Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

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,...

The City Planning Commission yesterday advanced the gestating Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan, which a city press release ( here , and in full below) said: would create 4,600 new homes — including 1,440 permanently income-restricted, affordable homes — and 2,800 permanent jobs to a roughly 21-block stretch of Atlantic Avenue in Central Brooklyn, including neighboring blocks in Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant. Alongside new housing and jobs, the plan includes significant investments in local infrastructure and amenities, such as new and improved open space and traffic safety improvements.  Buildings could rise 17 stories on Atlantic Avenue, 11 stories on some perpendicular avenues, and eight stories on inner blocks, as I wrote in previous coverage for City Limits. That said, the 13-member Commission's vote wasn't unanimous, with two Commissioners saying that, despite their enthusiasm for aspects of the plan, it didn't go far enough to ensure affordable housing or indust...

The burgeoning transformation of blocks east of the Atlantic Yards site, from Vanderbilt Avenue to nearly Nostrand Avenue, first with spot rezonings and now with the pending Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan ( my coverage ) sent me back to the November 2006 Atlantic Yards Final Environmental Impact Statement, or FEIS. The excerpts below are attached specifically to the Prospect Heights subarea. From  Chapter 3: Land Use, Zoning and Public Policy : Manufacturing and Industrial Uses. Lower-density industrial uses such as warehouses, hardware/building suppliers, and smaller factories are located in the subarea just south of the project site between Carlton and Vanderbilt Avenues. Storage facilities are also located throughout this subarea, most notably Brothers Moving & Storage at 900 Atlantic Avenue near Underhill Avenue, and Peter F. Reilly Storage at 491 Bergen Street near 6th Avenue, adjacent to the 1.3-acre Dean Playground. Other industrial uses include warehouses and a bridal ...

Yesterday, the City Planning Commission held a hearing on the Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan (AAMUP) a long-percolating rezoning of blocks directly east of Vanderbilt Avenue, the eastern border of Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, nearly to Nostrand Avenue. (Also included are a few blocks/parcels outside the rezoning area, where public sites can supply affordable housing.) From Department of City Planning presentation The goal is to allow new residential development, with affordable units, in an area currently shackled by outdated manufacturing zoning. Brooklyn Community Boards 8 and 3, as well as Borough President Antonio Reynoso, have issued support for the proposal, with conditions , including a greater commitment to affordable housing and to ensuring space for manufacturing. I'll write separately about the broader issues, but for now would just focus on a few Atlantic Yards-related issues. Though the project, and the development plans it influenced, is in the shadow of AAMUP, it was...

About a year ago, I provided an update ( link ) on the long-running lawsuit by McDonald's, tenant of a drive-through restaurant at the corner of Vanderbilt and Atlantic avenues, against its landlord Vanderbilt Atlantic Holdings (VAH), which would build an 18-story residential tower at the site--if it could get its tenant out. U.S. District Court Dora Irizarry denied VAH's motion to dismiss and motion for summary judgment, pointing toward a bench trial on whether each party failed to act in good faith in the fair market value appraisal process. More recently, the judge handed McDonald's another procedural victory. In a pre-trial ruling Sept. 30, the court denied the landlord's motion to preclude testimony and documentary evidence related to appraisals conducted prior to April 15, 2019, which is when McDonald's told VAH they couldn't agree on the fair market value.  The court. which earlier cited "credibility concerns" regarding the landlord's condu...

A simplistic mini-explainer (sort of) on housing--build more and we'll stave off displacement--from the young-and-hip 36th District Council Member Chi Ossé has generated nearly 700,000 on Twitter/X (and more on TikTok ) and predictable hosannas from real-estate boosters and YIMBYs. People are being priced out because we don’t have enough housing. Let’s fix that. pic.twitter.com/HY66MASVMD — Chi Ossé (@OsseChi) January 16, 2024 But the video itself, and nearly all the online response, show a notable lack of context, starting with the failure to mention the details of--and debates about--the pending Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan (AAMUP), which he alludes to without naming. There's virtually no debate about whether the rezoning of 13 blocks around Atlantic Avenue, just east of the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park footprint, should deliver more housing: an estimated 4,000 apartments --housing perhaps 9,000 people over 8+ years--with perhaps 1,150 to 1,550 of them below-market "...

She stuck to her position. Council Member Crystal Hudson yesterday gave the thumbs down to the proposed spot rezoning of 962 Pacific Street in Crown Heights, where the longtime landowner, Nadine Oelsner's HSN Realty, sought to build a 150-unit building, with more affordability than in nearby private rezonings, on an empty lot. Looking SE from Grand Ave. & Pacific St. toward vacant 962 Pacific parcel (Photo: Norman Oder) In doing so, Hudson maintained her longstanding--if not so loud--opposition to a spot rezoning that would come ahead of the more comprehensive Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan (AAMUP), which would ultimately enable housing at the 962 Pacific site and deliver other neighborhood improvements. Her opposition was reflected in votes ( video here ; her remarks start at about 9:15) against the rezoning yesterday at the City Council's Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises, and later at the Land Use Committee, as Council Members typically defer to the local representat...

The proposed 962 Pacific Street development, which sailed through the City Planning Commission after much debate at Community Board 8, faces a resolution by Tuesday, with votes scheduled by the Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises, and then the Land Use Committee. Looking SE from Grand Ave. & Pacific St. toward vacant 962 Pacific parcel (Photo: Norman Oder) There's been some press--likely furthered by the developer's camp--noting the project would include more affordability (48 of 150 units) and job-creating space than similar spot rezonings and even the pending Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan (AAMUP), while portraying Council Member Crystal Hudson's resistance as irrational. Hudson, at a Jan. 23 Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises hearing, criticized 962 Pacific as "seeking to get ahead of the final comprehensive plan," which would include improvements in streetscape, public space, and other amenities, and noted that the "draft rezoning proposal is j...