MEMO To Jehovah's Witnesses officials:
If you build it, they will come, but some improvements to the surrounding neighborhood couldn't hurt.
Community support for plans by religious officials to build a massive residential complex for their members in DUMBO hinges on whether the group agrees to improve the local subway station, streets and parks, sources said.
"Their expansion of the neighborhood will tax its infrastructure, and therefore I think it's incumbent on them to improve it commensurately," said Councilman David Yassky ( D - Brooklyn Heights ).
But community groups want more than what the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society -- the business entity of the Jehovah's Witnesses -- is offering. Yassky and the DUMBO Neighborhood Association are asking them to pay for renovating the York St. subway station, local streets and a rundown park beneath the Manhattan Bridge. But the group is only offering to fix up the park, said spokesman Richard Devine.
"We think the change in zoning and our application has a lot of merit in and of itself," Devine said.
Nancy Webster, president of the DUMBO Neighborhood association, said all the improvements are needed because the Watchtower plan doesn't allow for street - level retail shops along the perimeter of their complex -- and that would diminish the neighborhood.
"In good urban planning, you want active uses for the street, things that draw people to the area," Webster said.
The Jehovah's Witnesess' proposal for the three - acre parcel at 85 Jay St. includes four residential towers -- rising 14, 16, 18 and 20 stories -- with about 1,000 apartments. Plans also call for a three story assembly hall, a 1,100 car underground parking garage.
The flagship building could be completed by 2006 and would bring about 1,800 members to DUNBO, said Devine.
The Watchtower bid got a boost last week when a Community Board 2 land - use subcommitee voted in favor of it. The entire board will vote Wednesday.
After that, the plan goes before the borough president, the city Planning Commission and the City Council.
And while the DUMBO civic group is seeking benefits for the neighborhood, members of the other community affected by the proposal, Vinegar Hill, are still "unanimously opposed" to the project, said Nicolas Evans - Cato, president of the Vinegar Hill Neighborhood Association.
"A project of this scale could set a very dangerous precedent for new buildings in this area,"Evans - Cato said.
How the Jehovah's Witnesses faithful can really attain unity in paradise.