Brooklyn Goes “Green” through Strategic Programs and Sustainable Developments

By Veronica Grecu, Associate Editor

Three key Brooklyn communities enrolled in a three-year strategic program called “Brooklyn Greens” are planning several events and initiatives that would encourage young people, adults and community institutions to improve their local environment through energy-efficient actions. The program, launched by the Brooklyn Community Foundation (BCF), will invest $750,000 in green projects for Bedford-Stuyvesant, Cypress Hills and South Williamsburg.

According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the Pratt Center for Community Development will team up with three community organizations established in the envisaged areas – El Puente, the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corp. and the Cypress Hills Local Development Corp.– in an effort to create new green community spaces, attract new jobs and revitalize neighborhoods. The publication also notes that the funds coming from BCF will be partly used to redevelop 480 housing units into energy-efficient homes. The three communities will benefit from 130 new green residential housing units, and 12 neighborhood green spaces will be rehabbed.

Several housing developments are advancing as well in the small DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) community, making the neighborhood very attractive. While still in the works, a new 65-unit condominium, located at 205 Water St., already has a list of 1,100 people interested in the project. Toll Brothers City Living, the site’s developer, estimates that the first transactions could be closed as early as spring 2012. Following the same “green” frenzy that Brooklyn seems to have embraced lately, more than 50 percent of the materials used for construction were recovered or manufactured within 500 miles of DUMBO. Toll Brothers City Living, which has achieved LEED certification for all its Brooklyn developments, aims at receiving a LEED Gold Certification for this housing project, notes the Eagle.