Sweeping Changes To Bedford-Union Armory Proposal Announced

CITY HALL, NY — A city plan to redevelop the vacant Bedford-Union Armory in Crown Heights will no longer include luxury condominiums, and more than half of the apartment units at the site will be designated affordable, City Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo announced Tuesday during two city council hearings.

Cumbo hailed the sweeping changes to the controversial development — which were negotiated over the last week with the city and its chosen developer, BFC Partners — as "revolutionary" and "the most significant new affordable housing project that the Crown Heights neighborhood has seen in decades."

The new proposal passed a subcommittee and committee vote in the council on Tuesday and will go before the full body next week, when it is expected to be approved.

"This project is producing more affordability than Crown Heights has seen in decades," Cumbo said.

The previous proposal called for just 67 of more than 300 apartment units to be rented out to families of four making about $48,000 a year and below, along with 56 condos.

The new deal eliminates the condos completely and sets aside 250 of the now 415 rentals for families of four making about $57,000 and below.

Of those 250 affordable units, 24 will be available for families of four making $48,000 and below, another 24 for families making $38,000 and 50 for families making $28,000. And half of those 50 will be set aside for formerly homeless people.

The median income in Crown Heights is about $45,000.

The rest of the apartment units, 165 in total, will be rented at market rates.

The community rec center will provide 50 percent of its memberships for just $10 a month for adults and $8 a month for kids who live in the area.

"Today I am proud to announce a dramatically revised Bedford-Union Armory project that lives up to the values I and so many in this room and beyond have fought to achieve," Cumbo told the subcommittee hearing.

Some community activists in the room, though, panned the compromise and jeered as it was announced, charging that Cumbo campaigned on a 100-percent affordable deal. Security escorted several of them from the hearing as they chanted "kill the deal!", "bulls---!" and "you sold us out!"

(Campaign mailers created and distributed by a hotel workers' union promised 100 percent affordable housing, but Cumbo never personally made that promise.)

As one younger, white man was being removed from the room, Cumbo said, "And I’m sure you’ve lived in the community for decades."

Some activists kicked out of the subcommittee hearing were not allowed into City Hall for the Land Use Committee vote.

"They waited until the public comment period was completely over to do this deal overnight like it's a last-minute term paper, so we wouldn't be able to comment and so they could kick us out as soon as we disagreed," Esteban Giron, an organizer with the Crown Heights Tenants' Union who also attended the hearing, told Patch afterward. "Nothing has changed about the way we feel about public land."

Labor activists were also upset that a union deal had not been reached for construction of the apartments and a new community recreation center.

Cumbo said that BFC Partners committed to local hiring through Hire NYC and using minority and women-owned businesses for 25 percent of the construction. She also noted a previous deal with the 32BJ union for service work.

"Delighted, excited, a long road," District Leader Geoffrey Davis, whose anti-gun violence nonprofit will get affordable office space in the armory, told Patch. "To get a recreational-slash-educational facility, clearly Crown Heights has none. Zero. No bowling alley, no skating rink, no bingo hall. We had nothing."

The subcommittee passed the new proposal 3-0. The city council's Land Use Committee passed it 16 to 1, with another abstention. Inez Barron, who represents East New York, voted against it.

During a short exchange before the Land Use Committee vote at City Hall, Barron said that having nearly half of the apartments rent for market rates won't properly address the affordable housing crisis in the area.

Cumbo said if the rec center had been eliminated, all of the apartment units could rent at affordable rates, but market-rate housing was needed to subsidize it.

"I don’t accept that," Barron replied. "I think the city can find other ways to do what its obligation is to meet the housing needs of people who have the greatest needs."

Cumbo defended the new deal.

"In any project, you always want more," she told Patch after the final vote of the day. "But at a certain point, it shakes out, and it's about compromise. It's about listening and hearing and understanding and all of those things to get to the best place possible."

Image by BFC Partners