Battleground: Williamsburg/Greenpoint waterfront

At stake: A long stretch of East River property, and the artistic flavor of a once-affordable area

The combatants: Developers Joshua Guttman, the Toll Brothers, Quadriad Realty Partners and Douglaston Development Corp., the mayor’s office and the city planning commission vs. artists and community activists who are being priced out or who want to preserve the neighborhood’s character

You knew what was coming in Williamsburg and Greenpoint. It’s a well-worn path: ethnic-industrial neighborhood turns artists’ haven, turns trend central and then turns developers’ cash cow. The grit and charm (not to mention the cheap rents and ample space) that lured exiled East Villagers are quickly being eroded by a sweeping development program that is heralded variously as visionary, exploitive or somewhere in between. While advocates tout the plans as an exemplar of positive urban revitalization, to dissenters who post on blogs like Brownstoner (see “The embeds,”), it looks more like the Miamification of Brooklyn.

Thanks to rezoning last year, new buildings and conversions of existing structures will provide housing for more than 100,000 residents over the next decade. (Some condo conversions, like the Cass Gilbert–designed warehouse at 184 Kent Avenue, have caused a ruckus among preservationists.) The new buildings are required to designate 20 percent of their units as affordable housing; city planners say this “inclusionary” setup remedies the faults of earlier revitalization plans. The rezoning also promises a waterfront promenade: two miles of walkways from Manhattan Avenue to North 3rd Street.

But the waterfront itself is privately owned by the very developers who plan to build there. The Toll Brothers, who are infamous for the McMansioning of America’s exurbs, have grand-scale designs on Williamsburg’s East River stretch. Notorious Long Island developer Joshua Guttman has a ten-year plan for the Greenpoint Terminal Market, recently reduced to rubble in a massive fire.

A half-dozen high-rise waterfront projects, including the 1,013-unit Northside Piers/Palmer’s Dock, are in the works. Players like the Quadriad Realty Partners are lobbying for more rezoning to permit 28-tower residential multiblock projects of 12 to 40 stories each. “With innovative strategies like inclusionary zoning, we are providing new housing opportunities for working New Yorkers and developing diverse and mixed-income communities,” said Mayor Bloomberg at the Palmer’s Dock groundbreaking on June 26.

The newest generation of locals feel a pinch; even as they’re priced out of the ’hood, they’re seen by older North Brooklynites as being responsible for skyrocketing rates. “If you look under 30, you’re the funnel for the hatred that’s going around,” says Marisa Beatty, executive director of the Williamsburg Art Nexus (which lost its North 7th Street space when the owner sold the building to a developer). Older residents “see us as the people who brought gentrification here,” she says. They’re not entirely wrong. But many of the artists who made the place hum have fled a stop or two down the subway line.

Not everyone is willing to leave. Longtime Williamsburg activist Phil DePaolo (who was barred from the Palmer’s Dock opening), among others, is demanding that elected officials address concerns about inadequate transportation infrastructure and unsafe building practices. “We can’t get on a train, we don’t have a firehouse and we don’t have a hospital,” says DePaolo. “Morning rush on Bedford Avenue, it’s a nightmare. The developers don’t care.”—Helen Zelon