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In Surprise Shift, Mayor De Blasio Says He Opposes Controversial Crown Heights Towers
By
Elizabeth Kim
Published Dec 21, 2020
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Credit: YIMBY
By
Elizabeth Kim
Published Dec 21, 2020
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Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced his opposition to the development of a controversial residential project in Crown Heights that had sparked fears of gentrification as well as the casting of plant-killing shadows over the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
For more than a year, housing activists as well as Botanic Garden supporters have protested the plan, known as 960 Franklin. Led by high-profile Manhattan developer Bruce Eichner of Continuum Company, the project seeks to build two 39-story residential towers, both rising above 400 feet, near the perimeter of the Botanic Garden.
“We need to ensure that new developments meet public needs and support our communities," the mayor said in a statement released to Gothamist on Monday afternoon.
"Today, I am voicing my opposition to the proposed 960 Franklin development in Crown Heights that would harm the research and educational work carried out by one of this city’s prized cultural institutions, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and is grossly out of scale with the neighborhood. I’m calling on the developers to go back to the drawing board and create a proposal that we can be proud of.”
De Blasio has long made it clear that New York City needs to encourage housing density to allow for more affordability, although he has not specifically said whether he supported the rezoning.
The mayor's latest statement comes after a years-long contentious battle that will all but spell the end of the development at a time when the real estate market is in a state of upheaval due to the pandemic. Opponents of the project, led by a grassroots group known as Movement to Protect the People, had been girding themselves for a long court battle against the city and developer. They argued that the height and density of the buildings were unprecedented in the brownstone-lined area and would have hurt the Botanic Garden as well as altered the character of the mostly four story neighborhood.
The developer said the project would have contributed to the city's urgent demand for affordable housing. Of the planned 1,578 units of housing, half of them were set to be below market rate, although critics said the rents would have still been out of reach for many lower-income individuals.
“To take the role of spearheading opposition to an affordable housing project is a little baffling,” William Wallace, senior finance and acquisitions officer with the Continuum Development Company, told Gothamist/WNYC last year. “I’m praying that whatever efforts they have done have not been paid with taxpayers’ dollars.”
From the BBG's "Fight for Sunlight" exhibit in 2019
In early 2019, Alicia Boyd, one of the founders of Movement to Protect the People, called 960 Franklin a "monster." That summer, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden lent their influential voice to the protest, unveiling an exhibit showing the potential damage that the two towers would have inflicted on the garden's valuable plant collections.
On Monday, Boyd sounded astonished at the news about the mayor's announcement.
"It’s definitely not something that we had expected," she said, but added that she was "absolutely thrilled."
Adrian Benepe, the president of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and a former city Parks commissioner, was also taken aback by the news. He said the organization was grateful to de Blasio as well as the community activists and elected officials that rallied against the plan.
"On the shortest darkest day of the year, this is a big blast of sunlight in every sense. Today is a solstice and we’ve been fighting for sunlight for more than a year."
The towers, he said, had posed "an existential threat" to the garden's collection of plants, and by extension, its programming for the community.
Efforts to reach the developer were not successful.
Just last month, Boyd's group filed a lawsuit against the city to stop the developer from moving forward with certifying the application for the plan, the first official step in the rezoning process. The opponents argued that a 2018 charter revision required the developer to provide the community with more detailed summaries about the project.
Boyd said she believed the opponents legal efforts had raised what she considered "glaring" problems with the project.
Most of all, she said, the petitions, which was signed by tens of thousands of residents, demonstrated the scale of the outrage.
"We were relentless at protecting our community," she said. "We are tireless and they knew that."
Tagged
rezoning
brooklyn
bbg
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
development
Elizabeth Kim
Elizabeth Kim is a reporter on the People and Power desk who covers mayoral power. She previously covered the pandemic, housing, redevelopment and public spaces. A native of Queens, she speaks fluent Mandarin. Got a tip? Email [email protected]
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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