Ridgewood border into Bushwick
have experienced a constant feeling of
uncertainty about their living situation.
A large parking lot at 1601 DeKalb
Ave. lies next to the loft buildings, and
the developers at Camber Property
Group want to turn the lot into two huge,
nine-story apartment buildings with a
total of 122 units. It’s a sign of the gentrifi
cation crisis that has swept through
Bushwick and bled into Ridgewood —
driving up property values and rents,
yet pricing longtime residents out of
town — but the project has one big caveat
that could force the loft residents out.
Most of the parking lot is zoned as a
manufacturing district, which means it
can’t be used for residential property. The
developers have therefore applied for the
re-zoning of the lot and the surrounding
area, including the two loft buildings,
two other residential buildings, a post
offi ce, commercial and retail businesses.
If the project is approved through
the city’s Uniform Land Use Review
Procedure (ULURP) — a requirement
for any development that involves
a zoning change — the loft at 1609
DeKalb Ave. will be upzoned, making it
an easy target for future development.
“A lot of people are stressed out, of
course, they don’t know what’s going to
happen,” said Marcel Negret, a trained
city planning professional and a resident
at 1609 DeKalb Ave. “Many of
my neighbors started trying to fi gure
out where they would go. At the very
beginning we were not optimistic at
all about what the outcome would be.”
The other major factor that puts
1609 DeKalb Ave. at the most risk has
to do with its own legal status as a
residential building. According to the
Environmental Assessment Statement
(EAS) for the new development, 1609
DeKalb Ave. and its neighboring loft
at 950 Hart St. were both illegally
converted into residential buildings.
While the Hart Street loft is currently
going through the legalization process
through the New York City Loft Law,
the DeKalb Avenue loft is not.
While the EAS notes that the proposed
zoning changes would bring
both buildings to conforming status, it
also specifi cally identifi es 1609 DeKalb
Ave. as a projected future development
site for an offi ce building or a new residential
building.
Negret and his neighbors realized
they needed to take action if they
hoped to save their building, where
he said many tenants also run their
businesses. They formed a tenant’s
association, which Negret is the head
of, and began to organize rallies and
attend public meetings during the
ULURP process.
At the ULURP hearing at Brooklyn
Borough Hall on April 17 where Rick
Gropper, principal at Camber, presented
the project, Negret and some
of his neighbors argued their case as
well, and they gained another prominent
ally in their fi ght. The parking
lot where the proposed buildings will
be built is heavily used by employees
of Wyckoff Heights Medical Center a
block away, and hospital president and
CEO Ramon Rodriguez said he can’t
lose that space.
“Right now, nurses and doctors who
I can’t recruit unless they have a place
to go to park will not come to our place,”
Rodriguez said at the hearing. “So to
close parking without a replacement,
without some kind of mitigation … is a
failure to understand what our problems
are.”
Rodriguez added that despite Camber’s
claims that it has performed
community outreach about the development,
he only heard about it 24
hours prior to the April 17 hearing.
Camber has not yet responded to a
request for additional comment.
Momentum continued to build in
opposition to the development when
the very next day Community Board 4
voted against it. According to District
Manager Celeste Leon, the vote of disapproval
from the board was directly
related to the Bushwick Community
Plan derived by the board along with
Councilmembers Antonio Reynoso
and Rafael Espinal in 2014 because of
zoning concerns in the district.
“The proposed development is
not consistent with the goals of the
community planning process and
the needs of the community at large,”
Leon told the Ridgewood Times. “The
way that it stands right now, it will
adversely aff ect adjacent residents
and businesses.”
Leon also commended the tenants
of the aff ected buildings for their continued
presence at all public hearings,
and Negret said they have realized this
issue is much larger than just their
own block.
“It’s a community issue for Bushwick
and its neighboring communities,” Negret
said. “By allowing this project to become
certified, you’re eroding that commitment
to that community based plan.”
At 10 a.m. tomorrow, Thursday,
May 17, Negret and the tenants of 1609
DeKalb Ave. and 950 Hart St. will march
from 301 Grove St. to 1601 DeKalb Ave.
to protest the development.
With Board 4’s decision made, the
Borough President, City Planning
Commission and City Council still have
to review the application, with the City
Council having the ultimate say.
Photo by Chika Kobari
Residents of 1609 Dekalb Ave. and
950 Hart St. rally against the proposed
housing development that
could force them to move.
Addabbo: No rush to legalize sports gambling in New York
BY RYAN KELLEY
RKELLEY@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
TWITTER @R_KELLEY6
The days of the sports bookie may
be numbered after the United
States Supreme Court struck down
on May 14 the federal law that banned
sports betting in most states, but a Queens
lawmaker with a stake in the case said
that New York won't rush to legalize it.
The court determined that the Professional
and Amateur Sports Protection
Act (PASPA) — enacted in 1993 in
an attempt to maintain the integrity of
sports and eff ectively outlaw sports
gambling nationwide — violated the
10th Amendment of the Constitution
because it denied states the right to
regulate sports betting.
States will now have the option to
allow legal sports gambling, which
has an estimated value of $150 billion
in bets on the illegal market, and New
York is prepared to cash in. When the
Upstate Gaming Economic Development
Act of 2013 passed, it contained
a provision that would allow legal
sports wagering at casinos if it is legalized
on the federal level.
As the ranking member of the New
York State Senate Racing, Gaming and
Wagering Committee, state Senator Joseph
Addabbo could very well be at the forefront
of the conversation about how New
York moves forward with sports betting.
When he spoke to QNS on May 15, however,
Addabbo said that it's important for
New York to take its time to think about
the best strategies to implement it safely.
"It can be done administratively, but
I think it will be mostly legislatively,"
Addabbo said. "We got the green light,
but that doesn't mean we should run
into something."
Addabbo said his main concerns with
legal sports betting are preventing corruption
within the major sports leagues
and increasing services for people who
are addicted to gambling.
The conventional wisdom is that once
more and more states legalize sports
gambling, there will be a catalog of
apps to choose from to place bets online
right from your phone. With increased
access comes increased risk of gambling
addiction, as well as incentive for people
within the professional sports world to fix
the outcome of games and win themselves
money on bets that they placed.
But Addabbo believes taking the
slow and steady approach should mean
allowing the brick-and-mortar casinos
in New York to test the betting market
first because of their already strict
regulations. Resorts World Casino New
York City in South Ozone Park — the
city's only casino — could prove to be a
major hub for sports betting in that case,
and Addabbo commended the casino for
the problem gaming programs it already
has in place.
"The idea is to expand those programs
along with expanded gaming, and that
will always be at the forefront," Addabbo
said.
Resorts World has not yet responded
to a request for comment.
As for preventing corruption in the
sports, Addabbo said that getting as
much input from the major professional
leagues as possible will be very important,
and the leagues should develop severe
punishments for anyone caught altering
the integrity of the games. The National
Basketball Association has been one of the
leaders on this front so far, and Addabbo
said the league was present for a public
hearing with the Racing Committee in
February.
"I totally believe there is a parallel line
where you can protect integrity and
still have sports gaming alongside it,"
Addabbo said.
Whether or not states will be able to
actually bring in much added revenue
from sports betting is another question,
and the answer isn't as straightforward
as it may seem. The leagues may want
a cut of the money being bet on their
product and the casinos or online services
where the bets are placed will get
some too.
But in a state with a $4 billion defi cit
in its current budget, Addabbo said, any
new revenue is welcomed.
"There are so many questions like
that and we have to answer them in a
methodical way," Addabbo said. "We'll
start betting in New York small and
ramp it up as the years roll on in an
eff ort to protect all factors."
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