Park Slope Grocery Store Redevelopment Plan Approved By Community Board

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — A Brooklyn community board on Thursday night approved a zoning change to allow a plan to turn the Key Food on Fifth Avenue into an apartment complex, retail space and community grocery store.

At issue: A 1980s document that restricts building height in that area. Community Board 6, which overseas Park Slope and surrounding areas, voted unanimously on Thursday night to recommend changing that zoning plan so this plan can go forward.

The plan will now go before the City Planning Commission for final approval and construction could then begin.

City Councilman Brad Lander helped negotiated a deal between developer Avery Hall Investments and several community organizations so that the apartment complex would include affordable housing and that the development would keep a grocery store.

The original plan from Avery Hall did not include a supermarket and the "affordable" housing was not as affordable.

Some community board members, though, were concerned that the board itself was not included in those negotiations.

"We were not invited to Brad Lander’s meeting," CB6's Land Use Committee Chair Peter Fleming said at the meeting. "And if you want to throw a 'God damn' in there, that’s fine."

CB6 Chair Sayar Lonial, though, said the negotiations were a good example of the community and developer working through an issue on their own.

"I actually think they did an amazing job," Lonial said. "Normally, we are the arbiters vs. the community, and in this case we did not have to do that. Thank you for those of you that put in so many hours of time to make this happen."

The current plan, which the board approved, calls for 41 units of housing that are designated "affordable," including 16 units of "deeply affordable," for families making up to 40 percent of the area median income.

The 41 affordable housing units are part of 165 total units planned across two apartment buildings, each less than seven stories tall.

The agreement also calls for a 22,000 square-foot supermarket (the current Key Food is 30,000, including storage) as part of 56,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space. The new supermarket will have a 20-year lease and will be chosen following a request for proposals that excludes five "high-end grocers," according to the plan.

Showing a list of these grocery stores that won't be included in the plan, Fleming called them, "The ones that you find on the Upper East Side"

A 1982 document called the Baltic Street Urban Renewal Plan forbids buildings in that area from being built more than 40 feet high. Avery Hall and the community groups are looking to modify that plan to remove the height limit on that lot and restore it to the 75-feet limit allowed if that plan wasn't in place.

"I wholeheartedly support the project that’s being presented to the community board committee," City Councilman Brad Lander told Patch in June. "I'm optimistic that it will get community board support."

Image via Avery Hall Investments