Eyes on the Street: Williamsburg’s “Lively,” “Beautiful” New Garage Wall

An apartment building in Williamsburg perfectly illustrates how parking minimums in New York's zoning code make the city's streets and sidewalks worse.

Last year, a joint venture of Alex. Brown Realty and Largo Investments finished construction on a 33-unit rental project at 281 Union Avenue in Williamsburg. The seven-story building, roughly the same size as its neighbors, has something those older buildings don't: 17 parking spaces. While we don't know for certain whether parking minimums were the deciding factor behind that number, the amount of parking is just enough to meet the zoning code's requirements.

From an urban design perspective, city buildings don't get much worse. The lot, shaped like a triangle with one corner lopped off, is bounded on all sides by public streets. In other words, there's nowhere to hide the parking.

So the developers turned the entire first floor into a caged-in parking garage, with the curb cut on Union Avenue instead of either of the side streets. While there are some plantings along Union Avenue to try and spruce things up, the result is a bleak streetscape. Instead of walking by an apartment building, people walk past grating that masks a parking garage.

Making matters worse: The tree pits around the project remain empty more than a year after construction finished, leaving pedestrians to bake in the sun.

Ironically, the sales website for the building touts a "lively neighborhood" that "truly combines beautiful scenery with always growing architecture and development." Just don't include this building as a contribution to that lively neighborhood.