The comments are already flying over my column in March’s magazine, which was delivered over the weekend. Apparently, I’m a pretty nefarious fellow.
A couple of other points:
• Whole Foods is a big-deal company whose goal is to make as much money as possible for its stockholders. I don’t object to that. What galls me is when it pretends that it isn’t a big-deal company whose goal is to make as much money as possible for its stockholders — and people buy into that act.
• You can find more about Whole Foods’ efforts to build its Brooklyn Park Slope store here and here. One of my favorite facts: The median price of a single-family home in Park Slope is $436,000, almost four times the U.S. median and more than twice the median around here. Think that doesn’t have something to do with Whole Foods’ persistence in Brooklyn?
• Several readers have asked why I was willing to give Whole Foods the variance. Because, to paraphrase Louis XV’s mistress, "After Whole Foods, the deluge." Think about how contentious this debate was; then, think about what happens when a developer comes in and wants to turn the land Whole Foods didn’t use into its "highest and best use," the rumored mini-West Village? If compromising on setbacks would have avoided that, then I was willing to compromise on setbacks.
