The State Department of Transportation is planning to reconstruct the triple-cantilever portion of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway under the Promenade in Brooklyn Heights and one of the schemes would demolish numerous townhouses between Willow and Middagh Streets.

According to an article by Gary Buiso Gardner in The Brooklyn Paper June 12, 2010, "Peter King, project manager with the Department of Transportation, called the possibility of an eminent domain taking unlikely, but confirmed that it is being considered."

"Transportation officials said that they are preparing an environmental impact statement for the mega-project," the article continued, "and are merely mandated to look at many possible scenarios - from doing nothing to boring a tunnel under Brooklyn Heights. The project is the first major rehabilitation of the roadway since its opening in 1954, and will seek to modernize the structure to meet the roadway realities it now faces - more than 145,000 cars and trucks rumbling along its surface each day. The highway was designed to last 50 years - in an age when it handled far fewer vehicles, King said. The roadway's limitations - narrow lanes, inconsistent curves, lack of shoulders, short merge and weave distances - also makes it dangerous. From 2004 to 2007, a total of 674 accidents were reported between Tillary and Congress streets - a figure that is 10 times the statewide average."

Rob Perris, the district manager of Community Board 2, told The Brooklyn Paper that concerns about eminent domain are misplaced: "We are talking about a 10-year process and we're in year one. It is conceivable that there could be alignments that result in property being taken, but from the standpoint of today that seems highly unlikely."

"The irony," the article continued, "is that master builder Robert Moses created the existing triple cantilever underneath Brooklyn Heights after neighborhood activists defeated his initial plan for a highway right through the heart of the neighborhood....When the highway was constructed, a row of Columbia Heights brownstones - including the home of Brooklyn bridge designer John Roebling - was razed. And February House, a 'bohemian utopia' on Middagh shared by the poet W.H Auden, composer Benjamin Britten and writer Carson McCullers, was also doomed by the BQE."

The proposed work would increase truck clearances, widen lanes, and reinforce the corroding steel and concrete span. A final plan is not due until 2015, and work would not begin until 2020, the article said.

Details of the project can be found by visiting the state transportation website at www.nysdot.gov/bqedowntownbrooklyn.

An article by Rich Calder in today's edition of The New York Post said that "some 30 to 50 buildings along the pricey Brooklyn waterfront...could be demolished by the state to modernize and revamp the crumbling Brooklyn-Queens Expressway" to meet federal guidelines for highways.

This includes parts of a roughly five-block stretch in Brooklyn Heights from Pineapple Street to Poplar Street and between Columbia Heights and Willow Street. The proposals were outlined in maps recently released by the DOT.

"Although unlikely, the proposal as mapped could also lead to the demolition of part of One Brooklyn Bridge Park, a high-rise condo complex at Furman Street that is supposed to generate funds to help pay for maintaining a long-delayed 85-acre park under construction. This is because the BQE overpass hovering above Furman Street - which is separated from the 440-unit condo building by a mere 20 feet - needs to be widened even further," the article said.

"The eminent domain proposal," the article continued, "could also mean the loss of some homes to the south in the Columbia Street Waterfront District, specifically within and around the area bounded by Warren, Congress and Columbia streets. This includes recently built affordable apartments and part of nearby Van Voorhees Playground."