Brooklyn Developer Touts City Park Upgrades That Don't Exist, Officials Say

COBBLE HILL, BROOKLYN — Fortis Property Group' controversial development of the Long Island Collegehas been a frequent target of the Cobble Hill community – most recently after debris flew off the roof during construction and "phony" no-parking signs were posted around the property.

Now Fortis is in the crosshairs of elected officials yet again. In addition to neglecting the parks in place, the developer in charge of turning the property into a luxury condominium complex is advertising upgrades to those parks that haven't been approved or even reviewed by the city, according to the officials.

This "cavalier attitude" in Fortis' marketing materials and public statements shows a "disregard for the public approval process that governs the redesign of parkland," the group wrote in a letter to the developer, whose signatories include City Councilman Brad Lander and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams.

Fortis did not immediately respond to a Patch request for comment on the letter.

There are two city parks in question.

The first is Van Voorhees Park along the BQE that extends to near the water. The second is the group of Henry Street parks within the old LICH campus.

In an April press release announcing the re-branding of the project to "River Park," Fortis bragged about its new condos "fronting a newly re-envisioned park."

But a spokeswoman for the Parks Department — which would have to review and approve any changes — told Patch there is "absolutely no record" of even a proposal from Fortis.

And in a statement to the website Curbed, Fortis touted "existing park space surrounding and within the site, which Fortis will only enhanced [sic] and beautify." No plans for that exist with the city either.

"We intend to work aggressively with DPR to ensure that public access, rights, and control of these open spaces is not undermined by private action," the officials wrote in the letter to Fortis.

The letter also called out these issues of neglecting and obstructing the parks as they are today. From the letter:

• Repeated and prolonged closure of the Henry Street Parks and the Pacific Street easement for use as construction staging locations.
• Failure to adequately maintain the portions of the Henry Street Parks which remain open to the public, including: failure to replace damaged or missing play equipment, dangerous protrusions in the play surface, damage to the drainage system, and inadequate cleaning and debris removal services.
• Proposal to use Pacific Street from Henry to Hicks Streets, where a public easement is in place, as a private driveway to receive deliveries and access parking garages.
• Unpermitted and illegal use of public on-street parking spaces on Henry Street between Pacific and Amity Streets by construction contractors, which caused the wrongful issuing of parking tickets to neighborhood residents.

In a separate letter to Parks, the officials asked the department to "review and enforce Fortis’s compliance with current maintenance obligations" and asked it to use "the highest level of scrutiny" when considering plans proposed by the developer.

You can read their two letters below: