So long, it's been good frustrating you. (MVVA)

If they can reach a compromise on Capital Hill, why not on the Brooklyn waterfront?

After years of bickering over Brooklyn Bridge Park, the Bloomberg administration has finally struck a deal with two local pols who opposed plans to erect condos along the park to help pay for its maintenance. Instead of the two new condo towers, along with the hulking One Brooklyn Bridge Park, they have settled on one shorter tower, though maybe still a second one, along with a handful of additional funding mechanisms to make up the difference.

Decades in the making, the park finally took off during the real estate boom, when the idea of condo towers sandwiched between the BQE and the derelict docks no longer seemed absurd. Instead of paying annual real estate taxes, that money would be diverted to maintenance for the park. Some people, who have the audacity to think the public sector and not the private should be responsible for building and maintaining parks, were appalled. The Brooklyn Paper began calling it Brooklyn Bridge "Park" for this very reason, while The Observer prefers the name libertarian parks. Then there were the Brooklyn Heights residents, who feared the views from their multimillion-dollar brownstones would be besmirched.

A committee set-up last year sought to find alternatives that could raise enough money to fund the park without having to build any condos, such as building a parking lot—which is so much better than condos. This proved untenable, at least on its own. As had been the previous hope, a rezoning and air rights sale of the Watchtower properties in Dumbo owned by the Jehovah's Witnesses will go forward, but it will only replace one of the condos, at Atlantic Avenue, and then only if there is enough interest in buying the development rights. The city explains the deal thusly:

Such a rezoning and sale to tax-paying entities would have to take place by December 31, 2013 to be counted as an offset. For each square foot of Watchtower property rezoned and sold, the Pier 6 development sites would then be reduced by 0.30 square feet. Total incremental revenues allocable to the park from these sites would be capped at $6.27 million per fiscal year, escalating at 3 percent per year (or the amount previously anticipated from the Pier 6 Development Site).

People had better hope the market picks up by then. Meanwhile, a tower at John Street remains, but it has been reduced to a height of 140 feet from 170, with 40,000 square feet less of development.

“By reducing or eliminating housing and requiring Watchtower and other alternatives to be used, we have dramatically changed the plan,” State Senator Daniel Squadron said in a release. “We found a path to complete Brooklyn Bridge Park and address long-standing community concerns about housing on the site.

Those other funding mechanisms include increased concessions and new parking fees, which will raise $750,000 per year. So if we won't commercialize the park one way, we will another. “Before investing further City capital to build out the park, it was critical that we come to an agreement on a long-term funding plan for its maintenance so the park would be self-sustaining," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

Bad as this may sound to some purists, considering parks are closing around the country, it may not be such a bad deal.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

Councilman and city comptroller candidate David Yassky, comptroller and likely mayoral candidate Bill Thompson, State Senators Marty Connor and Velmanette Montgomery, Assemblywoman Joan Millman, and Randy Mastro, a deputy mayor under Rudy Giuliani, were among the rally participants. They all gave the current administration an earful for creating what they portray as a serious impediment to the goal of creating a financial hub in Brooklyn.

“This is a classic case of bureaucracy doing what makes sense for the bureaucrats but what does not make sense for the city of New York,” said Yassky, who is often allied with the mayor.

“We’re not going to let you just move forward, ignore the wishes of the community and act as if you can unilaterally reopen and expand this prison. It’s not going to happen. Department of Corrections: back off. It’s a very bad idea,” added Thompson, who has become more vocally critical of Bloomberg.

Calling the jail a “dinosaur,” Connor talked about the flourishing downtown Brooklyn neighborhood. “People live here now. It has the fabric of a real community. A jail doesn’t fit – it makes no sense.”

Mastro’s law firm, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, has agreed to do pro bono work for Stop BHOD, a community group trying to stop the project. Mastro pledged to take the city to court if there isn't more effort to solicit community input or conduct an environmental impact review of the planned expansion.

Millman said legislators outside the metropolitan area didn’t want the end of session to be consumed with congestion pricing, an issue that basically has nothing to do with them.

“New York State is not only about New York City.”

So, who understands better how to get legislation through the legislature: the governor or the mayor?

“I can’t talk about the governor because the governor hasn’t’ been there, but certainly the mayor doesn’t seem to get it.”

This morning, Spitzer had breakfast with the Assembly Democrats - and Republicans - from Western New York; last night, Assembly Democrats from Brooklyn dined at the mansion; Wednesday morning, it was Assembly members from Queens having breakfast at the mansion.

"He kind of asked us what was on our minds," said Assemblywoman Joan Millman of Brooklyn. "Many of our colleagues spoke about housing, the lack of affordable housing. I spoke about transportation."

"We all sat at a very large dining table," she said, "I thought it was a very free wheeling conversation," she said.

Asked for comment, Spitzer spokeswoman Christine Anderson said, "Today's breakfast was bipartisan, to discuss issues of importance to Western New Yorkers."

She added, "The governor looks forward to the opportunity to sit with other lawmakers and discuss issues of importance for this session and for their districts."

The other two meetings at the mansion were just with Democrats, she said. (In all fairness, how many Republican Assembly members are there in the city anyway?)

“You had a governor, under Pataki, it wasn’t even discussed,” said Assemblywoman Joan Millman of Brooklyn. “Now you have a governor that is openly supporting it. But it’s still going to be a long haul.”

The opposition to same-sex marriage -- or at least the reluctance to address it -- isn't just in the Republican-led state Senate.

I asked Millman, who has been in the Assembly for 10 years, if she knew where Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver stood on the issue.

“No, I don’t," she said. "I know he’s been quoted as saying he wants to see where his conference is on this. And I think the conference is going to be all over the lot because some people are very conservative or represent very conservative districts.”

Millman, who supports same-sex marriage, isn't optimistic. “It’s going to be a real sticking point. I don’t know if it’s going to be something that gets through this session,” she said.

Assembly members James Brennan, Joan Millman and Annette Robinson said the venture should be scaled down, with guaranteed affordable housing and more extensive disclosure of the project's finances.

The letter was emailed out today by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn and posted on the group's website, although the moderate tone seems to be at odds with DDDB's more absolutist opposition.

Is this a sign that the Atlantic Yards opposition is beginning to coalesce around an eventual compromise position? Or am I just reading too much into this?

-- Azi Paybarah