Luxury Housing Could Replace Forest Hills Temple's Historic Home

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS — A 10-story luxury apartment building could be built in place of a Forest Hills synagogue, an application shows.

Werber Real Estate and The Reform Temple of Forest Hills, or RTFH, applied to rezone the area where the synagogue currently stands — on the corner of 112th Street and 71st Road — in order to build the apartment tower, which would house the synagogue on the first floor, records show.

RTFH would be the fourth local, Jewish community space to be replaced with housing as of late, following the demolition of Rego Park's Parkside Memorial Chapel in January and the imminent demolition of the Ohr Natan Synagogue and the Forest Hills Jewish Center.

Reached for comment, representatives for the synagogue said that after "exploring a variety of options, RTFH determined that the best way for our congregation to have a modern, fully ADA accessible space while ensuring our long term financial strength, was to partner with a developer to redevelop the property while enabling us to remain in the location we have been in for almost 60 years."

"Whether we are in a stand alone building or on the ground floor of a larger building is not what is important, but rather that we have a welcoming place for our community to gather for many years to come," the synagogue said.

The developer did not immediately respond to Patch's request for comment.

The synagogues comment mirrors what the project description says about the building, which was built in 1963 "no longer meets the needs of the congregation" since it lacks the aforementioned accessibility upgrades and is expensive to maintain (the Forest Hills Jewish Center cited similar reasons for selling its building).

By contrast, the new synagogue facility, which would include a main sanctuary as well as a handful of classrooms, offices, and multi-use rooms with movable walls, is described in the application as "flexible, efficient, and less costly to maintain."

Congregants and residents would enter the building from separate entrances, with residents also having access to a private terrace and bike storage room, plans show.

One floor below the synagogue there would be a parking garage with 66 spaces, and on the floors above — from two through ten — there would be 153 apartments; mostly studios and one-bedrooms with some two-bedrooms and a handful of three- and four-bedrooms, according to a site plan.

Most of the apartments would be sold at market rate though some would be income-restricted according to the city's Mandatory Inclusionary Housing requirements.

The developer plans to either save 38 apartments for households making at or below 60 percent of the Area Median Income or 46 apartments for households making at or below 80 percent of the Area Median Income, plans show; the latter is what developers at the Ohr Natan Synagogue site were considering until pushback prompted them to include more "deeply affordable" units.

The application for the new apartment building, which was filed on Jan. 19, hasn't entered the public review phase of the city's land review process, known as ULURP, yet.

In the coming months Community Board 6 and Queens Borough President Donovan Richards will issue advisory recommendations about the project, and the City Council will make the final decision based on a vote.

Rezoning applications are contentious in Forest Hills, where arguments in favor of more housing come head-to-head with protests against unaffordable options and so-called "neighborhood character" and preservation.

Related Article: Disputed Luxury Building To Include More Deeply Affordable Units