Brooklyn Board OKs Fourth Ave Tower Amid Debate On Housing Crisis

BROOKLYN, NY — Brooklyn's Community Board 7 has voted to approve a rezoning needed to build a Fourth Avenue apartment tower that has become the source of heated debate about the neighborhood's affordable housing crisis.

The full board spent two hours Wednesday discussing the 737 Fourth Ave. development — which proposes changing the zoning at a Dunkin Donuts to build a 14-story complex — before voting 25 to 16 to approve the application, albeit with a list of conditions.

The vote comes after equally fraught debates at a committee meeting and public hearing in the last week about whether the proposal would improve or worsen a housing crisis in the Sunset Park neighborhood.

The prevailing opinion seemed to be that the 135 apartments, 25 percent of which will be designated as affordable in the Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program, are not a solution to the crisis, but a step in the right direction.

"If we approve this development, in a few years 35 families will have permanently affordable housing," Land Use/Landmarks Committee Chair John Fontillas said. " I understand a lot of people feel that’s such a small thing that it pales in the face of the crisis that we have of affordable housing, but I know to those 35 families it will be everything."

Fontillas and others pointed to the fact that should the rezoning for the Fourth Avenue lot not be approved, it would continue to be used as a manufacturing or retail property, bringing no added housing the neighborhood.

Others said they feared the current developers, who have made changes to the application based community board feedback, could sell the property to a less-responsive group looking to build housing.

But opponents to the project stood firm that the 34 or so affordable units are not enough to warrant its 100 market-rate spots, which they contend will drive up prices further in the neighborhood. Under city rules, only 50 percent of those affordable units will be prioritized for Community Board 7 residents.

"Taking into consideration 100 unaffordable, market-rate apartments and the damage that would do to existing rents in the neighborhood and those families [it] would be a lot more harmful than the exchange for the 17 apartments," board member Antoinette Martinez said.

Developers have said they cannot offer more than 25 percent of the building's units as affordable given the high land costs and lack of a subsidy from the city.

They and the Fifth Avenue Committee, who support the project, have pointed to the fact that the 34 units will be a 30 percent increase in the number of affordable units built in Community Board 7, which extends from Sunset Park to Windsor Terrace, in the last six years.

Since 2014, only 80 units of affordable housing have been built in the neighborhood despite a nearly 18,000-person jump in the population between 2010 and 2018, according to the FAC.

Perhaps the only agreement between the those at odds over the project was that Sunset Park is in need of a comprehensive plan to address its affordability crisis.

Totem, the developers, said Wednesday they hope to be part of that plan.

“We want to thank the Community Board for their support of this project, and look forward to continuing our work with the community, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, and New York City Council in the public review process, beyond our specific project to be part of a larger solution for the crisis facing Sunset Park," the company said.

The commitment to explore such a plan was also included in the list of conditions for approving the Fourth Avenue development, set out by the Land Use Committee.

"We all agree on the fact that [Mandatory Inclusionary Housing] is a failed and broken and flawed public policy, we all agree that the [Uniform Land Use Review Process] is a failed and broken public policy, and we agree the this community, this city and this country has an affordable housing crisis," Chair César Zúñiga said before the vote.

"To think a vote up or down on this particular project is somehow going to doom any effort to fix the affordable housing crisis...or to think that somehow 35 permanent affordable housing units is going to fix all our problems, I encourage you to rethink that logic."

The next step for the Fourth Avenue application will be a public hearing with the Borough President's Office on Nov. 30.

Read More:

• Controversial Fourth Ave Apartment Tower Wins Committee Approval
• 'Who Is This For?': BK Neighbors Rally Against Fourth Ave Tower
• Developers Plan 14-Story Affordable Housing Complex On Fourth Ave