As City Council considers Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan, Council Member Hudson and Brooklyn CB 8 seek more affordability and guarantees of industrial space
On March 27, the City Council's Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises held a hearing on the Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan (AAMUP), which could deliver 4,600 new apartments, including 1,440 affordable units, plus job-creating space, street improvements, and city investments in Central Brooklyn.
However, as foreshadowed in my coverage of the discussion at the City Planning Commission and later the CPC's approval vote, Council Member Crystal Hudson, the key decisionmaker, as well as other major stakeholders--Brooklyn Community Board 8 and Borough President Antonio Reynoso--would like to see more affordability and required space for jobs in light industry and the arts.
Hudson, at the hearing, pressed city officials on why they were only including an incentive, not a requirement, for such job-creating space.
The Department of City Planning's (DCP) Alex Sommer said they'd "heard loud and clearly that it needs to go above and beyond what's currently proposed," and said DCP is working with various internal stakeholders "on tweaking this tool further."
Hudson, as well as Council Member Chi Ossé, asked the city to consider more publicly owned sites for 100% affordable housing.
A CB 8 press release
On April 14, CB 8 issued a press release stating it would not support approval unless the plan:
- provides the greatest number of deeply affordable apartments allowed under the City’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program (MIH)
- offers a density incentive for light industrial uses similar to that established in the 2021 Gowanus rezoning; and
- supports legal assistance to tenants facing displacement by their landlord
For the first and third elements, those are modifications from the Board's original ask, which sought a new category under MIH for more deeply affordable housing and placed a $3 million price tag, for five years, for legal assistance.
Hudson seems on board with the density incentive, calling it a "red line." While she has advocated for more affordable housing on public sites, she has not yet committed to the deeply affordable option.
“The approval of the Adams administration’s City of Yes plan made possible a requirement that new residential upzonings provide 20% deeply affordable housing under MIH,” said Sharon Wedderburn, chair of the Land Use Committee of Community Board 8, in the press release. “Our community district suffers from one of the highest rates of displacement in New York City, and it’s critical that the AAMUP rezoning take advantage of this opportunity. Area Median Income simply rises too quickly for higher affordability levels to reach our at-risk population.”
The press release came with supportive quotes from both Reynoso and Barika X Williams, Executive Director of the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANHD) and resident of Brooklyn CB8.
The hearing
Hudson led off by citing the importance of housing affordable to Black families being displaced from Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights, noting their average household income of $48,000 per year compared to 133,000 for white households in Brooklyn Community District 8.
Affordable issues
Hudson cited city and state owned sites that could be redeveloped to include affordable housing, specifically the long-empty state owned building at 1024 Fulton Street, parking lots at the Brooklyn Adult Learning Center on Nostrand Avenue, and the School for Career Development on Clermont Avenue, and a city owned property leased to the MTA on Atlantic Avenue, "We need to leverage every public site available to us."
The Department of Housing Preservation and Development's (HPD) Sarit Platkin described effort to bring affordable housing to five publicly owned sites--three not within boundaries of the rezoning--including 542 Dean Street, 516 Bergen Street, 1134 Pacific Street, 1110 Atlantic Avenue, and 457 Nostrand Avenue. She also cited an effort to advance a project at 1024 Fulton Street, a state-owned site.
 |
| DCP |
Hudson asked about additional sites for affordable housing, including 510 Clermont Avenue, the Brooklyn School for Career Development.
Platkin said they were working with the Department of Education to assess the feasibility of relocation. Pressed by Hudson, she said, "That could mean locating them on another city-owned site. It could mean acquiring a site. All of this requires a lot of time and due diligence and potentially cost."
Hudson noted the school has a parking lot, which could perhaps be built on separately.
Platkin cited Partners in Preservation, HPD's new anti displacement program which funds local Central Brooklyn community based organizations to combat landlord harassment and support tenant organizing in coalition building and rent regulated and at risk buildings, a $3 million, three-year commitment that began last year.
Adjusting AMI
Hudson noted that CB 8 had asked for an MIH option, dubbed 3.5, that would provide more deeply affordable housing than current options. "Is it possible to adjust MIH in the context of neighborhood rezonings?" she asked.
DCP's Sommer didn't answer directly but said the recent City of Yes for Housing Opportunity legislation did modify the MIH options to allow for the City Council to map, as a standalone, the Deeply Affordable Option 3, with 20% of the units at 40% of Area Median Income.
To adjust MIH , said his colleague Jonah Rogoff, "requires a citywide analysis."
Incentive or requirement?
Hudson noted that the proposed zoning incentive for mixed-use buildings would not necessarily produce light industrial or arts jobs, as CB 8 had advocated in its precursor M-CROWN initiative, but would allow nearly any kind of nonresidential space, including retail and office space.
Given CB 8's request for an incentive like the so-called Gowanus Mix, part of the rezoning in that neighborhood, why not here?
Sommer said DCP supports a mixed use neighborhood. He noted that a 2018 DCP report ("CAN INDUSTRIAL MIXED-USE BUILDINGS WORK IN NYC?") said it's important to have large sites, 20,000 square foot or more, with multiple street frontages, so like two to three street frontages.
"This is important because when you're combining industrial uses with residential, you really need to separate lobbies and cores for residents," he said, with loading on another side. "The sites in AAMUP including on the interior mid blocks are generally small, irregular, they maybe only have one or two frontages."
(In 2019 City Council testimony, CB 8's Gib Veconi, who spearheaded the M-CROWN effort contended that the report was unnecessarily pessimistic, in part based on a land cost well more than in two pending spot rezoning applications.)
(In 2019 City Council testimony, CB 8's Gib Veconi, who spearheaded the M-CROWN effort contended that the report was unnecessarily pessimistic, in part based on a land cost well more than in two pending spot rezoning applications.)
Sommer said the new incentive tool provides more incentive floor area than was proposed in Gowanus. Also, now certification regarding issues like air quality and safety can allow manufacturing in a residential complex. "And we think the combination of these tools will actually achieve the goals outlined by the community board but in a different set of mechanisms than the Gowanus mix."
Rogoff said that, on the corridors, any new development would have to provide non-residential users on the ground floor, plus streetscape improvements, a tool "to kind of concentrate retail uses along the corridors."
"Now we are within weeks of the final vote on the AAMUP ULURP [Uniform Land Use Review Procedure] application and the rezoning still lacks the use incentives that the board believes are critical to the types of jobs that can enable individuals and families to continue to afford to live in our community," he said. "I invite everyone here to consider the injustice of this situation. DCP has claimed AAMUP is a community-led plan, yet will not provide the zoning that the community has sought for more than a decade.
In the mid-block areas, with less retail anticipated, "we expect more of a broader mix of uses from offices, light industrial, community facilities." The incentive would provide 1.1 Floor Area Ratio (FAR)--more than an extra floor of space, nearly twice as much as in Gowanus. "We think that that's a really strong incentive to support a mix of uses."
Hudson said, though, "the only way to ensure we get the types of businesses that we're looking for is to restrict use. If you're simply incentivizing it, and you're allowing a greater category of uses, then you could get those other categories of uses....And what we're really looking for here is light industrial and art space specifically."
"If it's out of scope to narrow the incentive you've proposed, what is the administration proposing as an alternative strategy?" she said. "Because as I said in my opening statement, this is a red line for me."
Sommer then indicated they'd be refining the proposal.
Others' testimony
Veconi, in his testimony, noted, "Our goal since 2014 has been to rezone the district for residential development to cross subsidize both affordable housing as well as light industrial space to promote accessible career path jobs for people lacking a college education."
CB Chair Irsa Weatherspoon, in her testimony, echoed similar disappointment.
Wedderburn, CB 8's Land Use Committee Chair, said they requested that MIH Options 1 and 2 be removed from consideration, and that rezoning only allow Option 3.
Atlantic Avenue issues
Hudson, noting that this is the only stretch of Atlantic Avenue with six travel lanes, while there are four travel lanes to the east and west, asked if the administration could commit to a fully funded redesign of the road upon the completion of a DOT study.
DOT representative Dash Henley noted that the agency would first do limited street improvement projects, then do an 18-month traffic study and assess options.
"Does the funded traffic study include a fully funded redesign of Atlantic Avenue upon the completion of said study?" asked Hudson.
No, she was told. The study would come first. The redesign would require separate funding.
"We don't know yet what the extent of those improvements could be," Sommer said, "so I don't want to commit to fully fund."
Henley wouldn't commit to a timeline, but said it could take seven to ten years.
"Seven to ten years is like a bit ridiculous," Hudson said, asking if there's a way to expedite it.
Henley said six to ten years is standard for a large scale capital projects.
Asked about the timeline for housing construction, Sommer said the environmental review estimated full buildout over ten to 15 years, though that could be dependent on incentives; construction in Gowanus speeded up to take advantage of the 421-a tax break.
"If we're building the units and the people are coming," Hudson said, "but we're not investing in the infrastructure until years after that, then it sort of doesn't really make sense."
Open space bonus
Comments
Post a Comment