Brooklyn Building Boom $3 Billion in new residential projects

Brooklyn is "enjoying" a huge development boom across the river from Chinatown in Flatbush according to a NY Post story from 2007 "The bulk will come in the form of at least 4,422 new residential units, much of which will be spread among high-rise towers reaching 40 stories high that will soon line the avenue.

We're talking about 2,063 market-rate rentals and 1,721 luxury condos, along with another 570 apartments and 68 condos created for low- and middle-income families.

And these projects will also bring 645,000 square feet of new retail and another 190,000 square feet of office space." NY Post By RICH CALDER June 25, 2007.

The NYC Dept. of Transportation would have us all believe that over four thousand new residential units in downtown Brooklyn will have no impact on traffic. Reports on the affects of closure on Park Row in Chinatown, and the presentations for the Chatham Square redesign have ignored the building boom in Brooklyn just over the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges. Ironically the same firm Phillip Habib and Assoc. is responsible for both Flatbush Ave. projects in Brooklyn AND Park Row and Chatham Square's projects in Manhattan's Chinatown.
CCRC wants to know why the City, DOT, and Habib have conspired to ignore all the traffic data regarding these new developments and their impact on the impending construction planned for Chatham Square.

What we DO know from Community Board 3's paid traffic engineer, Brian Ketchum is that traffic WILL back up on Flatbush Ave. (particularly at Tillary) as a result of years of construction at Chatham Square and the overlapping refurb. of the Brooklyn Bridge.

We've also learned that no community boards in Brooklyn even know about the construction slated to begin in July in Chinatown, they're not going to know what hit them once the traffic backs up.

We intend to inform them.

Brooklyn Boom

Across the river from Chinatown on Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn several huge luxury condo buildings have risen. Among them is the Toren - $300,000.00 - $1 Million per unit, at Flatbush and Myrtle Avenues.
With the rise in luxury condos comes the rise in traffic into Chinatown from Brooklyn. It makes sense that newbies to Brooklyn don't just drive within Brooklyn, they drive to Manhattan, sometimes daily.
The most direct routes into Manhattan from the Toren and the other condo towers on Flatbush are the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges. The Manhattan Bridge empties into Chinatown via Canal st. and The Brooklyn Bridge traffic flows through Chatham Square via St. James Place, YET Phillip Habib, the City's planner for the redesign of Chatham Square never bothered to include the enormous rise in condo units just over the Bridges from Chinatown in ANY redesign presentation. Interestingly Phillip Habib was also the City's planner for many of the Flatbush condo projects! What gives?!
Either the planner is grossly incompetent in this omission or he is following executive orders to use pin point focus on Chatham Square alone when considering its redesign. It doesn't take a degree in City planning to point out the obvious affect of increased traffic over the bridges and through the tunnels so why the conspicuous omission?
Do the new residents in the Toren all bicycle? Does everyone who buys a luxury condo unit these days forego a car opting instead to walk, use mass transit or bike from the neighborhing borough? Do the buyers of half million to $1M condos these days walk to Brooklyn to apartment hunt?
Phillip Habib and the City would like us to think so, but we know better.
The new condos that popped up on Worth Street between Centre and Broadway have already caused an increase in traffic on Worth St. and Chatham Square.
The new marriage bureau (formerly the DMV) on Worth St. is another magnet for traffic, again no mention of the "Las Vegas Style Wedding Mill" in the Chatham Square redesign plans.

NOTE TO HABIB: WAKE UP! more condos = more cars . Put it in the analysis.

Phillip Habib was slammed by the Chinatown community for, among other things committing "illegal segmentation of data" (as pointed out by CB3's District Manager) and using too small a sample group and survey of businesses in Chinatown in the socioeconomic portion of the judge ordered E.I.S. for the closure of Park Row. Omissions of pertinent data and elastic bounderies are a few tricks the City's "hired gun" has used before.