Can Preservation Maintain Affordable Housing?

At last week's Park Slope Civic Council meeting, discussion turned to 4th Avenue's new development, and more specifically to what have come to be recognized as the missed opportunities therein.

Trustees and guests expressed the by now familiar observations about blank walls, driveways, and ventilation grates that annihilate the pedestrian experience, the lack of street-level commercial space, and the general hostility of the new buildings to street life.

Photo: brownstoner.com

Along with the above points, one of the PSCC Trustees made the astute observation that the new buildings in 4th Avenue were built on the rubble of earlier, older buildings that once stood on the same sites... and that all of the earlier housing was undoubtedly more affordable than what replaced it.

4th Avenue demolition