Developers: We’ll give city free real estate to avoid sewage-tank land-grab
“A developer is attempting to avoid a city plan that would force it to sell its Gowanus Canal-side land to make way for a giant sewage tank, by offering instead to donate half of the property to the people of New York for zilch.
And some locals say it is a great deal — the city can save money by building the tank in nearby parkland it already owns, and the cleanup of the canal won’t get bogged down by a lengthy and pricey eminent domain process.
“It’s a game-changer,” said neighborhood resident Katia Kelly, a member of the Gowanus Superfund Community Advisory Group, a panel of locals that advise the federal Environmental Protection Agency on the cleanup. “It’s a novel idea to use architecture and urban design to solve a real problem, and if we have those tools it doesn’t make sense at all for the city to be talking eminent domain.”
The feds have been pushing the city to stick the tank beneath Thomas Green Park and its beloved Double D pool, which they say is full of toxic soil and needs to be cleaned anyway.
But the city claims that would put the swimming hole out of commission for up to nine years — far longer than the regular detox, and a prospect that many local swim fans have long railed against — while the above-ground mechanical equipment needed to run the tank would eat up valuable green space.
So in July, it pitched its own plan to requisition the land between Butler and Degraw streets and put the whole thing there instead.”
Mixson, Colin. The Brooklyn Paper 7 December 2015.