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Brooklyn building collapse has residents questioning pace of development
By
Karen Yi
Published Nov 13, 2026 at 6:00 a.m. ET
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Photo by Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu via Getty Images
By
Karen Yi
Published Nov 13, 2026 at 6:00 a.m. ET
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Frustrations over the speed of development and gentrification are boiling over in Flatbush, after a residential building collapsed into a construction site Wednesday, killing six adults and two children.
City officials are still determining what caused a three-story building in Brooklyn to plummet into an adjacent excavation site on Wednesday afternoon. Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the city is conducting an investigation and examining 100 other sites associated with the construction companies working on the dirt pit next door.
But for Flatbush residents, the devastating incident at 1321 Flatbush Ave. is triggering deep frustrations about how quickly construction projects have popped up in their neighborhood, in some cases displacing longtime residents in the Afro-Caribbean enclave. They say they hope the calamity forces developers to be more responsive to, and inclusive of the community.
“There was a new construction put up near my building, and all I could think was, ‘That could have been us,’” Brandice Taylor said. “And that could be any single one of us in this neighborhood with the constant rezoning.”
City records show the developer of the property adjacent to the fallen building at 2625 Bedford Ave. had a record of cutting corners and ignoring city orders in the past.
Inspectors also cited the owner of the collapsed building, Olufemi Falade, for 98 open housing code violations for unsafe electrical wiring, inadequate water supply to the sprinkler system, a lack of smoke detectors, water outages and a bed bug infestation among other problems, according to city data.
“If there is anyone or any entity operating in this city that bears responsibility for what happened, we will hold them fully accountable,” Mamdani said at a press conference Thursday afternoon. His office deferred to his comment when asked about residents’ concerns around construction projects in the area.
Former Mayor Adams pushed through a series of changes under the “City of Yes” plan that will allow thousands of new homes to be built across the city. The plan aims to ease the conversion of empty offices into condos and allow developers to construct bigger buildings near subway stations.
Mamdani has also pushed for fast-track development to alleviate high rents with more housing supply. The rate of empty, rentable apartments in the city is dismally low at 1.4% vacancy rate.
“It would be foolish to think that we can change a complex system like this and not think that there would be some unintended consequences,” said George Janes, an urban planner.
He said it’s still too early to know what happened and there are many unanswered questions. But he said the Flatbush and East Flatbush area has attracted a lot of development because zoning laws allow for larger construction there.
“You can demolish what's there and build a bigger building,” he said. “ People say, ‘All right, well, it's relatively inexpensive to acquire and to build a much bigger building,’ and so it attracts a lot of development.”
Flatbush resident Debbie Gbeyide, 45, said she sees so many new buildings going up but wonders, “is it safe?”
“It's a concern because you see a house, and then the next minute you see a three-story building,” she said, as she looked out onto the mass of firefighters and emergency rescue workers Wednesday night.
A block away from the crumbled building, there are old brownstones but looming above them is a new boxy building.
Monzurat Oni, chair of Community Board 17, which includes the block where the building crumbled, said the developer of the construction site next to the collapsed building did not show up to answer questions from the public during a September meeting.
“We have a housing shortage, I am not anti-development, anti-old buildings,” she said. “There's concern about the speed of them. There's concern about the way they look in comparison to buildings that they're next to and the character of the neighborhood, as well as the quality of construction.”
She said many residents who are living on blocks where there’s new construction happening complain about their buildings shaking. Oni said it felt like Flatbush was being developed at a faster clip than other parts of the city. She wants the city to make sure new units are being added equitably across the city, and remain affordable for the residents in the area.
“We hope that this is a wake up call for the city to take heed for developers to halt and take consideration of the lives that are being impacted,” said Addrana Montgomery, senior staff attorney at TakeRoot Justice, a nonprofit providing legal representation and policy research.
“There has to be a balance,” Montgomery said. “We need to really listen to the people who live there. What are they saying? And I don't think that is happening.”
David Brand and Liam Quigley contributed reporting.
Tagged
affordability
brooklyn
housing
public safety
Karen Yi
Karen Yi covers homelessness and poverty. She joined the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom in 2020. Before that, Karen covered Newark for the Star-Ledger and spent almost a decade working for newspapers in New Jersey and Florida. She grew up in Miami and has a dog named Cashew. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 917-589-1460.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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