TransGas seeks to construct a 1,100 megawatt generating facility on land that the City intends to convert to a public park. In October 1999, Brooklyn Community Board 1 submitted plans to the Department of City Planning to rezone the Brooklyn East River waterfront in Greenpoint and Williamsburg. The rezoning was in response to the decline in manufacturing activity and the increase in residential demand in the area. The rezoning also envisioned a 28-acre park on the waterfront below Bushwick Inlet in Greenpoint. In March 2001, TransGas Energy Systems purchased an option to buy 1 North 12th Street, located within the site of the proposed park, as a site for a power plant. In May 2005, the City adopted the Greenpoint-Williamsburg Rezoning Plan. 2 CityLand 67 (June 15, 2005).

The City and TransGas then each embarked on condemnation proceedings for their respective, mutually exclusive, projects. In November 2006, Second Department ruled that TransGas lacked the authority to condemn property for its Brooklyn waterfront power plant absent approval from the New York State Board of Electric Generation Siting and the Environment. 3 CityLand 173 (Dec. 2006). (read more…)

Electric power plant proposed for site where City seeks to build 28-acre park as part of its Greenpoint- Williamsburg rezoning. On April 12, 2006, the Public Service Commission recommended denial of the second application of TransGas Energy Systems, LLC to construct an eight-acre electric power plant at 1 North 12th Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on a site that the City plans to condemn for a new 28-acre waterfront park.

After it spent $1.5 million on the option to purchase the site and $10 million in development costs, TransGas filed its first application with the Siting Board in December 2002 to obtain approval of its proposed power plant. After extensive hearings at which the City argued that the plant would curb residential development and interfere with its massive rezoning plan for Greenpoint and Williamsburg, the Siting Board rejected TransGas’ application in April 2004, more than a year before the City rezoned the area in May 2005. The Board’s examiners found that the plant’s visual impact and its effect on adjacent uses could not be mitigated and added that the City’s pending rezoning significantly weighed into its rejection. (read more…)