Melvin R. Krimko,
P.C.
Real Estate Attorney
COURIER L 12 IFE, JAN. 18–24, 2019 B
FERRY
system to Coney Island is a major step
forward for Southern Brooklyn’s students,
working families, seniors, and
the millions from across New York
City and beyond who visit the iconic
People’s Playground and Riegelmann
Boardwalk every year,” Treyger said.
DeBlasio’s announcement came
months after locals last fall demanded
the city include Coney in its latest
study of where to expand the ferry system,
and more than a year after Hizzoner
promised residents that offi cials
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592 Pacific Street, Brooklyn
718-789-3410
Downtown Brooklyn
near Atlantic Center & The Barclay Arena
Convenient By Train, Bus & LIRR
JOHN J. HEALEY FUNERAL HOME
“Serving Brooklyn Since 1904”
2005 West 6th Street
718-743-1388
Visit us at: www.JohnJHealey.com
Manager: John LaGreca
John J. Healey Funeral Home is owned by Service Corporation International
1929 Allen Parkway, Houston Tx. 77019 713-522-5141
would look into adding a stop in the
neighborhood during a 2017 town hall
there.
Coney Islanders for years pushed
for a local stop, arguing a nautical
commute would improve access to jobs
and education citywide for residents
who otherwise must trek to the Coney
Island–Stillwell Avenue and W. Eighth
Street–New York Aquarium stations
to catch the D, F, N, and Q lines — a
trip that requires a bus ride for locals
living in Coney’s West End, where the
tentative plan calls for building the
new Coney ferry dock.
The city fi rst fl oated launching a
ferry service in 2012, when offi cials
suggested creating a Coney Island
Creek stop at a derelict fi shing pier at
Kaiser Park — a few blocks east of the
newly announced tentative site . But offi
cials ultimately rejected the creek location,
saying it was too far from the
REZONING
this, and we responded.”
This newspaper published those
comments — which Lobel gave in response
to residents’ concerns that rezoning
the entire block would likely
displace too many locals — in an Oct.
29 story , which the City Planning Commission
referred to, but did not cite directly,
in its report on the decision not
to grant the rezoning.
Commission chairwoman Marisa
Lago said she was “quite disturbed” to
read the attorney’s remarks in this paper
while questioning Lobel at a Dec.
5 public hearing , where she suggested
his comments undermined the panel’s
confi dence in Winiarski Entities’s honesty
and intentions for the Coney Island
block, since the city does not seek
to benefi t individual property owners
or developers through rezonings, according
to a Department of City Planning
spokesman.
And Lobel’s previous representation
of another builder that last year
secured a so-called spot rezoning of an
individual development site owned by
a Fort Greene church — but originally
sought to upzone a larger swath of land
— didn’t help relieve the commission’s
doubts, according to Lago’s comments
at the December hearing.
Lobel falsely told Lago that this
newspaper took his comments “out
of context” in responding to her concerns
at that hearing, noting that his
client ultimately sought to rezone the
full block. But months before, the attorney
explicitly encouraged members
of CB13 to ask the city to reduce
the proposed rezoning area to just his
clients’ Surf Avenue properties — and
even alleged offi cials would be less inclined
to approve a request to upzone
all of the block’s 25 lots.
“The truth of the matter is, you can
decide, it’s more money, and it’s more
time and effort, and less likely that
we’re going to get our approval if we
have 25 lots, but we included them,”
Lobel said at the panel’s Oct. 24 meeting.
“If this community board has in
its conditions that they want to reduce
the size of that rezoning, that doesn’t
hurt us. That basically is the community
board’s prerogative to do that.”
The commission’s rejection of the
rezoning concludes its Ulurp journey,
a roughly year-long process the developer
must begin again from scratch if
it wants another version of its application
to be reconsidered.
But if history is any indication, the
builder wouldn’t fi nd the process any
easier a second time around. The community
board, Borough President Adams
, and Councilman Mark Treyger
(D–Coney Island) all either outright
rejected or expressed concerns about
the plan, due to the developer’s refusal
to make a legal commitment to relocate
tenants of its current Surf Avenue
buildings that would be demolished to
make way for its new complex.
Continued from cover
amusement district.
The 2012 study also proposed a stop
at W. Eighth Street near the New York
Aquarium and Steeplechase Pier, off
the Boardwalk near W. 16th Street,
which it then called the ideal mooring
location for ferries.
But the proposal to dock there came
with a couple of conditions, including
the construction of a $20-million bulwark
at the Steeplechase Pier to control
choppy ocean waves, and further
study of the site found that even after
construction, the operation would
hemorrhage money, according to offi -
cials.
A year later, a group called the
Friends of Coney Island Creek Ferry
and Landing proposed another dock location
deeper inside the creek, at W. 21st
Street and Neptune Avenue — where
they set sail on a test run in a bid to
get offi cials to consider the site , which
Borough President Adams endorsed in
a December 2017 statement supporting
the re-zoning of a nearby block.
Local environmentalists, however,
argued that the dock should go elsewhere
, claiming that the fi lthy creek is
already fi lled with derelict boats, debris,
and toxic waste — which they noted
would have to be regularly dredged —
and that a dock at W. 21st Street and
Neptune Avenue would interfere with
recreational use of the channel.
But Adams, who cheered the news
of the forthcoming Coney ferry, said
he still believes that location is the
best spot for the new dock following
the mayor’s announcement.
Continued from cover
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