By ALBINA CEKA
In a major step towards addressing New York City’s housing shortage the NYC Council’s Subcommittee on Zoning & Franchises and Committee on Land Use voted to advance five rezoning proposals on October 6. The approved plans could pave the way for over 1,500 new apartments across Brooklyn, Bronx, and the Queens including hundreds of permanently affordable homes.
The proposals would create approximately 292 apartments at Fort Hamilton Mews in Bay Ridge Brooklyn, including up to 88 permanently affordable units. While 391 apartments are planned along Park Avenue in Brooklyn, including up to 101 affordable units. At 289 Kent Avenue in Brooklyn 270 apartments with up to 83 affordable units. In Brox at Sojourner Truth–Mapes proposed a layout that would allow for a 100% affordable building with 457 income restricted apartments. 6967 108th Street in Queens could get 59 new apartments and 18 affordable units.
The NYC Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises approved the five proposals earlier in the day at 11am, with modifications to several of them, before they advanced to the Committee on Land Use. The City Council’s zoning subcommittee recently changed four out of five neighborhood building proposals to ensure they fit local needs and offer cheaper rent.
For the Fort Hamilton Mews project in Brooklyn, the committee shrank the building’s allowed height from 9–14 stories down to 8–11 stories so it wouldn’t tower over the block. It would use the Mandatory Inclusionary Housing for the four proposals to guarantee lower rents that match local salaries of the community. With the modifications the subcommittee’s initial vote was unanimous on four projects.
The Sojourner Truth–Mapes was the only dissenting vote of the day with Council Member Amanda Farías highlighting, “I want to recognize that the community board and local union have deep concerns about the negotiation and deal made. Those perspectives deserve to be heard and respected.”
Other council members raised concerns about how they struggled to negotiate with local officials over rezonings. Council member David Carr, representative of District 50, said he was troubled by what he described as the Council’s “increasingly limited options.” He ultimately voted in the positive for the proposal, and said, “with great frustration I vote yes on the Fort Hamilton Mews project and I vote yes on the others.”
Council Member Lynn Schulman echoed his frustration, warning constituents that the Council is increasingly “excluded from certain projects to have any input on so I just want folks to be aware of that so that we’re trying to negotiate as much as we can but it’s going to be less and less.”
After being approved it went on to the committee of land use where it was also approved and now it heads to its final vote which if passed by the full 51 members of the NYC Council, it will move to the Mayor’s desk to be signed and passed.