Rezoning Applications in Bed-Stuy, Bay Ridge, Long Island City and Crotona

33.

LU 0122-2026 Application number N 240284 ZRK (862-868 Kent Avenue)

20.

LU 0124-2026 Application number N 260172 ZRQ (158-06 Northern

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Thank you.

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Good morning and welcome to today's New York City Council hearing on the Committee on Zoning and Franchises. At this time please silence all electronic devices. No one should approach the dais.

Good morning and welcome to a meeting of the Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises. I am CM Farah Louis, Chair of the Subcommittee. This morning we are joined by CM Farías. Today we are voting on three proposals and holding six hearings.

The scheduled vote for LU 0123-2026 regarding the 158-06 Northern Boulevard Rezoning is laid over. The three proposals that we will vote on are: 815 Hutchinson River Parkway commercial rezoning in CM Salaam's district; 862-868 Kent Avenue mixed use residential rezoning in CM Restler's district; and 132 Melrose Street mixed use residential rezoning in CM Gutiérrez's district.

We will then hold hearings on the following proposals: 69-67 108th Street mixed use residential rezoning in CM Restler's district; Park Avenue Brooklyn mixed use rezoning in CM Restler's district; 289 Kent Avenue mixed use residential rezoning in CM Restler's district; 21-31 46th Ave mixed use residential rezoning in CM Won's district; Fort Hamilton Mews mixed use residential rezoning in CM Santosuosso's district; and Sojourner Truth – Mapes mixed use residential rezoning in CM Feliz's district.

This meeting is being held in hybrid format. Members of the public who wish to testify may do so in person or via Zoom. Members of the public wishing to testify remotely should register by visiting the New York City Council website at www.council.nyc.gov/landuse to sign up. For those of you here in person, please see one of the Sergeants at Arms to prepare and submit a speaker card. Members of the public may also view a live stream broadcast of the meeting at the Council's website.

When you are called to testify before the Subcommittee, if you are joining us remotely you will remain muted until recognized by myself to speak. When you are recognized your microphone will be unmuted. We will limit public testimony to two minutes per witness. If you have additional testimony that you would like the Subcommittee to consider, or if you have written testimony that you would like to submit instead of appearing in person, email testimony at council.nyc.gov. Written testimony must be submitted up to three days after the hearing is closed. Please indicate the LU number and/or project name in the subject line of your email. We request that witnesses joining us remotely remain in the meeting until excused by the Chair, as Council Members may have questions.

Lastly, for everyone attending today's meeting, this is a government proceeding and decorum must be observed at all times. Members of the public are asked to speak...

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...only when testifying. Do not speak during the meeting unless you are testifying.

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The witness table is reserved for people who are called to testify, and no video recording or photography is allowed from the witness table. Further, members of the public may not present audio or video recordings as testimony but may submit transcripts of such recordings to the Sergeant at Arms for inclusion in the hearing record.

We will now proceed with the three votes. The first vote concerns LU 0120-2026 regarding the 815 Hutchinson River Parkway commercial rezoning proposal in CM Salaam's district. The applicant is seeking to allow large retail establishments of 10,000 square feet or larger at its existing commercial center in the Baychester neighborhood of the Bronx. The proposal is a zoning map amendment to change the existing manufacturing M1-2 district to a C8-3 district. CM Salaam supports this application.

The second vote concerns LU 0121-2026 and LU 0122-2026 regarding the 862-868 Kent Avenue mixed use residential rezoning proposal in CM Restler's district. The applicant is seeking to develop a mixed use residential project in Williamsburg, Brooklyn that would have approximately 74 apartments, of which approximately 19 apartments will be permanently affordable. The two actions are: the first is a zoning map amendment to change the existing manufacturing M1-1 district to a mixed use district consisting of a paired M1-4 district with a residential R6A district; and a zoning text amendment to map a Mandatory Inclusionary Housing Area. CM Restler supports this application.

The third and final vote concerns LU 0125-2026 and LU 0126-2026 regarding the 132 Melrose Street mixed use residential rezoning proposal in CM Gutiérrez's district. The applicant is seeking to develop a mixed use residential project in Bushwick, Brooklyn...

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...that would have approximately 18 apartments, of which approximately five apartments would be permanently affordable. The proposal involves two actions. The first is a zoning map amendment to change the existing manufacturing M1-1 district to a mixed use district consisting of a paired M1-2A district with a residential R8 district. The second action is a zoning text amendment to map a Mandatory Inclusionary Housing Area.

We are recommending one modification to remove MIH Option Two, which will ensure the affordable apartments are provided at an average of 60% AMI. CM Gutiérrez supports this application as modified.

Are there any Council Members with questions or remarks at this time?

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No, Chair.

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Members appearing remotely who have questions or remarks about today's items should use the raise hand feature. I will now call for a vote to approve LU 0120-2026 related to the 815 Hutchinson River Parkway Rezoning proposal, and LU 0121-2026 and LU 0122-2026 related to the 862-868 Kent Avenue Rezoning proposal, and to approve with modification LU 0125-2026 and LU 0126-2026 related to the 132 Melrose Street Rezoning proposal. Council, please call the vote.

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Chair Louis: aye on all. CM Farías: aye. CM Thomas-Henry: aye on all. By a vote of six in the affirmative, zero opposing and zero abstentions, the items are approved as described by the Chair and the items are now referred to the full Land Use Committee.

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At ease. We are actually going to hold the vote open because we have...

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...a Council Member who will be joining. CM Salaam, can you hear me?

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Thank you. CM Salaam, can you hear me?

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Yes, I can hear you. Thank you. CM Salaam, how do you vote?

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Okay. Then the vote is revised and all items are referred to the Land Use Committee by a vote of seven in the affirmative. We will now proceed to the...

33.

Preconsidered

33.

Preconsidered

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...hearings. I will now open the hearing on Preconsidered LUs regarding the Park Avenue Brooklyn mixed use residential rezoning proposal in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, in CM Restler's district. The applicant, which consists of multiple owners over five adjacent blocks, is seeking to develop mixed use residential buildings that would have a total of 391 apartments. Four of the buildings would have community facilities space for private educational uses. Mandatory Inclusionary Housing would be mapped as part of the application, which would require that up to approximately 100 of the apartments be affordable.

For anyone wishing to testify regarding this proposal remotely, if you have not already done so you must register online by visiting the Council's website at council.nyc.gov/landuse. For anyone with us in person, please see one of the Sergeants at Arms to submit a speaker card. If you would prefer to submit written testimony you can always do so by emailing landuse testimony. CM Restler, remarks just asking which of the projects it was this morning?

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Thank you so much, Chair Louis, for your great leadership of this committee. It is always a pleasure to be with you.

When I before I took office in 2021, community leaders from across South Williamsburg and Bed-Stuy asked me to meet about a critically important rezoning. It was proposed at the time as a handful of individual sites that would add housing, but more importantly, more urgently, add school capacity for the community in South Williamsburg and Bed-Stuy, and legalize existing yeshivas and build new yeshivas that could really meet the needs of the community. I hear from families in South Williamsburg and Bed-Stuy every single week who tell me that they are struggling to find affordable housing and the yeshivas are bursting at the seams and that we need more capacity for both. It has been a winding, painful, frustrating process to get us here some five years later, literally.

But we are at the finish line of what is a critically important development project for the future of the Jewish community in South Williamsburg, and I am enormously grateful, particularly to the yeshiva administrators — and I see some of them here with me today — who have diligently fought hard to make sure that this stays on track. The Department of City Planning insisted that this be one zoning application rather than a handful of individual applications, which then set off a series of implications around community investments that this development team would need to make. I always welcome community investments — that is my job, to try to seek those out at every opportunity — but this development proposal in and of itself is a tremendous community investment, by adding literally 2,500 yeshiva seats to our community.

I want to say one more thing. I was already a critic of the environmental review process, but watching the Department of Transportation and the Department of Parks and Recreation — but especially DOT — mishandle the environmental review process and just enact their own policy agenda, putting this development team through hell, was infuriating. We lost years on this project because of the Department of Transportation's intransigence. I really truly hope that Commissioner Flynn will whip the environmental review team into shape at DOT, because what they have been doing is disgraceful. That being said, I am thrilled that this proposal is before the Council and I am moving forward and would welcome a very brief presentation from the applicant.

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Thank you, Chair Louis. My name is Benjamin Stark. I am a partner at Herrick Feinstein for the applicant, Park Avenue Rezoning Partners.

Right off the bat, just the deepest thanks — really, words cannot express the thanks that this applicant team has for CM Restler. It is the commitment of CM Restler to recognizing very early in this process the deep community benefit of this application, and that advocacy from every step of the way — really, the words that I am saying right now cannot capture the gratitude that this community feels for that degree of leadership, and really just being at the forefront of understanding why there is need here and what needs to get done to deliver on that need. So without further ado I will get to this presentation. I will make every effort to keep it brief.

As it was introduced, this is an application by a coalition of property owners and Jewish educational institutions with very deep roots in the South Williamsburg and Bedford Stuyvesant communities. They are seeking to rezone five blocks of the legacy 1960-61 era manufacturing district Park Avenue zoning that no longer reflects how this neighborhood lives, works or grows, in order to deliver two urgent public benefits: the aforementioned school seats and affordable housing. This is not a conventional rezoning. There is no single developer or property owner behind it. Park Avenue Rezoning Partners is a group of property owners and educational institutions.

Next slide please. The Bais Yaakov School, Yeshiva Central, Torah Temimah, Miracle Academy, Yeshiva of Israel — these are institutions that have served the South Williamsburg community for decades. They are educational and spiritual anchors of this neighborhood and they share a common problem: a serious problem that the zoning has not kept pace with the community they serve — a community that has been and will continue to grow exponentially. The residential applications are not controlled by outside investors. They are owned by community members and community-affiliated entities who have also been on these blocks for years. This application addresses community needs in a single coordinated framework and it does so without displacing a single existing resident. If approved, this rezoning will deliver, as the Council Member noted, over 2,500 school seats across four educational facilities, approximately 390 new dwelling units with between 98 and 117 permanently affordable units, and an expansive new ground floor retail presence along Park Avenue with a commitment from the applicants to try and retain existing tenants.

Next slide please. So where are we? The project area straddles Park Avenue between Bedford Avenue generally to the west and Nostrand Avenue to the east, south of Flushing and north of Myrtle Avenue. This is a transition zone between South Williamsburg and Bedford Stuyvesant and we are within the inner transit zone.

Next slide please. Why are we here? The problem speaks for itself. This is a community the project serves — a community with a school-aged population that is undergoing tremendous growth, especially amongst its youngest cohorts. In this community a very large percentage of children attend private religious schools and many families have many children, between six and ten children. The need for schools is acute presently, but the real important message we need to deliver is that the problem will only grow as the years and decades go by.

Next slide please. Similarly, the issues with affordable housing in this City and this borough do not need any introduction, but the issues with affordable housing in particular within Community District 3 are also acute. This application serves in part to address that need.

Next slide. What does the Park Avenue rezoning do in that regard? It will seek to legalize existing educational uses and allow for the development of new, sorely needed educational facilities, with the development of new housing and affordable housing in this growing residential community where the legacy zoning simply no longer reflects what is happening on the ground.

Next slide please. So how are we positioning this? What you see up on the slide — I am going to walk through the spatial logic of this. Park Avenue itself, running right down the center, within a hundred feet of the street line on both sides, is proposed to be zoned to a mid-density M1-4/R7D district. This is where the residential buildings will go. One of the wonderful coincidences of this application is that site control by the schools was within proximity of other...

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They are coincidentally opposite the side streets from one another. It allows this proposal to have a coordinated dynamic when it comes to school safety and other operational considerations, again underscoring the appropriateness of this particular micro-neighborhood for the proposal that is before you today. The mid-blocks that you see there are deep, long lots that the schools require for their particular uses. I imagine some of you on the board are understanding of the challenges of siting new schools and the need for minimum sizing on floor plates. It is challenging to find school sites. It is even more challenging to find them in such close proximity to one another within a catchment area of a student population. Next slide please.

You can see how this manifests in the proposed rezoning, with the new M1-4/R7D district running down Park Avenue and the lesser-density M1-2/4 districts on the side streets where the schools would be located. Next slide.

Current land use is no longer, again, what is happening on the ground. If we were to zoom in, what you would see here is that many of the sites within the rezoning area are already held by community facility operators, already operating as a sort of neighborhood retail dynamic within former industrial buildings. In short, what you are seeing within the rezoning area is not industrial in nature. It is ripe and in time for these lots to see additional investment to support the residential neighborhoods that you see flanking on the east and west sides of the rezoning area. Next slide.

And you will see that better on this slide. A lot of what you are seeing — the justification for this — is an outgrowth of time. What you are seeing just to the west of the rezoning area is a previously rezoned district promulgated by the Bloomberg administration that has been wildly successful from a planning effort. Tens of thousands of new residents are now living just west of this rezoning area. They have all laid roots, made families, and now we need school seats to serve this community. The rezoning will also serve as a sort of bridging dynamic to the residential area to the east, with the current legacy of Marcy Houses serving as a bridge between these two existing residential neighborhoods and bringing them together. Next slide. Next slide.

I am going to bring you through some existing conditions photos real quick. This is looking up Park Avenue in the rezoning area where new residential buildings will locate, with the existing residential neighborhood beyond. Next slide. The new schools — and given the time here I am going to move quickly through this. Next slide please. Beth Hana School up on Spencer Street to the north. Next slide. This is a five-story school for girls. Next slide. 45,000 square feet, five-story school. This maximizes the programmable space at the roof. This is a common design theme that you are going to see across each of these schools. Again, it maximizes the usable floor plates for the schools, it keeps construction costs down by not having any setbacks, and importantly allows for larger rooftop play areas as possible. Next slide. Central United Tel Munich Academy is the largest school among the proposed schools. Next slide. Its existing conditions. Next slide. Same dynamic — five stories, large rooftop play areas. Next slide. Yeshiva, right across the street from Central United, allowing coordinated operational dynamics. Next slide. Next slide. Existing, already being used for religious purposes. Next slide.

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You have one minute left.

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This is a future rendering really showing the way that these schools can interact with one another. Next slide. Next slide. We are going to skip through. The legalization site is the site that has already been used for quasi-educational purposes and will allow the application to seek a new certificate of occupancy. Next slide. Next slide. Okay, and just very briefly walking through the residential sites — again, this is a mid-rise density, 7- to 11-story buildings. It is anticipated that the rezoning could yield up to 391 new units. Again, the coordinated nature here of having the schools on the side streets has allowed the residential core of the rezoning to take place on Park Avenue running down the center. New retail uses at the ground floor will expand services for the surrounding residential community, while at the same time ownership is hoping to bring back many of the current retail tenants. I really appreciate your time. I did manage to get through the whole thing.

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You sure did, right at the clock. We have also been joined by CM Santos. I am going to call on CM Restler if he has any questions first. Could you please clarify the makeup of the applicant team? As the proposal contains multiple sites, who are the property owners, who are the developers, and how are they working together?

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Excellent. The educational institutions — I named them by name: Beth Hana School, Central Tel Munich Academy, and Havasu Israel Yeshiva with Satmar. These are long-standing yeshiva operators in this particular neighborhood. Among the owners of the residential sites, these are also long-standing community members. The largest property owner in the rezoning area is a gentleman by the name of Meyer Stern. He owns three or four of the parcels and he owns other sites in the general neighborhood. Stern has developed buildings in the past but has owned these buildings for many years. The only commitment is for the residents. Stern is a large property owner. Another notable owner — Site F — is Sam Rosenberg. He owns and operates the tire shop that is currently there. He is probably out there right now changing a tire. Those are the two largest property owners. We can follow up with the others. The other notable property owner is the Hatzolah of Williamsburg, who owns and operates their ambulance service out of that site. They intend to undertake development on their own capacity. So those are the largest property owners among the...

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...residential site owners. Okay. What is the applicant team's relationship with the existing businesses and existing tenants? I know you mentioned some of it just now, but if you could just elaborate — and will the existing tenants have the opportunity to return?

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Yeah, so like I said, a few of these are owner-operated, like Hatzolah and like Rosenberg's tire shop, and they are returning. But starting with him on the tire shop — he has found it challenging to operate the tire shop there. These are tight streets, this is very busy. There was an era many years ago when the proximity was helpful. It has become more challenging to operate. But Hatzolah intends to stay. What about the others? The others intend to redevelop. The most notable site that has a large employee base is Site A — that is Stern's building. The goal on that site, which currently has a pharmacy and a health center that collectively employs something like 72 to 80 people, is to have them stay by actually enlarging that building. The big goal is not to knock down that building but to do a straight enlargement. Well, I cannot sit here and say that of the 150 or so businesses within the rezoning area there will not be a displacement of some amount of employees. But there will be a very large number of employees who are able to come back, given the commitment by these owners to retain some of these businesses. The rezoning will bring in hundreds of new jobs — teaching jobs, facility services jobs, and associated uses.

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Are there any other existing businesses that you have not elaborated on — whether they are going to...

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...return? There are others that will be lost, including on Site...

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E. There is an open parking lot where cars are rented. There is a handful of employees there that will not return, given the plan to redevelop. There is a warehousing and supply store on Site D, and the thought is that we will offer to have them come back. It is possible that, given the timing of construction, they will be unable to come back. But certainly Stern has put into the record a commitment to offering spaces to existing tenants. And again, the largest share of employees is found in Site A, and they will not even be displaced at all during a construction period because the intent is to just do a straight enlargement.

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What is the development timeline for all of these buildings?

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Each of them will be on their own timeline. I mean, certainly it has been a very long process. As CM Restler had mentioned, it goes back even five years, even prior to that, as people's heads started to turn on this. I cannot say that shovels will go in the ground in the next three weeks, but once this rezoning matter concludes — should we be so fortunate to have it work out as originally anticipated — the teams intend to begin the process right away. Most notably, because if we had more time we would talk about it, there have been a number of commitments made in response to some of the findings in the environmental review. We need to get underway with those commitments in order to ensure that there are no delays during the construction periods for the schools and for the new residential buildings. So work will begin in what we would call pre-development pretty much right away, but I cannot say when true shovels will break ground.

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I am going to call on CM Restler for questions.

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Thank you so much, Chair Louis. I do just want to take a moment to recognize one of the distinguished guests that we have joining us today, which is Rabbi Welts from Central, the administrator of the second-largest yeshiva in Williamsburg. I just want to thank him for his great work in our community. Could you just clarify the agreement that was made with the Parks Department around the Taaffe Place playground?

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So the environmental review identified that this community has an existing issue with the amount of open space for the existing population. Basically, the dynamic there is that any application that had a full environmental review that then necessitated an open space study would have identified an impact on the open space side. So this was flagged early in the process, and the applicant team has committed to undertaking rehabilitation work in Taaffe Playground — a significant rehab to existing handball courts — that will be required to the extent that a certain threshold number of residential apartments is built. This has been memorialized in a series of restricted declarations that all sites zoned with a residential zoning designation have to adopt. They are tied to each site, but the commitment is what we would say is joint and several — everybody is committed to this. And in fact it is a monumental coordinated effort to have a consortium rezoning be able to coordinate amongst themselves. You know, once this process is over these are all independent owners and operators, but they are going to continue to work together after the conclusion of this process to ensure that that commitment is realized.

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Yeah, I will just share this with my colleagues in case you end up in similar situations in the future. You know, you had a handful of individual developers who were planning to rezone sites. The Department of City Planning insisted that they all work together to make it one rezoning, which sounds good because you want to have that thoughtful neighborhood-wide planning. But the impact of it was that there was an environmental review process that put significant economic burdens on the developers around the handball courts and other things — which are in the long term to the benefit of the community, but were very challenging for the development team to make work. And as the applicant noted, it is an unusual legal setup to have a consortium of private property owners coming together and chipping in on community improvements. But I am happy that it has all come together. I cannot wait to vote for this project. We intend to map MIH Options One and Two on all sites and look forward to approving this project as soon as possible. So thank you very much for being with us today.

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Counsel, are there any members of the public who wish to testify? You are now excused. Thank you.

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Thank you, Chair Louis. Thank you for your presentation. Counsel, are there any members of the public who wish to testify remotely or in person regarding this proposal? I know there is no one signed up online or in person to testify regarding this project. If there are any members of the public who wish to testify regarding this proposal remotely, please press the raise hand button now. Or if you are in person, please identify yourself to one of the sergeants at arms. This is the last call — 30 seconds. There being no members of the public who wish to testify regarding the Preconsidered LU relating to Park Avenue Brooklyn Residential Mixed Use, the public hearing is now laid over.

I will now open the hearing on the Preconsidered LU regarding 289 Kent Avenue, a mixed-use residential rezoning proposal in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in CM Restler's district. The applicant is seeking a rezoning from a manufacturing M3-1 district to a Special Mixed Use M1-3A/R7X district, and a manufacturing M1-2A district, to develop a mixed-use residential building that would have 278 apartments. Mandatory Inclusionary Housing would be mapped as part of this application, which would require between 72 and 83 of the apartments to be permanently affordable. For anyone wishing to testify regarding this proposal remotely, if you have not already done so, you must register online by visiting the Council's website at council.nyc.gov/landuse. For anyone with us in person, please see one of the sergeants at arms to submit a speaker card. If you would prefer to submit written testimony, you can always do so by emailing landuse.testimony@council.nyc.gov. I now recognize...

(00:36:59)

...CM Restler for remarks. Sorry, they keep coming back to me. Thank you very much, Chair Louis. As my colleagues know and the public knows well — thank you so much. You know, we rezoned the Greenpoint-Williamsburg waterfront many years ago and allowed for very large density immediately on the water on the west side of Kent Avenue. Now we are kind of gradually seeing more and more proposals to up-zone the east side of Kent Avenue, including this industrial site, which makes a great deal of sense. You know, immediately across the street from this location you have the Domino buildings, which are — I do not know — 50, 60, 70 stories tall, and we can handle some meaningful residential density directly across the street. Of course there are some issues to work through, but this site — in case anyone is wondering — is the former headquarters of Vice before they shut down. So we missed them, but hopefully we will see some productive use here moving forward. So I look forward to hearing more from the applicant today and having a productive conversation.

(00:38:35)

Thank you, Chair. I apologize — I am a little under the weather, but I thank you for giving me this opportunity, and thank you to the committee members as well, to present 289 Kent Avenue and the proposed rezoning. My name is Jeremy Cousin, land use counsel to the applicant, Web Holdings. I am here with Toby Snyder, the project architect from Collaborative. Next slide please. As I mentioned, the project team includes the applicant, land use counsel, Collaborative, and the environmental consultant. Next slide please.

(00:39:12)

So why are we here today? We are here — as CM Restler mentioned — to rezone a vestigial 1961 zoning M3-1 heavy manufacturing site that has not been operated as a heavy manufacturing site in decades. The two to three tax lots within the rezoning area would be rezoned to allow for residential use, including a significant amount of affordable housing. A portion of the block which has remained M3-1 since 1961 but has never operated as such will be zoned to M1-2A to allow for a wider variety of uses. In addition, as I mentioned, the portion of the rezoning area that will allow for residential use will be mapped as MIH. Next slide please.

(00:40:06)

The site is located on the east side of Kent Avenue between South First and South Second Street. It has an excellent and very advantageous location for transit — it is within about a half mile from the L train as well as the J, Z and M trains and a ferry stop along the waterfront. There are significant open spaces including Domino Park, William Sheridan Playground and various other hopefully soon-to-be-built-out open space resources as part of River Ring. Next slide please.

As CM Restler noted, there are significant either already built or soon-to-be-built buildings along the waterfront to the west of Kent Avenue. The City has adopted a policy in this area that they would like to see development gradually become less dense and have smaller envelopes as you move east in Williamsburg, and Toby will speak to that more later on in the presentation. Next slide please.

So walking around the site, you can see in the top left-hand corner looking south on Kent, you can see the Domino buildings that were built when this picture was taken. In the top right-hand corner you can see there is an existing — I believe it is a 10-story building that is a pre-existing... actually, it is a former ink factory that was converted to residential pursuant to a variance.

(00:41:42)

The site is a warehouse. The building on the development site right now is a warehouse that has a temporary storage use. It has not been actively used by any tenant since Vice Media left. Next slide please.

(00:42:00)

As I mentioned, on the left-hand side you can see the existing M3. On the right-hand side you can see the portions in pink and purple that will be rezoned to M1-3A/R7X as well as the smaller portion along White Avenue and South Second that will be rezoned to M1-2A. Next slide please.

(00:42:25)

This is an illustrative massing of the building that the applicant intends to develop. It is approximately 17 floors in height with ground floor retail and open spaces along South First and South Second. The applicant is also voluntarily widening the sidewalk along Kent Avenue 10 feet, which is much needed. The building will have approximately 278 dwelling units depending on the option, a significant amount of which will be affordable — I believe that is between 56 and 83 depending on the options selected. Next slide please.

And this is a slide of the illustrative massing in context with the larger River Ring buildings to be developed as well as the Domino buildings. There is one Domino building that is on the east side of Kent and that is approximately 175 feet tall in height, and that is what the City has determined is an appropriate height and density for the east side of Kent Avenue. As Toby will — I will hand it over to Toby. He will explain how that sloping density and height has played out.

(00:43:43)

Next slide please. Oh, this is one more massing. Sorry, the slide after that please. Thank you.

Hello, I am Toby Snider, Principal and Design Director at Collaborative Architects. The massing we are seeking here is transitional. As CM Restler noted, there are of course tall towers on the west side of Kent Avenue and then a smaller, finer-grain fabric on the eastern side, and we seek for our site here — the white building in the center — to be sort of part of and help this transition. Next

(00:44:18)

slide please. And here is an

(00:44:22)

illustrative rendered view of what it could look like. What we are trying to do here is break the massing down into smaller pieces scaled at the size of many of the existing buildings in the neighborhood and sort of take on some of that material, masonry and textural quality. Next slide please.

This is a view from Kent Avenue and South Second Street. This would be the southwestern corner of the project and as we noted, one of the things we can do here along Kent Avenue is pull the building back from the property line and effectively widen the sidewalk, which is something we have been carrying through throughout our application and intend to do when the project hopefully moves forward. We think this is really a great way to expand the public realm — relieving congestion, creating more space for planters, for sidewalks, for ground floor articulation and interaction, folks on bikes, messengers, the bus route that is running along here. It just really deserves to be a wider street. Next slide please.

We are articulating the building here with smaller pieces, but you can see given the flexibility of the zoning envelope and the limited amount of FAR that can fit within that envelope, we are able to pull back at certain points. You can see we can crown the building and the rooftop with a solar canopy, with vegetation, with amenities — all of these different things that activate the building for the tenants moving in here and also really contribute to the sustainability of the project overall. Next slide please.

Here is another view. You can see ghosted on the right-hand side is the west side of Kent Avenue, which of course has construction going up right now, but to the left half of the screen is our proposed project. You can see again the massing pulled back from the street, broken down into smaller pieces, with ample space to have significant tree pits for the soil growth of the trees that could be along there. So it is all about being crafted, articulated and really a finer-grained, human-scaled approach — which we think, you know, it is a larger building than what is there right now, but having that human, smaller, fine-grain scale is a really important way to transition from the upland neighborhood into the towers across the street. You can see the windows have depth, there are subtle material changes, and we sort of want to have a recall of some of the other great historic masonry buildings in the neighborhood but executed in a contemporary way. Next slide.

There is a view on South Second Street looking east. We are actually sort of standing on a lower elevation — the site does rise and slope pretty significantly from Kent as you are going up to White Street. The residential entrance would be off of the side streets, not off of Kent Avenue, but it is all about integrating mixed income, integrating a mix of scales harmoniously. And now I will turn it back to Jeremy to close. Thank you.

(00:47:31)

Thank you Toby, and thank you Chair. I would just like to add one last thought.

(00:47:36)

In closing, the applicant fully intends to develop the proposed development and to do so as rapidly as possible. To this end, the applicant has already retained key development and construction team members including expanding the scope of Collaborative to work on the Department of Buildings permit applications, New York Developers and Management to be their construction manager, Mueser Rutledge Consulting Engineers to be their geotechnical engineer, and has hired an owner's representative who will help them with code consulting as well as Haley and Aldrich to do environmental testing. The retention of these consultants indicates the applicant's intent to move forward to develop this property. They are invested in the community, they are looking to build this building, and we look forward to hearing any questions. Thank you for your time.

(00:48:29)

Thank you. I have a quick question and I will hand it over to CM Restler. There is a section of the project area that would be rezoned as a manufacturing M1-2A district as opposed to a mixed residential manufacturing district. How was the portion determined to be proposed as manufacturing

(00:48:50)

alone? So there are three primary tax lots within the M1-2A portion. One is a surface parking lot that intends to remain as a parking lot — it is a projected development site but it is one that we understand could be developed with community facility uses. Moving from Kent to White along South Second, the next building is a building that was recently redeveloped and it is an art storage facility. There is no intent, at least from what we have heard, to redevelop it with residential above. And then the last building, which is where I believe the 12 Chairs restaurant is located and there is actually pre-existing non-conforming residential above, that building is going to stay as is. There is no intent to change it. There are individual reasons for each, but in totality they have a purpose, and given that this area of Williamsburg is intended to have some light manufacturing and some mix of uses, it was important to keep some of it in place.

(00:50:13)

All right, thank you. CM Restler, you have questions. Thank you so much.

(00:50:18)

Chair Louis, a few questions. Firstly, in my experience for larger buildings like this one, it is smart to work with 32BJ. The workers do a great job, there is a great model that they have, and it is a sensible approach.

(00:50:42)

Have you begun conversations with the union? Do you anticipate working out an agreement with them in advance of a vote?

Yes.

(00:50:49)

Great. That was the best answer. I like it — off to a great start. From the first conversations I had with the development team, now two-plus years ago, I have been concerned about the kind of step-down that you referenced in your presentation, similar to 325 Kent, which has the step-down going from Kent toward White. We wanted to make sure that that same approach occurs here and I appreciate that you have modified your proposal to reflect that. What assurances do we have that that will be what actually gets built?

(00:51:31)

So the applicant — and I can hand this over to Toby — this is a rezoning and the buildings that we are showing you are illustrative, but to date this is what the applicant has instructed and what they intend to build. I think there is a desire, and Toby is the architect so I am sure there are a lot of reasons from an architectural standpoint that he can relay, but from a land use planning standpoint the desire is to be on the wider street, not on the side streets. While we are setting the building back and while there is going to be a sidewalk widening, there is a desire just from a general marketing and planning sense to have more bulk on that side. If you have any specific reasons why the bulk wants to be on that side... and I will just add: is there anything that requires it? There is nothing that technically in the zoning requires you to have it that way, but from a developer's perspective there is every incentive to have the building located along

(00:52:41)

with more bulk along Kent Avenue. No, I mean, agreed — we are just seeking a map change, not any special bulk regulations or anything. But to Jeremy's point, there are fantastic views of the East River and the Manhattan skyline and it makes sense to site the building in such a way to take advantage of that.

(00:53:04)

As of today, who makes up the applicant?

(00:53:07)

The applicant team is Web Holdings. The applicant team is Collaborative as architect, Fried Frank as land use counsel and GRF as environmental. Ownership structure is what I am really referring to. Ownership structure is wholly owned and controlled by the Markowitz family.

(00:53:29)

Who you have met with.

(00:53:30)

Yes, absolutely. And the relationship between the Markowitz family, the applicant team and the lots that are outside of the proposed development — the lots that are out there — they have no interest in any of the lots that are located along South Second. The parking lot: they have no ownership or control over it. They do not own the art storage facility or the building that is — what is it called — the 12 Chairs and the residential above. Lot 15, which is along South First Street, they are currently occupying it with — I forget the use — it is like a 3D printing business, which is their primary business.

(00:54:17)

My office has heard from a healthy number of concerned neighbors who are worried about the impact of this development project on, generally, their quality of life and a change in Williamsburg. Does the applicant commit to working with neighbors and ensuring consistent communication and responsiveness to try to work through quality of life issues that are inevitable in a large development project like this?

(00:54:46)

Absolutely. As our communities grow and add more housing, private applicants invest in the growth of the neighborhood and ensure that the needs of the community are effectively met. Is the applicant team committed to working with my office and the Council to make that happen in advance of a vote?

Yes.

Wonderful.

(00:55:10)

That covers it for me. I do just want to echo what you note in your application. I think that this project is kind of smartly modeled after 325 Kent and we want to make sure that that design is incorporated, and that is why we think the density is appropriate here. I appreciate the consistent and clear communication from the applicant team throughout this process. Thank you.

(00:55:37)

Thank you, Council Member. Thank you so much. This panel is excused. Thank you for being here.

Are there any members of the public who wish to testify remotely or in person regarding this proposal? No, there is not anybody signed up online or in person regarding this project.

All right. This is the last call. If there are any members of the public who wish to testify regarding this proposal remotely, please press the raise hand button now. If you are in person, please identify yourself to one of the Sergeants at Arms.

Being that there are no members of the public who wish to testify regarding the Preconsidered LUs relating to the 289 Kent Avenue residential mixed use rezoning proposal, the public hearing is now closed and the items are now laid over.

I will now open the hearing on Preconsidered LUs regarding Fort Hamilton Mews, a residential rezoning proposal in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. The applicant is seeking rezoning to a residential R7X district with a commercial overlay to develop a mixed use residential building that would have approximately 292 apartments. Mandatory Inclusionary Housing would be mapped as part of this application, which would require approximately 88 of the apartments to be permanently affordable.

For anyone wishing to testify regarding this proposal remotely, if you have not already done so, you must register online by visiting the Council's website at council.nyc.gov/landuse. For anyone with us in person, please see one of the Sergeants at Arms to submit a speaker card. If you prefer to submit written testimony, you can always do so by emailing it to landusetestimony@council.nyc.gov. I now recognize

(00:58:17)

CM Santosuosso for remarks. Thank you, Chair, and good morning. The application before us proposes an 11-story mixed use building in Bay Ridge providing 292 residential units, of which 88 would be income-restricted through the Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program. This would, if approved, be one of the largest buildings developed in Bay Ridge in nearly a century. As such, I do have concerns about this proposal, which I have made clear to the applicant. The applicant has been responsive in their revised design, taking into account materiality, setbacks that conform with the average building height in Bay Ridge, family-sized units, rents that are more affordable and neighborhood concerns around appropriate ground floor tenants.

However, I do need to zoom out a little bit and talk about the context in which this application comes before us. Because of the Charter changes that are due to take effect, I anticipate significant development to be proposed in this application's area. We refer to this area as the Triangle in Bay Ridge, specifically from 86th Street to 95th Street between Fourth and Fifth Avenue. It is primarily zoned for industrial, manufacturing and auto uses and thus I believe will be a target for significant housing. As the Charter changes will completely remove myself and the Council from the rezoning process, I am deeply concerned about allowing numerous large developments to proceed individually, site by site, without holistic planning. I believe this area of my district would benefit from a comprehensive, community-led planning process, as echoed by the community board and the Brooklyn Borough President.

That is why I will be leading the Bay Ridge Triangle Community Plan, which will be launched soon. I have made clear to this applicant that I strongly prefer for this proposal to be considered as part of that broader neighborhood planning effort and have asked the applicant to withdraw the application until the plan is complete. The applicant has made clear that they are unwilling to do so, and as such my chief concern with this application is that it sets the tone for a plan that my constituents have yet to weigh in on. I understand that the applicant is on the verge of reaching an agreement with 32BJ today and I would just like to underscore that it is of great importance to me that this agreement be finalized, as 32BJ is an indispensable partner in this work. With those thoughts in mind, I look forward to discussing this application further and I look forward to hearing the perspectives of my colleagues and constituents.

(01:01:54)

Thank you, Chair Louis. Good morning, Council Members. Thank you for having us today. We are here to present the Fort Hamilton Mews Rezoning proposal. This is an R7X proposal with a C2-4 zoning overlay. We can move to the next slide.

We are proposing MIH Option which would allow for 88 of the 292 dwelling units to be income restricted at 80% average AMI. The original proposal is for an 11-story building with approximately 20,000 square feet of community facility space and 30,000 square feet of commercial space on a gross square footage basis, which you see up there. We would include 75 parking spaces, most of which are voluntary, in a sub-cellar below grade. Initially the commercial space was proposed to be a grocery store.

Next slide. This shows where the project is in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Next slide. This is an old Staples site. As you know, there was a period of time when big box retail was in abundance around the City, and it is to some degree being redeveloped now. Staples has changed their business model and we own the property. We have a few more years left on the lease and a right to terminate the lease. We are going to do so as soon as we are ready to construct and build the proposed building in this location. There you see the triangle between Fifth Avenue and Fourth Avenue as the avenues start and extend north through the Borough of Brooklyn.

Next slide. Next slide. This shows the uses that the Council Member referred to immediately around us. This district has primarily automotive uses, and then in the areas surrounding the commercial core there is predominantly multi-family, which is approximately six stories in most locations, or no greater than six stories.

Next slide. Again, the proposed rezoning in Bay Ridge. This district is a mix of R5B and R6B along the avenue. We would draw the R7X line in the center of the block. Next slide. There you see the entry to the approximately 50-space surface parking lot in front of the Staples, which would be redeveloped. Next slide. Some more views of the site with the Verrazano Bridge in the background. Next slide. There is largely a traditional retail strip to our south. The proposed development would draw that together with the commercial district to the north. Next slide. And fill what is essentially a gap with ground-level active retail uses, with an entrance at the corner underneath the white section of the building, and then the community facility entrance in the red section of the building. Here you see the building with three distinct materialities: a white, more modern box divided by glass, with a more traditional red brick box to the north. It is a 300-foot site. The idea here was to break up the building with different parts to provide some diversity of appearance.

Next slide. So this would require a zoning text amendment and designation and would change the zoning map. Next slide. There you see the two districts compared. Next slide. So R7X would have a 145-foot height limit, a 6.0 FAR for residential uses, and various limits for commercial and community facility uses. Next slide. We are going to come back to that slide shortly. There you see the map-designated area. Next slide.

So in summary, this proposal, located immediately across the street from the terminus of the N train, would be a good place for density. It sits on a wide avenue. It bridges the triangle, sort of bridging the gap between two avenues. And then we have the Fort Hamilton...

(01:07:34)

...Triangle Park to our southwest, open space that would provide views and contrast with the taller building located on the corner. As you know, we attended Community Board meetings and hearings and had a lot of very interesting feedback on our proposal. The conclusion was that the Community Board recommended an R6A in the context of the planning that you are proposing to do now. While we have no interest in withdrawing our application for R7X, we heard the remarks from the community and the feedback that we received, and have spent the last couple of months working on something that might bridge the gap between what they are proposing and what we proposed — how that might look — in an effort to allow the project to move forward without having to go to an appeals board or refile under the new regime. We have looked very closely at what an R7D designation would look like and how that would affect the site.

(01:08:59)

Next slide. So on the next slide, R7D — here you have the very small details of what R7X looks like, but really it is the summary of the height. And on the next slide, if you take the R7X that we showed earlier and then add the R7D to the right, you will see that it brings the total height of the building down to 125 feet and the FAR to 2.6. Most importantly, that would be a small but meaningful reduction from our side.

(01:09:41)

...reduction in the proposed building. But I think more importantly, we took the opportunity to redesign the building with some different materiality and a different arrangement of heights and setbacks. Next slide. Next slide. That was R7D there, which you can look at at greater length in the recorded material. Here is the proposed redesign. We have taken — and maybe it is better to turn this over to Yuri to talk about the new materiality and the massing.

(01:10:13)

If we could go to the next slide please. Okay. So a number of comments that we received from the neighborhood referred to the scale of it and the fact that the 11-story setbacks that would begin would not fit within the neighborhood. As a result, we have tried to replicate a six-story line with a double parapet and a setback on the majority of the building, and create a more contextual building type. The six-story articulation of the street on Fifth Avenue, but above that, on the left, which is a smaller volume, provides light and air to the northern portion of the building, providing a setback of 20 feet from the northern lot line and also providing a 60-foot court in between the buildings as well. That articulation has reduced, in terms of the presence of a 300-foot-long 11-story building on the avenue, and has made it, in our opinion, a bit more pleasant — a more pleasant perception of the mass and the volumes. We also introduced a number of setbacks above the minimum base height of 60 feet. In R7D, 60 feet is the minimum required street wall height, and above that we went up to 95 feet and stepped back the rest of the building in order to comply with the 15-to-10-foot required setbacks from the street.

(01:12:13)

Lines. All right, thank you so much. I have a couple of questions and I will hand it over to CM Sanchez. So how are you addressing Community Board 10's concerns given the recommendation to disapprove...

(01:12:28)

...this proposal?

Well, what you see here is a building that speaks to...

(01:12:32)

...the architectural comments and concerns. So we pivoted in providing something that we believe is more contextual to the neighborhood and that fits better, while maintaining the same basic...

(01:12:44)

...mass, albeit a small reduction from the 6.0 FAR. It is an 11-story building and it sets back at six stories, which is essentially the community context. It breaks apart into two masses that allow the rearrangement to have the height at the corner where it is most appropriate, and then a very large reduction in the center of the site at six stories with another massing. So instead of looking like a very large 300-foot-long building, it looks like two different buildings, and again with more historic context.

(01:13:23)

All right. What types of commercial tenants will you be seeking for the proposed commercial space, and have you begun any discussions with...

(01:13:32)

...prospective tenants? No, we have not had any conversations with prospective tenants beyond the initial conversations with grocery store operators. We did hear from the community that perhaps smaller retail spaces would be more desirable than a large single operator, which was a bit of a surprise on account of the fact that a lot of social media indicates that Trader Joe's or Aldi would have been desirable here. We intend to occupy the ground floor spaces with more traditional service retail.

(01:14:11)

Thank you. I will now call on CM Sanchez for questions. Thank you for...

(01:14:16)

...being here. So I just want to briefly clarify that you all are aware that we are launching a neighborhood planning process, and it continues to be the case that you are continuing forward with the application and not withdrawing. Correct?

In the absence of withdrawing your application, will you agree to be part of the plan post-entitlement, should you receive it, to ensure your building conforms with the community's calls for contextual design and other elements?

Yes. I just want to clarify: in your first proposal you proposed a building of 145 feet. You are now, in this revised R7D in response to the community's concerns, bringing that down — even though R7D allows for 125 feet — the building you are proposing now is 115 feet?

115 feet. Okay. And you just said that in response to the community's concerns about traffic and congestion, you are no longer moving forward with the grocery store as the primary goal on the ground floor moving forward?

(01:15:18)

Correct. Can you speak about your efforts to reach an agreement with 32BJ?

(01:15:26)

Yeah. I think that it was a little slow in starting, but we have engaged them in a very productive dialog in the last few days. I believe that as we are arriving here this morning, we have an agreement — a neutrality agreement, a traditional neutrality agreement — and we intend to... we were going to do prevailing wage anyway, so the idea of working with the union in this case seems like a reasonable request.

(01:16:02)

Okay. So it is your intent to reach an agreement with 32BJ? Okay.

(01:16:08)

Something you mentioned...

(01:16:10)

...earlier is that you were looking into the legal tools available to you should the Council not support this rezoning application. Correct?

(01:16:18)

So does that mean that if the Council does not support this application, you would seek use of the appeals board, for instance?

(01:16:28)

For instance, yes. And the appeals board is largely untested, but in the event that we received a negative reaction there, a second opportunity to get the project approved would be to file the same application and pursue an approval under the new abbreviated timeframe.

(01:16:52)

And of course that would bypass me and the Council...

(01:16:56)

...completely. That is correct.

(01:16:58)

And in that case, would you be proposing a building at R7X or at R7D? It seems to me that you are now coming to the Council and proposing it at R7D.

(01:17:09)

If you were to use these new tools, are you coming back with an R7X?

We would most certainly come back with an R7X, or perhaps even a greater R8 or R9 designation.

(01:17:24)

Just with the remainder of my time — and you know this is not a problem that you alone as developers can solve — but it is imperative in this...

(01:17:33)

...moment that we are in, where the prevailing belief is that our only way out of the housing crisis is to build, build, build, it is important to have actual affordable housing that is not inflationary to local rent costs and that actually fits in with the neighborhood character. I need to express on the record my frustration that, even though we will be able to — because the applicant is not withdrawing and will come back in should we vote it down — our hands are somewhat tied here. That is a frustrating reality for my constituents. But I am appreciative that you have been responsive to our concerns and I look forward to continuing the conversation.

(01:18:23)

Thank you, Council Member. This panel is now excused. Thank you very much. Thank you.

(01:18:28)

Counsel, are there any members of the public who wish to testify remotely or in person regarding this proposal?

(01:18:34)

Yes, we have one member in person and one member online. We will start with the one member in person.

(01:18:44)

I will now call on...

(01:18:45)

32BJ. I am not Kyron but I am here with 32BJ to testify on the fifth proposal. Are you Sara?

I am Sarah.

(01:19:08)

Penenberg. I was informed that you were being replaced by your colleague, but okay, you are clearly here. You can go ahead. You can restate your name.

(01:19:15)

Yes. Sara Penenberg. Hi everyone. I am Sarah Penenberg and I am here representing SEIU Local 32BJ. 32BJ is a member-driven union representing 190,000 building service workers like concierges and porters who work to keep buildings safe and clean. We want to ensure that landlords profiting in the City and across the country act responsibly and respect the communities they depend on for their success. We have a late-breaking update that the Council Member mentioned. We are about to sign an agreement with this developer on this proposed rezoning in Brooklyn. I just want to thank them for coming to the table and negotiating on this proposal. It would be a neutrality agreement that would ensure good jobs and keep prevailing wage at this site. Thank you.

(01:20:10)

Thank you. We have one person online that would like to testify. Veronica, your name?

(01:20:35)

My name is Veronica. I live in Brooklyn. I am here today because, like the majority of renters in the City, including many people I personally know, I am paying too much for housing. So needless to say I am very much in favor of this project. It will provide almost 90 affordable homes in one of the hardest neighborhoods in Brooklyn to build affordable homes. I think I read somewhere that only five affordable units were built in the last 12 years in Bay Ridge. That is kind of astounding. That is almost more affordable units than the current Staples and parking lot provide. I am also excited about the promise of a new grocery store, maybe trade jobs, maybe something else — who knows — and the stormwater mitigation plan that would replace the flood-prone parking lot.

Overall I think this project will be bringing over 290 badly needed housing units at a time when our City is experiencing a dire housing crunch and where the residents of Bay Ridge specifically are finding it exceedingly difficult to afford to stay in this neighborhood. Personally I find it pretty disheartening that our representatives are using procedural shenanigans and excuses like the character of the neighborhood to delay approving much-needed housing. Economists overwhelmingly agree that even building just market rate housing reduces rent, so it is disingenuous to claim that building this project would make housing prices worse. So I hope this project is approved now and not later, and I hope that it helps alleviate this crunch even a tiny bit. Thank you for your time.

(01:22:23)

Thank you, Veronica. We will now call on Logan Farris. If you could just restate your name...

(01:22:33)

...for the record before you begin. I am Logan Farris. I am the Political Director at Open New York, a statewide grassroots advocacy group that advocates for abundant homes and lower rents. I thank the members of the Committee for the opportunity to speak in support of building 292 new homes, 88 of them affordable, at 9305 Fifth Avenue, land that is currently a Staples parking lot.

According to the affordable housing production database, this project alone will more than triple the number of affordable homes built in this Community District from 2014 to 2024. Just 12 Community Districts produced as many homes as the other 47 combined. The failure to build housing equitably across the five boroughs has accelerated instability and displacement and left our City unaffordable for the vast majority of its residents. Last month, average rents in Brooklyn climbed to a historic $4,500 a month.

Projects like Fort Hamilton Mews on underutilized land, steps from a newly accessible N train station, are exactly the kind that we need to see across the City. In recent weeks, the City released the Fair Housing Growth Strategy, a report in compliance with Local Law 167 of 2023, a Bill championed by the City Council at its passage. The report found that we need 700,000 new homes in the next decade to meet current and future demand. I urge you to support new homes at Fort Hamilton Mews. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

(01:24:01)

This panel is not excused. If there are any members of the public who wish to testify regarding this proposal remotely, please press the raise hand button now. Or if you are in person, please identify yourself to one of the sergeants.

Being that there are no members of the public who wish to testify regarding the Preconsidered Land Use relating to the Fort Hamilton Mews residential mixed use, this public hearing is now closed and items are now laid over.

I will now open the hearing on LU 0127-2026, the 21-31 46th Ave Rezoning, a mixed use residential rezoning proposal in Long Island City, Queens, in CM Won's district. The applicant is seeking a rezoning from a mixed use M1-4/R6B district to a residential R7X district with a commercial overlay to develop a mixed use residential building that would have approximately 84 apartments. Mandatory Inclusionary Housing would require approximately 21 of the apartments to be permanently affordable.

For anyone wishing to testify regarding this proposal remotely, if you have not already done so, you must register online by visiting the Council's website at council.nyc.gov. Anyone with us in person, please see the sergeant at arms to submit a speaker card. If you would prefer to submit written testimony, you can always do so by emailing it to landuse.testimony@council.nyc.gov. I now

(01:25:31)

recognize CM Won for her remarks. Thank you so much, Chair Louis. Good afternoon. My name is Julie Won and I currently represent Council District 26, which includes Long Island City, Sunnyside, Woodside and Astoria. Long Island City is one of — well, it is the fastest growing neighborhood in the country and also in the Borough of Queens. Over the past 25 years we have experienced unprecedented residential development of mostly luxury apartments without sufficient investment in critical community needs like schools, parks and sewers.

We have seen severe flooding within this past month. We do not have enough school seats — that is starting tomorrow. We have over a hundred students who are on wait lists to get into their own schools. Our parks are overrun and underdeveloped. Since being elected I welcome new opportunities to build new housing in District 26. My neighbors and I have set a standard that balances development with community infrastructure investments, prioritizing real affordability for current and future neighbors. Through our community-driven planning processes we have created a complete vision for Long Island City that has centered community needs alongside 15,000 units of housing.

As we hear today from the applicant team of 21-31 46th Ave, I am excited by the opportunity to

(01:26:45)

continue bringing new mixed income housing to Long Island City, but we must make sure that this proposal responds directly to our community needs. Throughout the public review process, the community board and the neighbors of the project have shared their concerns and recommendations, including deep affordability and family-sized units, density that is in context with the low-rise homes to the east and the large apartment buildings to the west of the site, space for light and air between the new development as well as the existing buildings — especially the condo — a community-serving use on the ground floor that is low cost or free, improved pedestrian safety and additional street greenery, and reduced parking spots.

I look forward to hearing more from our community members here today about their priorities and how the applicant plans to incorporate them in the proposed project. This weekend, living in Long Island City, I saw that there were many flyers even on the ground from our neighbors who are declining to support this project. So if you want to see a copy of that, I have that as well. I want to let you know that we have had over 30 emails in opposition to the project as well. Only two constituents have emailed support for this project. So I look forward to hearing the public testify today, but it is going to be really important for us to make sure that we come to an equal understanding with all of our constituents who are upset and want to see something different than what is currently proposed. Thank you so much.

(01:28:19)

Thank you, CM Won. I will now call the applicant panel for this proposal, which consists of Richard Lobel and everyone else — could you please state your name for the record. Counsel, can you please administer the oath. Why do we not all raise your right hand and say your name for the record please. Ashley Fina.

(01:28:47)

I do. I do. I do. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You may begin your testimony, which is limited to 10 minutes. You should start to conclude your presentation at eight minutes. If the entire panel can restate your name and the name of your organization, thank you.

(01:29:04)

CM Won, committee, Council — Richard Lobel of Sheldon Lobel, joined by Ashley Fina who is our applicant, Nick Lobel the project architect, and Christina Aponte from GE Environmental. We are here today to discuss, as CM Won suggested, the 21-31 46th Ave Rezoning. The next slide is a summary in terms of what the rezoning accomplishes.

(01:29:24)

We have got an existing M1-4/R6B district. That district has been set since 2004.

(01:29:32)

And despite the R6B designation, in the last 25 years there has been no housing produced on the site. In fact, we have an underbuilt commercial building with 15 parking spaces. The proposal would allow for a rezoning to an R7X district to produce a new 11-story, roughly 81,000 square foot community facility building with roughly 84 units. Because we have got an existing property here which is central to transportation, as we will talk about in the slides to come, with no residential displacement in an area where there is already some infrastructure to accommodate a building of this nature.

In addition to the rezoning, we of course would be asking for a Mandatory Inclusionary Housing text amendment. In the current iteration this would result in roughly 21 permanently affordable homes.

(01:30:24)

The next slide — the numbers behind the proposed development. Again, an 11-story building. This mirrors the building immediately to the east of the site. A floor area of 81,000 square feet, base height of 67 feet and a total height of 120 feet. The number of units — we are particularly proud of this, particularly in light of the fact that 52 out of these 84 units, roughly two thirds, are two, two or three bedrooms. Importantly, as part of the program, the affordable units in the building will reflect those two, two or three bedrooms as well. They will be roughly proportional to the units generally in the building. So we are creating some really nice sized units for members of the community who will be seeking affordable housing.

(01:31:07)

In addition to that, while there is no parking required, we did provide 15 voluntary spaces in the cellar. This is something which was reduced from the first iteration after the discussion with the community board. Nick can talk about that as illustrated in the building.

(01:31:20)

The next slide is the zoning map — kind of chunky and difficult to see. The site currently is in an M1-4/R6B district but is immediately adjacent to an R7X district. Indeed, across the street in the R7X district there are many large buildings — buildings at 11 stories, 17 stories and 48 stories. So while we are only 150 to 200 feet from the site, we are definitely within the area and shadow of many of these extremely tall buildings. Our building would allow for moderate density to the west of those large sites.

The next slide is the tax map. Per discussions with City Planning, we are taking an existing R7X with a commercial overlay and extending it to encompass the property to the west. This is a favored course of rezoning by City Planning, which allows for contextual zoning — to take an existing zoning district and to move it to cover the building. The next slide is the area map, which has I think some great rationale in terms of why we think the rezoning is appropriate.

(01:32:26)

As was noted by every agency we spoke to, we are nearly adjacent to subway entrances. It is indeed a transit-rich area which allows for several subway stops within blocks of the property. In addition to which, of course, Marie Playground exists within a block of the property. We have a 48-story building again in front of the property at the intersection of 46th Avenue and Jackson Avenue. A wide street allows for somewhat of a wider expanse in front of this building. So all these things taken together allow for a nice amount of space in front of the building, a street system and a transportation system

(01:33:03)

which lend themselves to a rezoning of this nature. In addition to which, as was noted by City Planning, the opportunity to add housing on a site where there would result in no residential displacement

(01:33:15)

and really allow for people to take advantage of transit and such in the area was a rare opportunity.

(01:33:20)

The next slide is a bird's eye view of the area. One notes the tall buildings in the immediate area, again ranging from 11 to 48 stories. This is no secret to anyone who is familiar

(01:33:32)

with the area. The next several slides show pictures of the site as well as the surrounding area. We note the existing bank, underbuilt for the site, and parking immediately adjacent — really not serving much in terms of community needs. I would pass the microphone over to Nick Lobel who can discuss the illustrated plans and materials, and then we are happy to answer questions.

(01:33:55)

Okay, thank you Rich. Thank you all for your time today. So if you could go to the next slide please. Next slide please. So this illustrative building — next slide please — is 115 feet tall. We have a little bit over 80 units in the building and we have taken great care to consider the site urbanistically because we back onto this very nice plaza next door. So we have taken great pains to treat this plaza well and also be as good neighbors as we can.

One thing that we noticed when we first started looking at the site was that there were windows in the building that is right to the east of us. So we tried to mirror back that condition and you can see over here that we have set back above the seventh floor on both sides. Next slide please. And once we get to these renderings — next slide

(01:35:03)

please — you can see what the effect is over here. So we have maintained the light coming down to the street and we think that this is a respectful gesture to the neighborhood. There will be lots of ground floor retail. It is scaled such that it could be some smaller grain type of retail. We think that this will be something that will only be additive to the plaza. We think that this is well set up for food and beverage for the plaza.

One thing that came up was that there was a potential issue with shading, so Christina can speak to that more comprehensively. I think that we are not really taking anything away. We have something that we think is a very great site to make a pleasant backdrop to the plaza and we do not think that there is anything that is going to be, let us say, deleterious to this block, other than the fact that there will be some sort of building being

(01:36:17)

constructed. You know, you will have the normal stuff you have to deal with when you have a construction project. So with that I would actually like to pass it over to Christina just to talk about the shadows really quick.

(01:36:35)

Yes, so there was some concern by the neighbor about shadows on the building, and

(01:36:40)

while the building — our project — will be casting shadows on the neighboring building, particularly in the spring and summer months, just for several hours in the late afternoon to the early evening, that is

(01:36:57)

the result of building next door to another building in the city. So I think just to summarize — and I know our time is concluding — we did have recommendations from the community board and those did result in some changes and modifications to the building design.

So as Nick noted, we changed the parking layout. We had removed a curb cut at the request of the community board, and added environmentally sustainable measures to the building to kind of green the building. There is a rendering which shows a mural on the side of one of the buildings. The community board noted that it was preferable to have that condition than to have a blank wall.

(01:37:38)

Can we fast forward to the slide showing the western exposure of the building? It is probably a few slides in front of us. There you go.

(01:37:51)

So that was the discussion with the community board. They said it was just an opportunity for a local artist to provide a mural for that site and we said we would be happy to do that. Just to give background, the building at the site has been there for roughly 70 years. Ashley, who is our applicant, and her family have owned the property for over 30 years. They are long-standing Queens and New York business owners who have had an operating business in the city for over 80 years.

(01:38:18)

And so she has been a great applicant for us and has expressed a willingness to enter into these discussions. We were happy with the way things went at the community board — it was a 32 to 2 vote in favor, which we felt was very strong. We have had subsequent conversations with some of our neighbors who appear here today.

We are happy to continue to engage in this conversation. The community board's recommendations were coincident in terms of the issues they looked at. Other ones are things that we would look at in the future in terms of programming the commercial space below. There was a request to have community facility and local commercial space as well as an opportunity to contribute to local greenery and parks and such, which Ashley has expressed a willingness to do. So I think with that the applicant team would be more than happy to answer questions, and I will

(01:39:08)

hand it over to CM Won. The environmental review for this project was revised — could you please walk us

(01:39:14)

through one more time the changes. So the environmental review was revised as the project changed after the project was certified into ULURP. So it was revised to reflect an increase from 70 units to 84 units and a decrease of parking spaces from — I believe it was 22 parking spaces to 15 parking spaces.

(01:39:38)

What was the cause of that change? Just the applicant's proposed project had changed after the certification of the project. All right. And can you please explain further the

(01:39:51)

location of the site in relation to Jackson Avenue, which is significantly wider than 46th Avenue.

(01:39:58)

Sure. I think we can step back to the area map if we can. We are off the corner of Jackson Avenue and 46th

(01:40:09)

Avenue. If we could pull the slide back up please.

(01:40:12)

It would be the colored land use map, probably the sixth or seventh slide in the pack. So just to summarize — when you take a look at the... keep going right. There you go. So you can see the building highlighted in red and Jackson Avenue, the dark line immediately perpendicular to that site.

(01:40:34)

That distance between the site and Jackson Avenue is roughly 200 to 240 feet. So really what you end up with is this kind of wide expanse because of the confluence of those two streets.

(01:40:45)

All right, thank you. CM Won, can you remind me — so you said you are going to take the R7X and expand it to your site. Correct. Are you the same height as the existing R7X on the next building in your latest proposal? Yes, the adjacent building is 11 stories and our building is 11 stories, or would be. Okay.

(01:41:02)

Thank you so much for your presentation. Throughout the public review process, residents of the surrounding area of this project have expressed deep concerns related to affordability, community benefits, street level design and greenery and building size. What have you done to engage the members of the surrounding neighborhood and how have you incorporated the community priorities into the project? Yes, so thank you —

(01:41:24)

Council Member, we have had some very productive conversations with some of our surrounding neighbors and one of the things that they mentioned was that they are not opposed to new development. I think an important distinction here between the R7X to the east of us and us is that we are providing Mandatory Inclusionary Housing as a requirement. We are happy to do it and really what it is is subsidized through no City subsidy to allow for the creation of these affordable units. In our case, the average unit size for these affordable units is over two bedrooms — so two, two, three bedrooms.

So there were things I think that we can do and things that I think have been a challenge for us. The things that we can do — and Nick, who is an experienced applicant in terms of an architect and has built buildings across the City — we have talked a lot about architectural aspects of the building and what we can do to try to mitigate some of the height effects.

And the opportunity to create some greenery around the space — I know that there is a pedestrian triangle to the front of the building. We have talked to the area about perhaps donating or trying to contribute to allowing for more greenery in that space as well. Leon, who is one of the attendees of the conversation we had with community members, discussed an opportunity to commit to certain land use trusts in the area. And Ashley has said that she would be more than willing to do that. Ashley, since the beginning, has told me in no uncertain terms that she would like to try to give as much as possible, particularly in terms of art space and the opportunity for artists, given the nature of the surrounding area, as well as the opportunity to beautify the area and provide some assistance to parklands in the area. I know that Murray Playground is a heavily utilized playground in the area and while City Planning noted that as being a positive of the rezoning here, the truth is that playgrounds need resources and they can benefit from local contributions. So with that in mind, we are thrilled to be able to do that.

(01:43:29)

For the building itself, we did make changes as we discussed in the parking as well as to the curb cuts. The massing of the building I think has been a little bit more of a challenge. Research into the adjacent building — there is somewhat of an angle to the building so it is not immediately abutting, and the opportunity we had to mass some of the bulk away from the sides has basically put us to the 11-story height at the building. So Nick, I do not know if you just want to address that briefly.

Yes, sure. I mean, we could reduce the height of the building. We could reduce the height of the building by going much steeper to the backyard, because right now you can go and have up to a height of 75 feet about 20 feet from the backyard. So we can basically fatten up the building and we could go back to the sides and go back to 10 floors. But it just seems like the more sensitive thing to do would just be to be nice to these neighbors, because ultimately these are the people who are actually opposing it — it is people that are in this condo and also the people that are on the back side of the block who do not want to have to deal with the construction site. So trying to be mindful of them, we think that this is a good solution and it is also better urbanistically too, we think, just because it is a much better backdrop for the plaza. So all things considered, this seems to be a really reasonable compromise and it is well within the character of all the surrounding fabric in this one spot.

(01:44:58)

For the ground floor, how will it serve community needs and have you committed any civic ground floor space to certain tenants at this time? If so, how did you determine them out of the many nonprofits in the district? And how will the applicant continue to incorporate community input into the selection of the ground floor tenants?

(01:45:25)

The community basically asked for commercial, local arts and retail that would be controlled...

(01:45:31)

Can you clarify — are you talking about the community board? OK, please use the words "community board."

(01:45:37)

So, Council Member, first — and by the way I want to just thank your office because they have been able to facilitate a lot of these conversations and we do appreciate that. So the community board spoke to us about the importance of local arts and local retail. Can I continue? Please keep going. OK, thanks. And the neighbors that we spoke to talked equally about local arts and small business in the area. The space itself is designed for retail and local arts and community space. We have not programmed that yet, given that we are currently in this rezoning process and we do not even know if we are getting the space yet. But to the extent that there is a conversation with the community board and with the local neighbors, we would be thrilled to speak to a subset of the community board and the local neighbors in order to agree on what would be appropriate for programming that space.

(01:46:36)

Ashley again — her family has been in the area for a long time and has a background in the arts. So the opportunity here, particularly in light of the nature of this district, we would be happy to engage in that conversation and to give everyone a say in terms of what that space is used for. Right now, as we are looking at building more family-sized units, there are not enough school seats. Are you looking to make sure that there is an early childhood care provider who is going to be on the ground floor space? We have not — I think it is something we would be happy to look at.

(01:47:06)

Part of our diligence in terms of environmental review is to look at school seats. I know, Christina, that we have looked at that as part of the environmental review.

(01:47:15)

For 3-K and Pre-K and twos and zeros — I am not talking about...

(01:47:20)

Grade school. For that we only... She did not look at early childhood. Yeah. So to the extent that that space would be a valuable contribution in terms of the opportunity to get younger kids in for school seats, we would be happy to look at that. And just again, Ashley has been a great applicant. The application has been outstanding for some time but we are happy to engage in that conversation to try to get back to you in that regard.

(01:47:46)

Beyond the required number of street trees...

(01:47:51)

Additional greenery at the street level — well, the depth of the sidewalk is such that it will be difficult to do much more than the street trees. That being said, the way that we have set up this ground floor, and given who could be occupying it, I think you could count on there being some additional street furniture that would be put out there, just because it would be something that would enliven the facade. We are right behind this very nice park which is going to be planted very thoroughly, so it would seem that the tenants will be taking care of a lot of that.

(01:48:39)

Can you help me understand how you are going to be continuing to keep the public notified? Neighboring residents, the community board and the Borough President have all requested regular communication from your team and a point of contact for the project moving forward. How will you ensure that my office and all those members of the community that I just listed will be informed as the development starts? And will the project have a dedicated community liaison to ensure open lines of community communication, and who would that liaison be?

(01:49:14)

The first thing is that we have already begun those conversations with the community board and committees on the community board. I know that the co-chair of the arts committee basically discussed the fact that she had discussed this with Council Member One and that the application was something they were OK with. And it was Krisha who talked to them and who spoke at the community board hearing in favor.

So I think the truth is that we would be happy to reach out to the community board and, if possible, allow for community meetings in this regard. I think that Ashley has been very open in her communications and so to the extent that we basically form a committee or subcommittee of the community board and attend land use hearings and do that, we would be happy to do it through the community board. We have multiple applications in front of the committee and obviously they are very hard working, but I think that to the extent that we wanted to even utilize their offices or try to get them involved in terms of setting that groundwork for programming some meetings, we would be thrilled to take advantage of that.

To my earlier question — have you engaged with the community outside of the community board and the people who have reached out to our office in the context of your project? Like, have you talked to Court Square Civic? Have you talked to Long Island City Partnership? Have you talked to the local... To this point it has been meetings with the land use committee, meetings with Council Member Two and a separate discussion with the neighbors from the surrounding building.

(01:50:56)

So the answer is...

(01:50:57)

No. Yes. No, we have not engaged in any of those further conversations. OK.

(01:51:00)

I have no further questions.

(01:51:01)

Thank you, Council Member. Ashley has been mentioned a lot and I know this is very important to her, so I do not know if you wanted to share...

(01:51:07)

Anything for the record. I just want to say we are lifelong New Yorkers. My father was born and raised in Queens. We have been in Long Island City over 40 years, operating businesses with...

(01:51:21)

Keeping a community feel has always been really important to us. We came out of retail as an independent retailer for 80 years in New York City, so we understand the impact of what it means to create community. We are very excited about this partnership and whatever needs to be done in terms of engaging with the community board and the community, we are happy to do it.

(01:51:47)

Alright, this panel is now excused. Thank you for making time to be here. Council, are there any members of the public who wish to testify remotely or in person regarding this proposal? Yes.

(01:51:58)

Chair, we have five people in person and approximately ten people online. We will start testimony in person. For members of the public here to testify, please note that witnesses will generally be called in panels of three. If you are a member of the public signed up to testify, please stand by when your name is being called and be prepared to speak when I indicate that you may begin.

Please also note that once all panelists in your group have completed their testimony, if you are remote you will be removed from the meeting as a group and the next group of speakers will be introduced. Once removed, participants may continue to view the live stream broadcast of the hearing on the Council's website. Members of the public will be given two minutes to speak. Please do not begin until the Sergeant at Arms has started the clock.

The following individuals who signed up to testify should be ready: Zoe, Enzo and Lee Corso. When you are called on, if you could just restate your name. We will start with Zoe. Thank you.

(01:53:46)

Zoe Newman, we will start with you. Go ahead. Yes, OK. My name is Zoe Newman. I am 34 years old and I am a dedicated member of the Working Families Party and I have resided at 21-00... for over a decade.

I have watched development in Long Island City explode over the last 11 years, starting with Five Points — the ground was leveled when I moved in. Luxury towers all around. But I also watched my block renovated with smaller three or four story family buildings with backyards, and I have watched small children grow tall. I have seen gardens blooming. It has been a real pleasure to see that kind of development on my block. From the door of the lot in question I can see five towers. From my own apartment I can see all the empty units inside these towers and I can see four towers currently being built up in the neighborhood. So this development is not addressing something that is not already being addressed, I feel. But I can also see these smaller buildings thriving and I am not opposed to utilizing the space to create some more of these family homes that go in line with the kind of structure that we already have in place, that aligns with the needs and the wants and concerns of the constituents on this block, which is very much a working families block.

Making exceptions for investors and allowing them to cut corners or make concessions is actually cutting corners out of the quality of life of the constituents. They are concerned about shadows, they are concerned about rats. I have a giant south-facing window so I am no stranger to birds flying into my giant glass pane all the time. So when I see this giant glass facade I think: great, pigeons flying into the building, dropping down on the streets, the mountains of trash that we already are having a problem with with the prime building. I just see the ground level deteriorating the higher we build up this block. It is also neutralizing yet another community resource. I know a bank is a bank but people do use it. And so I would like to see... we are losing grocery stores, we have lost union buildings, we have lost spiritual centers to these towers. I would like to see something that gives back to the community. It is not about stopping development, it is about holding these investors to the same standard that all these other new family buildings have been held to. There are great people building two more of those buildings in that spot. We do not need a tower — just lop off the glass facade, those extra six storeys on top. No cellar. Thank you.

(01:56:36)

Thank you so much. Robbie, hi.

(01:56:38)

I am Robbie Kapoor. Rob, if you turn on your... Right. It is Ravi Kapoor. I am a resident of New York City. I recently started up a young family in the apartment at 21-41 44th Avenue. We live on the top floor. We own that apartment now and I feel that the infrastructure — the basement of the apartment, not the one being built at 21-31 — it cannot... if you take it to that area it is going to cause much more flooding. The flooding in their building is already ridiculous. We have flooding every time it rains and the whole floor is so inundated with water that one of the elevators broke in our building. So I also fear for everything. The street is not wide enough to accommodate more right-turning traffic right in front of... yeah. And we just bought that apartment. It would be great to be able to see the skyline. Thanks so much. Thank you, Olivia.

(01:58:10)

Good afternoon. My name is Olivia Wang. I am here to speak against the rezoning of 21-31 46th Avenue.

First, the public review process for this project was fundamentally flawed. The community board and Queensboro Borough President issued recommendations based on an outdated semi-unit project description. Only after those advisory bodies voted did the applicant revise and release a revised EAS for an 84-unit project with reduced parking. Advisory approvals granted on an incomplete record should not stand. The paperwork changed but the core issue still did not. The applicant is still seeking a massive R7X entitlement allowing heights up to 145 feet right next to low-rise residential context — we are talking three to four floors.

Second, the revised review confirms serious unmitigated impacts. There is a severe open space deficit in this area. The surrounding area has an open space ratio of just 0.094 acres per 1,000 residents, drastically lower than the City's 2.5-acre goal. Adding over 200 residents without providing any public open space will only worsen an already critical shortage. The project includes unnecessary cellar parking space even after the community board's conditional approval included eliminating it. In a flood zone, excavating 135,000 cubic feet of earth creates unnecessary footing risks in an area that already experiences flooding. Curb cuts create hazards for adjacent occupied buildings.

Lastly, when will we establish a baseline for what our community truly deserves? This project offers absolutely nothing. Council Member, are you ready to let our community's hard-won progress be utterly ignored and just thrown into the trash? Reject the R7X entitlement and cap any building at a low-rise four-story contextual building, eliminating all voluntary cellar parking to reduce excavation and flood risks, and enforce the precedent set by Council Member... Thank you.

(02:00:27)

Now we are in session.

(02:00:30)

Hi, my name is... I thank you for the opportunity to speak. I have lived in Queens for the past 35 years and I respectfully oppose this rezoning. I am not opposed to development — I think that New York City is all about housing and development, I totally agree with that. But my concern is the scale and context of this project. This site is surrounded by three, two, five and six story family houses and low-rise condominiums. Now the architect and applicant mentioned that there...

(02:01:12)

Is a high-rise prime building of about the same height, but that is facing Jackson Avenue.

(02:01:20)

And that is not affecting any other law. There is a condom around it — it is not affecting them now. Once this rezoning is approved, this eleven-story high building will be overpowering, overshadowing everybody. This means a wall in your face. It is literally a wall in your window, taking away open space, your backyard balconies. Actually, I should mention that just looking at the rendering, it just makes me upset.

(02:01:51)

At that, there was a deceitfully modified rendering to make the building look smaller, and they cut out all the balconies next to it. All the backyards will be useless. We spent — a lot of us spent two life savings to buy our home on this block, only to find out that there is literally no space between buildings, right in your face. Some people tell me that I should not waste my time, that developers always win. I like to use an analogy of David against Goliath. We are regular people. We have jobs. We are not architects. We are not lawyers. However, I brought hundreds — David is with us.

(02:02:31)

This is a signed petition.

(02:02:34)

Notarized by the property owners and renters — mostly owners. I think we represent about 80% owners who are trying to...

(02:02:41)

Thank you. Council Member, so do you guys all live above Trader Joe's? And in the Prime building — which building is it?

(02:02:49)

Ella.

(02:02:50)

Vardon. Okay, so you live on top of Trader Joe's. Where do you guys live?

(02:02:53)

I live on the corner of — not Jackson Avenue — 21st Street and 46th Avenue. I am above...

(02:02:59)

You know the children's pediatric dentist. It is a building that was built in 20...

(02:03:04)

1. You know which building that is. How about you? I am mostly speaking up for the lower three- and four-story buildings, especially the one that is immediately adjacent to the west of the bank.

(02:03:18)

Did they give you the right of attorney to testify on their behalf? No, but I am just up here on behalf of the community. Okay, and where do you...

(02:03:25)

Live? I live in the Prime building.

(02:03:27)

But the petitions we collected — a majority of it is...

(02:03:30)

From — which one is the Prime? The Prime building is the one. Abdul is saying that it is about the same height, on the corner, the one on top of Iron Golf. Yes, on top of — so there are three of you guys who live in that building. That is right. Got it. And then you live above the dentist building. Okay.

So are you guys aware of Prop 2-2-4 that passed last year, and that the mayor currently supports it? Like, Zora Mamdani supported Prop 2-2-4. It was a charter change, which means that even if I vote no, it will be overruled by the president and the mayor, and this project will go through.

So I appreciate your analogy. So many times in Long Island City and in the district overall — District 26 — no matter how much we fight, these projects pass. And it is the truth, because at the end of the day, every single year, you know what the mayor does — no matter who the mayor is — they take away our community's power. Not only is the community board advisory, but not even the Council's vote is binding, because the mayor and the borough president will overrule our vote.

So I just want to be honest with you, because I know — especially as someone who is very active in the Working Families Party — these are real things that we have to grapple with on the left, because it is not okay. You cannot tout yourself as a socialist and then also say, you know, you do not have a voice and it is not a real democracy. We are going to continue to have meetings. I know we had already asked the development team to meet with you all so that you have a direct line of conversation with them. Today's public hearing is to put on public record what they have modified so far. So we will have another meeting, because I understand your frustrations about how hard it is to own a building. I am still a renter. I have been a renter my whole life. I probably will never be able to own anything in my own city. But we will have another offline meeting, and I will make sure that you guys are all invited so that we can have another conversation about the new modifications for the building and try to figure something out. But I just want to set realistic expectations, because this is the reality of our laws now. Thank you, Council Member.

(02:05:30)

I see. Sure. So if you were to schedule a meeting with and for the community with the developer, would you please take into consideration working families who are not able to be present here today due to the time? Sure, yeah, I agree. So...

(02:05:50)

There are so many people. The notarized petitions that we collected were down 46th Avenue all the way around to the back. So that is 45th — I saw your flyering, I have seen all the petitions you have got. Yeah, a ton of people...

(02:06:07)

Could not show up today because this was set for 11 AM on a working day. Those people would love to speak, either on camera, but again their work stops them from doing so. But they can submit testimony, correct? We asked them to submit it, but please...

(02:06:23)

Just take that into consideration. I will make sure — and it is very clear that the development team is very amenable to our concerns — so I will make sure that if we have the meeting, there is child care and also a remote option, so that people who cannot be there in person can still participate. It will be after hours, not during work hours. Thank you.

(02:06:42)

All right, this panel is now excused. Thank you so much for being here and for your testimony. We have one more panelist. So loved — last names — still have... Okay, next one. Okay, now we will move to online testimony. We have Matthew Lulu, Matthew Lulu, Gilbert Chan, Melissa Guan, Vanessa the Lion. Matthew, thank you. I am here. Can you all hear me?

(02:07:16)

Yes, we can. You may begin. Okay.

(02:07:18)

Thank you to the Subcommittee, and thank you, Julie and Counsel, for taking the time and allowing my testimony. My name is Matt. I outright oppose this proposal at the current scale. I will echo a lot of what my neighbors have said. I am a long-time resident — over ten years in Long Island City, particularly of this neighborhood. I am invested in this neighborhood. My family lives here. I am proud to see how much it has grown. It has grown incredibly. There is a ton of building, a ton of housing, and I think it is a good thing. But I think it has to be done smartly.

This particular proposal on 46th is simply out of touch with the needs of that general area — that intimate area on 46th, at Jackson Avenue and the surrounding blocks. I do believe it will cause significant harm to the quality of living for any of the neighbors in that region. This is 46th Avenue. It is not Jackson Avenue, no matter how much the developers want to bamboozle you about the proximity to that avenue. The Prime building that actually sits on that avenue — it is not that avenue. It is actually a very tiny block. They use words like "a wider, expansive street." They have not stepped foot on this block, if that is the case, because this is one of the shorter blocks in the neighborhood, one of the tighter blocks, with MoMA PS1, which is a great presence, in the actual area on that block. The congestion on a normal weekday or weekend — if you spend time there with that Trader Joe's, with the double parking and the pedestrian traffic — is already at its max.

So I understand that we are maybe fighting a losing battle. I really hope that the advice to the higher-ups, whether that is the mayor or however the tiers work, is getting across. I imagine that for all those reasons — the tightness of the block, the height restrictions — this is why it was left off. Matthew...

(02:09:21)

Thank you so much for your testimony. We will call Gilbert. Gilbert Chan. Gilbert Chan? Okay. Next, Melissa Guan.

(02:09:47)

Hey everybody, can you hear me? This is Melissa. We can hear you. You may begin. Yeah, this is Melissa Guan. I live at 21-28 45th Road, which is the part that was not addressed during this discussion — that our building is right to the north of this planned development. I am actually on my balcony right now.

(02:10:07)

Oh, just to quickly show...

(02:10:09)

Everybody how it looks like on my balcony. So this is our balcony. This is our view. Every building adjacent to us — there are six exactly, buildings like ours. And that one over there is the older building that is shorter. This is the eleven-story building, Prime. And then going this way, you can see everybody on this block is low-rise. And everybody has a backyard. And this is our building — this is the fourth floor, the top of the whole building. Including that new building next to it, it is only five stories. Everybody here is four or five stories.

And if you can see the very tall building on that side — the one pointed out by the developer over there — that is across the street on that corner. This whole block is low-rise. You can see that. Now you have a clear view of this whole block. That is not our block. The Prime building — that is by Trader Joe's. You can see that eleven-story building. That is not our block. That belongs to Jackson Avenue.

So I think speaking about this with this picture — if you guys can see — I think it is more powerful than anything. Other than that, we are all invested families in this neighborhood. Many of these buildings are not renters. We cannot usually move away because there is a beauty here that cannot be built right in front of my face. Right here at this lot — you can see — we are not moving away. We invested our life savings in this building. The same with all the six buildings, each having six units, and all the other neighboring buildings of different sizes but the same height. That is my testimony.

(02:11:57)

Thank you, Melissa. I think CM Milan has a question for you.

(02:12:01)

Hi Melissa, it was good to see you at the park the other night at Murray. Yeah.

(02:12:05)

But can you do me a favor — go back outside. Can you point your camera down so I can see the distance between your building? Because I know exactly what building you live in — I walk to the park all the time. Okay. So that backyard, where that gray building is, is where the development is going. That gray area is a very square-like block. Whatever the developer presented, it is going to be here. It is taking almost the whole block to make it a high-rise, and that high-rise is much higher than what the developer showed. So Melissa, the eleven-story building — that one is Prime.

(02:12:43)

Yeah, that is Prime. Okay. And the older building — how many stories is that? Five. This one is five. Younger arm of...

(02:12:52)

Is there anyone from the development team that can answer? Actually, so we know — I know that the borough president had proposed building at least a three-story or multi-story wall to protect the other tenants from the construction. And can you — is there an estimated timeline of the construction at all? Okay.

(02:13:14)

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Melissa. I will see you at the park. All right, thank you. Vanessa Leon.

(02:13:24)

Vanessa, everyone — can you hear me? All right, we can. You may begin.

(02:13:27)

All right, thank you. Good afternoon, Council Member and members of the Committee. My name is Vanessa Leong, and I have been a resident and homeowner in Long Island City for 15 years. I was part of the community group that spoke with the developer, and I ask you to reject this application in its current form. As you have been hearing, it drops a tower on a small side street. One LIC set the terms for how this neighborhood is supposed to grow. That was done through a two-year community-negotiated plan. This application reaches for One LIC density on a single lot that was left out of this plan, without matching the affordability that Council Member Won fought to secure. And when the LIC rezoning mapped this application, it also exacerbates sewer, stormwater and public transit overcrowding problems that One LIC's own materials admit have been underfunded in this development boom.

(02:14:28)

Approving this tells every developer that the One LIC plan can be bypassed if you just go lot by lot. You have been hearing the passion from the people fighting this application, and it is because we are the ones who live here. More than a hundred surrounding property owners have signed and notarized a petition fighting this. We have testified in opposition before the borough president. We have called and emailed our City Council Member. Our blocks carry some of the least green space per resident of anywhere in the City. Our children fill schools that are already overcrowded, and our streets, basements and subway platforms take on water when it storms. Our artists and local businesses continue to be priced out. This application is asking us to absorb more than 80 new households while putting nothing back into parks, classroom seats or drainage. The developer collects the value of the upzoning and leaves us on these blocks to carry the rest of the costs. So my ask is simple: please keep this lot zoned R6B and deny the application. If the Committee will not or cannot deny it, please approve nothing beyond a contextual mid-rise.

I really appreciate your testimony. Thank you. Thank you. This panel is now excused. The next panel is Jessica — last name Beck — and Rebecca. Jessica Beck. Jessica Beck? We will now hear from Rebecca... and the last person — is your last name Wang? Wang.

(02:16:16)

Hello, this is Jeff. Hello. Okay, we will start with Jessica. Are you okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry about that. You may begin.

(02:16:27)

I am in 21-28 45th Road, on the ground floor. My backyard backs up to the bank. Similar to what everyone else was saying, it does block — that is one kind of aesthetic thing. But I think from the point of view of how the neighborhood functions, and who is going to be coming there, and how we want to be able to give back to the neighborhood — if it were a lower building, more residential in nature, along with some kind of giveback, that would be really useful. Also, it just seems like such a high tower does not seem to fit within the neighborhood aesthetic. You know, that aside from the fact that our backyard backs up to the bank — they have already pulled out a tree that covered our yard that was quite beautiful, without telling us, which obviously was not our tree, but it was unfortunate. I just do not want to see a huge building back there for the rest of our lives. So that is all I have to say. I am at work currently, so I had to take a little time out to do this, but I think it is really important. So thank you. Thank you for making time.

(02:17:55)

Jessica, we will now hear from last name Wang. Yes, actually I am...

(02:18:02)

A neighbor with Melissa and Jesse — they both live nearby. I also stand only... So you can see — the park is close. These two buildings are so close. I will go directly to the point: it is too high for this neighborhood. That big building, where we are living, with that building, all the sunlight will be shaded. So it is really not good. But for all the other reasons, I think all the other testimonies have already clearly stated — I will not repeat. So just, even though we understand the developer's basis, please just hear carefully and look at this again and the impact to the neighborhood, especially for the neighbors who are living just behind there. Thank you.

(02:19:00)

Is Rebecca — Rebecca? Okay. Can everyone hear me? We hear you now. Is this Rebecca? Yes it is. You may begin. Perfect.

(02:19:36)

Thank you so much for having me today and listening. My apologies that I could not be there in person — I had some work commitments. Glad that I was able to dial in, and for...

(02:19:46)

Context, I have lived in Long Island City since 2013. I have been a homeowner since 2021. I live at 21-19 46th Avenue, so I live on the street where this proposed building is going to be built. I am one house removed from the actual lot itself, and my neighbors at home — again, contractually, we are a three-story family dwelling.

I just want to echo the same sentiment from all of my neighbors. This building — the actual size and the density of it — is not going to work for a small block like ours. But we do have a normal one that is adjacent to us, which brings a lot of foot traffic throughout the year. Also, our car congestion is insane with people coming in and parking to use the Trader Joe's. And it did irk me a little bit, listening and participating in these meetings over the last couple of months, how we are referencing the Prime and Jackson Avenue — that just does not represent what this street is. While the Prime address is on 46th, the main part of the building resides on Jackson Avenue. So, you know, that is something to note. But we are all small, low-rise buildings.

I echo all of that from what Melissa said as well. We put our life savings into purchasing this lovely little piece of the neighborhood over the past 13 to 14 years of living here. If I wanted to live among big high-rises, I would not have researched and purchased somewhere here. And as part of reviewing our purchase, we did look at knowing that that lot would be developed on, and our... thank you.

(02:21:38)

So much, Rebecca, for your testimony. We appreciate your time. This panel is now excused. This is the last call. If there are any members of the public who wish to testify regarding this proposal remotely, please press the raise hand button now. If you are in person, please identify yourself to one of the sergeants at arms. This is the 30-second warning. Okay. Okay.

(02:22:31)

We are going to call Zoe online. Zoe, are you online? Sandra? Zoe, if you are unable to come online, you can always submit testimony at testimony at council dot nyc dot gov.

(02:23:07)

I am sorry, can you hear me now? We can hear you now. You may begin.

(02:23:10)

Sorry, somebody changed my name, but it was listed as Verona Sundaram. I had registered to — do not worry, you may begin.

(02:23:18)

I am here today to strongly urge the Council to reject the proposed spot. As a physician I review the neighborhood planning through the lens of community health, stability and public infrastructure, and as a parent through the lens of our families' survival. Over the last decade of living here and being a homeowner I have watched Long Island City transform into a wonderful neighborhood, but this rapid out-of-scale upzoning pushing an 11-story luxury tower with 84 units into our immediate perimeter is pushing the local infrastructure and families like mine to a breaking point.

The applicant states that they will be providing affordable housing with this project and that is great, but our neighborhood resources are already at capacity. Where is the affordability when these families cannot access the resources of the area? Local schools are dangerously overcrowded, forcing families into a stressful lottery system just to secure a seat nearby. Even day-to-day essentials have become a bottleneck. Our neighborhood grocery stores face constant shortages and long lines because the resident population has vastly outpaced the retail infrastructure, especially as the Key Foods around the corner from that plot has just shut down due to high rental rates. The area in particular is prone to flooding with nearly every rainstorm, and a building of this nature will only worsen that and potentially create flooding that would spill over into the surrounding buildings.

If rezoning continues to clear a path for aggressive out-of-scale developments that ignore infrastructure limits, families like mine will quite literally be priced out and forced out of the City entirely. The applicant showed a bird's eye view of the area in question and you can see there are large high-rises all across the street on Jackson Avenue, including the newest and largest high-rise building that is currently being built just across the street on Jackson, and not immediately surrounding the proposed building on the block. New York just cannot afford to lose its growing families just because it chose to prioritize speculative real estate over community preservation. Development needs to be holistic, protective and sustainable. This piecemeal zoning is just not. Please vote no on this application. Thank you so much for your time.

(02:25:14)

Thank you. We will now hear from Andy Lee. Andy Lee, if you can hear me, you can begin. That was good. Thank you.

(02:25:26)

Thank you for your time and thank you for all the conversations. I do want to just voice one concern here, which is to say this is very much against the community policy that we have in this avenue. 46th Avenue is very tight. It is a single road. I was just walking my baby coming home and there was a big truck blocking the road the whole time, with parking on both sides of the road. I am sorry, babies cry. The 80 additional units are definitely not going to help with the traffic that we are having here. Every summer, every single weekend, there are events. This is a great community value-add, but if the adjacent building is just contributing additional factors into it, in addition to that, I have been hearing a lot of concern from the 450 group. As a homeowner as well, it would be very depressing to say the least to hear there is an 11-story building going up the road that is blocking their balconies and backyards, and the invasion of privacy that is going to overlook that area as well. It is just one voice, and I am concerned.

(02:26:47)

We will now hear from Tran Tam Chu. Tran Tam Chu, can you hear me? You can begin.

(02:27:05)

Hey, thanks for having us today. I live in the first floor unit right behind the current bank, so my backyard is literally adjacent to this new development. I understand the City's need to accommodate growth, but I think it is important to look at the actual impact this particular proposal will have on homes immediately surrounding it. This is not a development that is across the street or somewhere else in Long Island City. This is literally adjacent to my backyard.

My biggest concern is the impact of the increasing scale of development here and what it will have on quality of life, specifically on sound, noise, air and our privacy. When you put up a substantially larger building immediately next to existing backyards and homes, those impacts are not theoretical. Construction itself could mean years of disruption. The scale and proximity can have a permanent change to the amount of light and air reaching the neighboring properties, as well as the privacy and the way sound travels between buildings. This is particularly important to my family because we have two very young children, three and one years old. Our backyard is part of their living space. It is where they play, they spend time together, they have birthday parties and have friends come over. We will not be able to enjoy our living space with this development. We are not asking to prevent development. We are asking the City to recognize that density has consequences when it is placed directly against existing homes, and those consequences really matter.

(02:29:06)

We appreciate your testimony. Thank you so much. I want to thank everyone who testified today from the public. We appreciate it. I just want to encourage the Council member and the applicant to have a conversation with the community, because a lot of concerns were raised today. We want to make sure that we are having an honest and equitable...

(02:29:26)

...conversation for everyone. Being that there are no members of the public who wish to testify regarding LU 0127-2026 relating to the 21-31 46th Ave mixed use residential rezoning proposal, the public hearing is now closed and these items are now laid over. We are going to reopen the vote for Council members. Council member, do you vote in favor? Okay. So the vote is revised to eight in the affirmative for all three items that were listed earlier and that are referred to the Land Use Committee. We can continue with the next hearing.

I will now open the hearing on the preconsidered items regarding 69-67 108th Street, a mixed use residential rezoning proposal in Forest Hills, Queens, in CM Schulman's district. The applicant is seeking a rezoning from a residential R1-2A to an R7D district with a commercial overlay to develop a mixed use residential building that would have approximately 59 apartments. Mandatory Inclusionary Housing would be mapped as part of the application, which would require approximately 15 of the apartments to be permanently affordable. Anyone wishing to testify regarding this proposal remotely, if you have not already done so, you must register online by visiting the Council's website at council.nyc.gov/landuse. For anyone with us in person, please use one of the sergeants at arms to submit a speaker card. If you prefer to submit written testimony, you can email it to landusetestimony@council.nyc.gov. I now recognize CM Schulman for remarks. Thank you very much.

(02:31:18)

Good afternoon, Chair and members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak briefly before today's hearing on the application for 69-67 108th Street in Forest Hills. As the Council member representing this community, I recognize the importance of carefully considering any proposed development and its potential impact on the surrounding neighborhood. Today I look forward to hearing directly from the applicant as well as from residents and other stakeholders about the proposal, including its design, scale, affordability, commercial uses and relationship to the surrounding buildings and neighborhoods. I want to emphasize that I am approaching today's hearing with an open mind. I believe it is important that we fully understand the proposal, hear the perspectives of the community and consider the application on its merits. I appreciate everyone who is here today to participate in this process and I look forward to hearing the testimony. Thank you.

(02:32:09)

I will now call the applicant panel for this proposal, which consists of Richard Lobel. Everyone else could state their name when called. Counsel, can you please administer the oath?

(02:32:20)

Good afternoon. Can you please raise your right hand and state your name for the record? Richard Lobel. I hear them.

(02:32:35)

I do. Yes, I do. And I just have one request. I have two speaker cards that are missing, so after you are done with your testimony if you could just fill out my two missing ones.

(02:32:45)

Okay, thank you. You may begin your testimony, which is limited to 10 minutes. We will alert you at eight minutes. When you begin your presentation, if you could restate your name and the name of your organization. You may begin. Thank you, Chair.

(02:33:01)

Chair Louis, CM Schulman, Council. Richard Lobel of Sheldon Lobel for the applicant, here today to discuss the 69-67 108th Street Rezoning. We have received the approval of Community Board 6, 36 to 4 in favor, as well as the Queens Borough President and City Planning. We are hopeful that the Council will echo these approvals to date.

The next slide shows a summary of the project. The existing zoning of the project is R1-2A. It has been zoned either R1-2 or R1-2A since 1961. Despite that zoning designation, as we will review, homes and buildings in the immediate area rise to non-conforming heights, and so we will review that. It really merits this treatment along 108th Street. In addition to that, of course, we would be seeking a text amendment for Mandatory Inclusionary Housing. The sum total of the rezoning would result in 59 dwelling units in a roughly 55,000 square foot 11-story mixed use building, with 3,850 square feet of commercial or community facility on the ground floor and 51,850 square feet of residential above. There would be, as currently designed, 15 affordable units at option one.

On the next slide, the numbers behind the proposed development: 11 stories, 55,000 square feet, with an 85-foot base height and a total height of 115 feet. The setback would be at four stories and six stories. There would be no parking, as none is required pursuant to zoning, and again 59 units with 15 affordable at option one. We know that the building is currently designed as 28 one-bedrooms and 31 two-bedrooms. Tahir can discuss unit counts later, but we did manage to try to get the unit sizes up. We did not include any studios in the building and the average size is greater than a one-bedroom. On the next slide, the zoning map...

(02:34:57)

...which tells some of the story in terms of the existing zoning. You can see the R1-2A is across from an R7-1. That district itself has been in existence since 1961. As you go from Queens Boulevard to the east you encounter more density. Along Queens Boulevard, C4-4A and C4-5X, rising to R7X or taller districts, have been proposed. The R7-1 across the street resulted in a 14-story development along that side of the street, and on our side of the street you do have six-story buildings which would not be permitted in the R1-2A. Those are grandfathered existing non-complying buildings, as well as 13-story buildings within a block or two blocks of the property. So despite the R1-2A designation, it has been recognized by the City as well as others that it is really inappropriate for this frontage to be zoned R1-2A.

The next slide shows the tax map with the extent of the zoning district boundary, again here R7D with a C2-4 overlay. And then the next slide, the area map, which I think tells the story well in terms of why we feel this rezoning is appropriate. The property itself lies within a block of Queens Boulevard. Next slide, area map. Within a block of Queens Boulevard, an extra-wide and major thoroughfare in the area, we are within three blocks of four subway lines and bus transportation, and we are on 108th Street which itself is an 80-foot wide street. In addition, we are within three-tenths of a mile of the Long Island Railroad, so we do have multiple transit options available in the area. We are on a site where there would be no residential displacement. We currently have a two-story commercial and community facility building, underbuilt in terms of the floor area. So what do we have? We have got an existing site which is oriented on a wide street near transportation, something that the City looks to in terms of good options for rezoning, as was noted by City Planning in its review.

The next several slides are photos of the surrounding area. Again, the existing building along 108th Street, and as was noted by the community board, you can see the next slide shows the 14-story building across as well as other tall buildings within the area of the property. They really felt that 108th Street itself merited this different treatment and recognized that in the resolution, which basically said that they are going to recognize 108th Street as a certain type of area which allows for this greater density, but they are going to maintain the lower density to the east of 108th Street. With that I would hand the mic over to Tahir, who can run...

(02:37:33)

...through the project plans, and after that the applicant team is happy to answer any questions. Hi, my name is Tahir De Majola. I am the architect for the project.

(02:37:42)

If you can go to the slide that shows the massing a little bit further out. Yes, that one. So the project is located between two distinct zoning districts, R7-1 and R1-2, a low and medium density district, and our project is trying to mediate between these two densities. We try to create the main massing as a volume along 108th Street where it can support a higher building, and step the building down towards the low density district. There you can see in the image to the right especially that stepping-down effect, reaching the scale of the neighborhood buildings while the taller part responds to the taller context along 108th Street. You can go one more slide. We also broke the massing into multiple pieces to decrease the effect. One more please. And in this section on the right especially you can see the stepping-down effect again. The ground floor will be commercial and then the rest of the building will be residential. We are not proposing a cellar because it is a transit-oriented development and we can waive the parking. Not providing parking will further improve the building's stormwater management and also minimize the built environment around the ground floor, creating more greenery as a buffer.

If you can go to the next slide, you can see this in the greater context of massing. It is well within the context. Next one please. One more. One more. This is the proximity of the subway station. These two slides generally show how the building is configured. On the ground floor we have a commercial or community facility use facing 108th Street, with residential entrances along the narrow street. There are no cellar spaces here, so the ground floor houses the lobby and the mechanical spaces, and towards our neighbors we left the space as a green buffer zone. Because there are no parking spaces, this is all permeable greenery area. Also along both street fronts we pushed the building back to create further green bands along the building. On the typical floor plan, as you can see, there is a central core which is actually exposed to the street, creating daylight into the corridors and improving the quality of life for the residents. I think that will be it.

(02:40:47)

Thank you. So just to conclude, this site is again a site where no residential displacement would occur. We have a street system where there is good access to the site. We are near mass transportation, and I think that is why many people in the community found this to be a potentially beneficial site in terms of creating housing here. We did have some very productive conversations with the community board. They were lengthy and good, and I think that we did end up with a really strong consensus from them that this was something that would be desired by the area. So with that, the applicant team is happy to answer any questions. Thank you for your...

(02:41:29)

...presentation. I have a few quick questions before I hand it over to CM Schulman. Directly behind the proposed development site is a one-story home. I wanted to know how wide the proposed green space would be. Fifteen feet. Fifteen feet. Just to note that that owner did appear at the hearing and expressed to the applicant that he was in favor of the application. Okay, thank you for sharing that. Where will loading, deliveries and trash pickup be located on the site? For residential we are planning to be along 47th Avenue, and for the commercial it will be along the one-way street. Okay. CM Schulman?

(02:42:13)

Thank you. Would you be willing to commit to deeper affordability? I think one of the benefits of this project is that we are able to keep the unit sizes somewhat large, and of course because of the regulations, those units will be the larger units available to the affordable units in the same ratio as they are in the building. I would say that while we do regularly have projects where we are able to provide increased affordability, including for example 30% in option one, I do not think that the margins in this application would really lend themselves to that. It is a relatively small project in terms of the numbers, only 59 units. So I am happy to talk to Gabby about that in the future. It would be somewhat challenging.

(02:43:06)

Which option are you talking about? We have penciled out option one and option two, but the applicant understands and is accepting of option one to the extent that it is selected by the Council. Do you have any particular type of tenant in mind for the ground floor? I know you mentioned that...

(02:43:24)

Yes, so the community board expressed an interest in a commercial space that is a real benefit to the community, such as a grocery store, cafe or community space, inclusive of the medical office. Gabi is thrilled for the opportunity to bring this application. He lives in the area along with his colleagues who are bringing the application. We can have a discussion. Hundred, OK.

(02:43:45)

All right. The community board made some recommendations regarding setbacks and facade materials. Are you able to incorporate those?

We are able to incorporate the facade material suggestions and have done so on the most recent rendering. I think that the setbacks have been somewhat more challenging. Do you want to talk about that for a minute?

Yes, and we wanted to keep the building heights lower. Yeah, OK. The Borough President recommended the project fund improvements to McDonald Park, which is nearby. Is that something the applicant would consider?

(02:44:14)

We would definitely consider it.

(02:44:21)

You mentioned the storm water and all of that, which I appreciate. Just so you know, that area has more and more become flooded when we have these rainstorms. So that is an issue, and the more development we have all over the place — not just there — it is a problem. That area was rezoned and there was a lot of legislation a long time ago, but a lot of the homes that are there have concrete in front of them and not green space, so that contributes to 108th Street getting flooded. I just want you to be mindful of that. That is all the questions I have right at the moment.

(02:45:07)

Thank you. Others, I will let you know, but it is all right. Thank you, CM. This panel is now excused. Thank you.

If there are any members of the public who wish to testify regarding this proposal remotely, please press the raise hand button now. If you are in person, please identify yourself to one of the sergeants. This is the last call.

Being that there are no members of the public who wish to testify regarding the Preconsidered LUs relating to the 69-67 108th Street mixed use residential rezoning proposal, the public hearing is now closing. Items are now laid over.

I will now open the hearing to the Preconsidered LUs regarding the Sojourner Truth – Mapes Rezoning, a mixed use residential rezoning proposal in the Crotona neighborhood of the Bronx, in CM Feliz's district. The applicant is seeking a rezoning to a residential R8 district with a commercial overlay to develop two affordable housing buildings that would have a total of 457 apartments. Of these apartments, 137 of them would be permanently affordable through the mapping of Mandatory Inclusionary Housing.

For anyone wishing to testify regarding this proposal remotely, if you have not already done so, you must register online by visiting the Council's website at council.nyc.gov/landuse. For anyone with us in person, please see one of the sergeants at arms to submit a speaker card. If you would prefer to submit written testimony, you can always do so by emailing landuse testimony.

CM Feliz will be joining us shortly. I will now call the applicant panel for this proposal, which consists of Astrid Walker Stewart, Matthew Washington, Kelly Bascoe and Magnus Westergren. I will let you all say your names. Counsel, please could you administer the oath.

(02:47:26)

Good afternoon. Now could you please raise your right hand and say your name for the record.

(02:47:31)

Matthew Steven Washington. Kelly Bascoe. Astrid Walker Stuart. Magnus...

(02:47:53)

Now begin your testimony, which is limited to 10 minutes, and you should start to conclude your presentation after eight minutes. I am sorry, one more. We swear — one more. Yes, raise your right hand and state your name for the record.

(02:48:20)

Thank you. You have 10 minutes. Start wrapping up at eight minutes. When you begin your presentation, please restate your name and organization. You may all begin. Thank you.

(02:48:29)

Thank you, Chair Louis, and Council, for your endurance. It has been a full day. We are glad to be here. My name is Matthew Washington, Vice President and Chief of Staff at Phipps Houses, and we are excited to talk with you about a 100% affordable housing project built across two new buildings.

I just want to make mention of my colleagues who I am with: Kelly Bascoe, Vice President of Development at Phipps Houses; Astrid Walker Stuart, Director of Planning and Real Estate Development at Phipps Houses. We are also joined by architect Magnus Westergren of L Architects, and our environmental consultant Patrick Blanchfield, who is Senior Vice President at QRF. We will talk a little bit about the project and then we will go into it.

(02:49:15)

Next slide please.

(02:49:17)

A little background on who Phipps is. Phipps Houses is a nonprofit organization that has been around since 1905, building and providing affordable housing here in New York City. Today we have about 10,000 apartments, 100% affordable, across New York City. We also recognize the need for supports beyond that, and so in 1972 we established a nonprofit organization, Phipps Neighborhoods, which provides social service supports for members of our buildings but also the communities we serve, building community centers and the like.

Welcome, CM Feliz. We have been serving this community — the Crotona Park West Farms neighborhood — for over 50 years and we are very proud of that. With this project we are excited because the building that we are going to talk about at Mapes Court, originally built in the 1920s, we renovated it in 1991. It is a walk-up building, and so through this project we will be able to give our existing tenants a brand new building, pay for relocation across the street, and keep them in the same neighborhood. We are excited for that and to create more affordable housing in the neighborhood. I am going to pass the virtual mic over to my colleague Astrid, who will walk through more details of the project. Next slide please.

(02:50:40)

Thank you, Matthew. So today we are going to be talking about two zoning map amendments and a zoning text amendment to facilitate a 100% affordable development and mixed use development in the Crotona Park West Farms neighborhood in Council District 15, Community District 6.

As you can see on the screen, the proposed project spans two sites along East 181st Street and East 182nd Street, with Southern Boulevard and Crotona Park Way. The first zoning map amendment would rezone the existing vacant Sojourner site, which is on the south of the screen, from an R7-1 to an R8. The second rezoning is to rezone the Mapes Court site — this would be phase two of our proposal, to be constructed after the Sojourner site — and we are looking to rezone that site from an R7-1 C1-4 to R8 C2-4. You will also note that the rezoning extends to the south of the Mapes Court site, and this area was mapped with DEP guidance, so they will also be rezoned from an R7-1 C1-4 to R8 C2-4. We are also looking to establish a Mandatory Inclusionary Housing area as well. Next slide please.

(02:52:05)

The project sits within, as you can see with the yellows and oranges, a predominantly residential neighborhood just south of the Bronx Zoo. This area is largely a mid-rise neighborhood with developments ranging in height between 2 to 8 stories to 14 stories, and a 30-story tower to the south of the development site.

(02:52:31)

Next slide please.

(02:52:32)

So the Sojourner site is currently a vacant site. It covers an entire block and we are excited to introduce housing to this vacant site. Next slide please.

We are proposing 159 units of affordable housing on this site. As Matthew mentioned, 50% of these units will be dedicated to the Mapes tenants. The building has amenities which they do not currently have — an elevator and a landscaped area in the rear. The building ranges in height between 8 and 16 stories and there is a concierge on the ground floor at the corner, so tenants will be greeted upon entry. Next slide please.

So this view showcases the massing of the project. We have concentrated the height along the wider street — it is 100 feet wide — and it steps down to 10 and 8 stories along the residential streets. On the bottom you will see the maisonettes in pink. Next slide.

So this perspective highlights the maisonettes, which are essentially little row houses inset into the larger buildings, so tenants who live in those units have their own entrance and two stories. This creates a really nice human scale to the street and also gives tenants their own row house. This view also highlights the landscaped area in the rear yard that is accessible to tenants.

(02:54:14)

Next slide please.

(02:54:16)

So this is the first floor plan with the amenities flanking the lobby, and then the single entry for the lobby as well as the maisonettes in blue. Next slide please.

If we look at the second floor plan, you can see the second story of the maisonettes, and then we are introducing one bedrooms, two bedrooms and three bedrooms as well. Next slide please.

So this is the preliminary unit distribution and affordability mix. I just want to highlight here that we are creating over 60% of our units as two bedrooms and three bedrooms, as we recognize that family-sized units are very important to this community. For the affordability range, we are providing our NYCHA set-aside units at 15% AMI, and then we have a range of affordability from 30% AMI to 80% AMI. Next slide please.

So this highlights the diversity of units and households that we are hoping to house. Next slide please.

I am conscious of the time. So this is the second phase of the project, the Mapes Court site. As Matthew mentioned, this is an existing Phipps building that has existing tenants that will, once the Sojourner site is built, be relocated there. Relocation costs will be covered by Phipps. They will retain their same rent and we will provide any services they need to facilitate that one move. Then on the corner you will see there is also a vacant gas station and a one-story commercial strip there. Phipps acquired those sites in order to redevelop them and create a brand new, more affordable...

(02:56:06)

...units to this corner. Next slide please.

So we are hoping to create 298 units of affordable housing with the same residential amenity spaces on the ground floor. The project ranges in height between 6 and 14 stories, again massing and then stepping down to the residential streets. What sets this building apart from Sojourner, and what we are really excited about, is that we are creating over 15,000 square feet of community space. The CM has been interested in using this space for a community center. He has expressed interest in a YMCA. We are meeting with them tomorrow to discuss the feasibility of that. Next slide please.

This is another perspective showing that distribution, massing and urban design sensitivity, and the community facilities base on the ground floor. Next slide.

Stepping down to Mapes Avenue, which is a real residential street, so again we are being sensitive to the neighborhood context. Next slide.

So this is the first floor plan. In white you can see the community facility space, and then in the middle, Mapes Court would also have a landscaped area for tenants, a single point of entry lobby — this is a security measure — and tenants will be greeted by concierge. Then in blue we introduce residential units along Mapes Avenue. Next slide.

This is the second to sixth floor plan. Next slide.

And this is the preliminary unit distribution and affordability mix for Mapes. Similarly to Sojourner, we have a very high concentration of two bedrooms and three bedrooms — 55%. For context, the City requires a 30% minimum and we are practically doubling it for both Mapes and Sojourner. Similarly, next slide, we are looking to create a diverse range of affordability levels. So we are creating homes for teachers and their family of three making around $75K, to architects making around $90K. And that is so much — we appreciate your time. We have been joined by CM Feliz and I wanted to give him an opportunity to provide...

(02:58:40)

...remarks. Thank you, thank you so much, Chair Louis. I just want to thank you all for the presentation and for all the work that you do in the central and south Bronx building affordable housing. I am looking forward to working together on this, making sure that this is a project that is able to build the housing that we need in our City but also help resolve some of the local issues in the community, including the needs — especially that our youth have — in the area. So I have some questions but I will let the Chair go first with the questions.

(02:59:07)

All right. Two quick questions and I will hand it over to CM Feliz. The project would have a larger number of two- to three-bedrooms, as you just mentioned, than most 100% affordable housing applications that come through this committee. Can you explain how you were able to accomplish this goal?

(02:59:28)

Sure. Thank you for picking up on that. I mean, it is something we pride ourselves in at Phipps. In part by trying to build at this scale, it allows us to try and design the buildings we really believe in — to be able to staff a concierge at the front desk, to be able to have larger units. I think in part having the scale and having the experience we do, we have definitely proven out on previous projects we have done recently that we can accommodate that amount of bedroom sizes. We really are aiming to build housing for families...

(03:00:06)

...and larger units than typical. So I think it is part of our track record, part of our model and part of how we design buildings from the inception. It is part of why we are putting this proposal in front of you today, to be able to accomplish that.

(03:00:19)

And Chair Louis, if I may add — we are a mission-driven organization and we know that there is a need for housing for families. When you look at the financing models, a lot of them are looking at unit count and do not really distinguish between a studio or a three-bedroom or two-bedroom when you are looking at the financing. But it is important for us to push, because of the communities that we serve. We are not a developer who builds buildings and runs away. We manage our buildings and have been doing so since the 1900s. We still have one of our buildings from 1931 that we are still managing today. So it is important to us that we are serving the communities that we are a part of. It is also why we build community centers in these neighborhoods. We are building a new community center not far from this project, on 180th Street and Boston Road. It is really pushing on that mission to make a difference in the lives of the people we serve.

(03:01:12)

Thank you for that. Very noble. The community board mentioned that large apartment buildings could be built on these lots without any rezoning. Can you explain why a rezoning is necessary and why the R8 zoning district was selected?

(03:01:29)

Sure, sure. Actually, do you want to start? I can, I can start.

(03:01:32)

I will pick up on it. So as of right, you could probably build about 300 units on the site and our project contemplates about 460, close to that. There are a couple of reasons. One, there is a need for affordable housing in the City, and so being able to do that is important. It also allows us to increase the scale, which allows for the incorporation of the community facility space, beautification of the area around it.

One of the things that is important with the rezoning — as we went through environmental review — there is a community garden across the street from the Sojourner Truth site, which was of interest to the community board. With hopefully the approval of the City Council, we will be paying for a redesign to address any concerns about shadows that the community garden has, and we have already been in touch with GreenThumb to talk with them about the process.

So a lot of it is understanding the needs that the City has, building to a scale that can support things like the amenity spaces we want to provide for residents — such as concierge, making sure that families can receive packages that do not grow legs and walk away, which unfortunately happens sometimes in buildings. Being able to provide a suite of amenities, you really just need more income to make it work. It is what really finances and functions for our properties.

(03:03:05)

And Kelly mentioned this earlier, but I just want to emphasize this: the scale of the building allows us to create the 62% family-sized units. If we were to reduce the scale of the building, we would not be able to support that. We recognize that it is an important priority from the community that we create more family-sized units. So we are excited we are able to do that because of the scale of the project.

(03:03:38)

Thank you. The Council member of the lease, thank you again Chair and thank you again all for being here. A few questions about the project. I think anybody who has been paying attention to me knows how I feel about green spaces, the need to build green spaces, preserve them and also make them accessible. And in this process, this project would cast shadows, if I am correct, on a local community garden. Has your team reached out to the groups that are involved in the community garden and what are remedies that your team has explored on that issue?

(03:04:06)

Yeah, absolutely. So I was just sharing with the Chair, you know, CM Feliz, we have been in touch with GreenThumb, which runs the Hornaday Community Garden across the street from the front of the site. We have agreed, upon the approval of this project, that we would fund a redesign of that garden to address concerns about shadows. So we have had very productive conversations with them. They are excited about the opportunity to do that because we would not want to...

(03:04:39)

...have negative impacts. And they are excited about the potential of more residents becoming members of the garden as well. So we have certainly had that conversation.

(03:04:49)

OK good. What about the Crotona Parkway malls, the green strip that runs right in front of the area of Southern Boulevard? Would this cast a shadow on that, and if so, how much? Patrick?

(03:05:00)

Yes, so the project would cast shadows...

(03:05:04)

...some shadows on the Crotona Parkway malls, but the extent and the duration is minimal such that it would not really rise to any kind of significance. It would cast a little bit of shadow but nothing that would rise to a significant impact.

(03:05:24)

...mentioned many things including the fact that the height seems out of context with the rest of the neighborhood. There are a few towers including 21 stories on the boulevard, 30 stories, also 800 East 180th and 820, but that is only a few buildings out of the many buildings that are in the area. So just curious, what makes this project fit within the context of the surrounding neighborhood?

(03:05:50)

And why not bring it a little bit down so that it could be a little closer to everything around it? The width of Southern Boulevard and Crotona Parkway, you know, it is an extremely expansive street kind of those two. So given that, it seemed that 14 stories was a good height in terms of the scale of the street to the building. And then obviously the height again echoes the family unit sizes and the overall number of units for it.

(03:06:22)

And while the tallest point, the tallest height of the building is 14 stories, on Mapes Avenue it only makes up less than a quarter of the rest of the building. So the majority of the building is 10 stories and eight stories as well. The Sojourner Truth site is less than, I think, 44% is actually at the 16 stories. And as Magnus mentioned, it is a thoughtful architecture team and they were very thoughtful about where to place that height and how important step-downs and setbacks are.

(03:06:59)

And just related to that, Council member, one of the things that is important — and Magnus and Patrick can certainly speak more to this — is that by having that you still allow more light to come in. So if you have sort of a short squat structure it casts a bigger, longer shadow over those places that we are trying to protect and allow light and air to come into. So that is an important part as well.

(03:07:21)

I will add that the size of the courtyards is also the way that we can maintain pretty large at-grade courtyard spaces, you know, green spaces, by making the building a little bit slimmer and a little bit taller in places.

(03:07:34)

Also, as we know, this is a community of a lot of needs. As they have called it one of the poorest in the entire City. I know you earlier mentioned there is a potential for a community space. Can you talk to us a little bit more about that? It is about 15,000 square feet. Is there room to make it even bigger or does that take up the entire ground floor?

(03:07:58)

So the 15,000 square feet, I think 15,000 to 16,000 takes up the remainder of the ground floor and then we start introducing units in there. So that would be different. Magnus, I do not know if you want to speak more to it.

(03:08:14)

I mean, we have at-grade apartments, right? And if you are looking at the Mapes building in particular, I think there are about nine apartments at the ground floor. So whether those wanted to be converted to community facility, I think that is really up to, you know, the need for that. But there is certainly capacity to enlarge that at grade.

(03:08:32)

But we would likely lose units if we expanded it beyond what it is at this point.

(03:08:39)

You know, Council member, we heard from Santiago Youth Services. It was very important and they called me up and said this is something that you are interested in. So, as Astrid said, we are meeting with them tomorrow. 15,000 square feet is smaller than their typical facility but we will have the conversation with them. We have also looked at some other opportunities for youth services. Renaissance Youth, we are reaching out to them and some others, understanding you have identified the need for youth services and youth activity in the neighborhood. Thank you, Trevor.

(03:09:14)

I could just ask two more questions. Of course, yes. So if the community and I are debating the height of the building and the rezoning, if the community agreed to allow even taller housing, would it be possible to, let us say, double the 15,000 square feet? Assuming that whatever you are going to have on the second floor, we decided to add to the final floor, is that a possibility or are there architectural issues with that?

(03:09:40)

I am going to ask the architect if there are architectural issues on that. But wait, I do not think I fully understand. He is asking, would there be a way to double the 15,000 square foot space if we went taller even?

(03:09:55)

Oh yes, certainly. I mean, 30,000 square feet.

(03:09:57)

That is what you are asking, correct? Yeah. I mean, if we could go taller than the 135-foot or 14-story type.

(03:10:04)

Yeah, we could certainly go up theoretically. So, you know...

(03:10:08)

I think the other thing, you know, my role on the team in particular is around the financing. So as mentioned, we are having some preliminary conversations with groups like the UAE, but obviously a challenge within the City when they do these is to sort of fully fund themselves through rent. And when you start talking about a vacant space that is not going to fund itself, it is really trying to find that sweet spot. So as you mentioned, we are having those exploratory conversations to figure out what the right space is. But it is something we would have to explore and figure out. There would obviously need to be Council support and there would need to be a partner who it would actually work for. So that is really the piece that we are working on in particular related to the size question.

(03:11:01)

OK, and final question. Talk to us about the labor aspect of this. Is there a plan in place to use union labor? I know there were some, if I am correct, on the other Maloney projects. Yes, so is this transferable to this one? Yeah, tell us everything about the union part.

(03:11:22)

So thank you for the question. We know that 32BJ is here to speak against the project. We do have a contract in place at Mapes Court today. And even the Sojourner Truth site, Astrid during the presentation showed that it was a vacant site. We used to have a building that we ran there. The Mapes was 1991 and it has been organized by 32BJ for the past 35 years. That has not changed. 32BJ has come to us to sign a development agreement and we said we already have a contract in place. We do not know why you are doing this. So I do not know if 32BJ wants to open it up and allow other unions to organize the future employees. It is either that or these are bully tactics to try to get us to do something that they want. But we have been with 32BJ. These sites have been 32BJ. To keep them 32BJ, all right. Thank you so much for the answers.

(03:12:26)

Cancel your question. OK. All right, thank you so much. This panel is now excused. Thank you for making time to be here. Thank you, Counsel. Are there any members of the public who wish to testify remotely or in person regarding this proposal?

(03:12:40)

Yes, we have two members of the public present who would like to testify and five people who signed up online.

(03:12:52)

For members of the public here to testify, please note that witnesses will generally be called in panels of three. If you are a member of the public signed up to testify, please stand by when you hear your name being called and prepare to speak when I indicate that you begin. Please...

(03:13:07)

...also note that once all panelists in your group have completed their testimony, if testifying remotely you will be removed from the meeting as a group and the next group of speakers will be introduced. Once removed, participants may continue to view the live stream broadcast of this hearing on the Council website. Members of the public will have two minutes to speak. Please do not begin until the Sergeant at Arms has started the clock. The following individuals who signed up to testify should now come to the witness table: Hurley and Koran S.

(03:13:41)

And we have also been joined by Kevin Riley. You may begin. Thank you.

(03:14:00)

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the Committee. My name is Karen Banks, Deputy Political Director for 32BJ.

(03:14:06)

32BJ is a member-driven union representing 190,000 building service workers. We want to ensure that landlords in the City and across the country act responsibly and respect the communities they depend on for their success. We are here today in strong opposition to the proposed rezoning.

(03:14:24)

We have a long history of working alongside market rate and affordable developers across the City to promote responsible development that upholds labor standards. We have been working with Phipps to try and get a new development agreement on this, to join the truth base for zoning. The union has not been able to get that agreement on this rezoning and without said agreement we cannot support this project in good faith. Phipps still refuses to commit to a framework to ensure basic fairness to the building employees at work sites now and in the future, to uphold the prevailing wage for future employees.

(03:15:00)

We recognize the urgency of the housing crisis and the need for affordable housing. We have been a leader in finding solutions to create the desperately needed housing in every neighborhood. But we have also been extremely clear: the solution to creating affordable housing cannot be driving building service workers and security officers into poverty. This is the last opportunity for this project to be approved following the labor standards these future workers deserve. Phipps has not addressed our concerns and therefore we urge the Subcommittee to vote no on this project. And with the last 30 seconds, I think it is very interesting that it was brought up in the remarks that the intent is to keep those workers 32BJ but then also mentioned bully tactics. We resent that. We cannot build affordable housing without labor standards. Thank you.

(03:15:46)

Thank you so much. Good afternoon. My name is Hurley. I am the Executive Director of Time Action. We reached out to CM Feliz's office twice. We submitted over 57 comments in the last two weeks. We urge the Subcommittee to vote no on this rezoning for several issues. We do not just want a community center.

(03:16:07)

We are concerned that Phipps Houses is shortchanging the community. Currently Phipps has over two developments where there are over 46 up to a hundred violations. Phipps Houses, in their own words, has only recertified 60% of Maloney Houses. Now they are proposing to redevelop Mapes Court and relocate those same tenants. However, their track record shows that they are not capable of relocating and recertifying all of their tenants. In their own words, they define Maloney as a poorly designed, poorly financed project. However, Phipps Houses has also built Vita Verde. Vita Verde is a sustainable project that won awards not only for its financing but for the way that it was built. The community board asked for co-op ownership. Why has Phipps Houses not even considered providing co-op ownership for Mapes Court?

Also, we would like a public commitment to talking with the community about how you are going to redevelop that gas station. That gas station will directly impact my community garden. I am a homeowner and the folks online that are waiting to speak are also homeowners. We deserve better. Do better. Phipps has also shown that they flout our very community board district. So these concerns must be addressed. Thank you.

(03:17:52)

Do any Council members have any questions for this panel? Chair Riley.

(03:17:57)

Ah yes. First and foremost, thank you for coming down here and testifying. We do appreciate your testimony. That helps us make a very important decision regarding this project. Just two questions for each of you. First, with 32BJ, do they currently have a contract with you currently right now? If they do negotiate a new contract, would that interfere with the current contract that they have with you?

(03:18:24)

Thank you for that question. So currently there is a collective bargaining agreement in place that covers all of our residential workers. There are two in the Bronx: one for Co-op City and one for properties outside of Co-op City. And so that collective bargaining agreement covers that. What we have done and how we engage with developers across the City is we have a new development agreement when new projects come online. That new development agreement guarantees the prevailing wage standards but it also covers our security workforce, which the collective bargaining agreement does not cover. So we make that extremely clear. We have explained this to Phipps multiple times that it is not duplicative of the collective bargaining agreement and also you cannot just amend a collective bargaining agreement. There are standards, there are laws, there are processes in place that do not allow that to happen. So this new development agreement is a second agreement that covers all the workforce and guarantees prevailing wage.

(03:19:23)

OK, so it would be an additional agreement that they would have to do. The current collective bargaining agreement is up next year when the entire contract has to be renegotiated with the Bronx realty board. And this agreement, I guess, would be discussed between you both and you would be part of this project. Yes.

(03:19:44)

OK, all right. My next question. I am sorry, ma'am, I did not get your name.

(03:19:52)

Rose Hurley. Hurley. Thank you.

(03:19:53)

So much for coming and testifying, Ms. Hurley. Just two things. I know that, and correct me if I am wrong, I believe the gas station was going to be redeveloped for housing so it would not be a gas station. Are you saying that you want something else opposed to the redevelopment of housing for the gas station? Because I think that is what the alternative was supposed to be. And second, I think the responsiveness of the community center was something that the community wanted as well. I am not sure if this was something that was leading but I am sure we are always trying to find spaces within communities that communities can actually grow and thrive. So just wanted to get your take on those two questions.

(03:20:37)

So we are asking CM Feliz and the City Council to vote no completely. We are asking that the community board, Time Action and the People's Assembly redesign it. I am a planner on the community board. As I said before, we did ask for cooperative ownership. As I said before, Phipps Houses does have Vita Verde, which is a cooperative ownership. It is 71 units that they have provided as cooperative housing. That gas station, just building housing there without open dialog about how you are remediating this brownfield site, that is unacceptable. There are two community gardens, not one. There are two community gardens in that area.

(03:21:21)

Could that gas station spot perhaps be a market spot? Like, can we play around with the design about what is going on there? Also, what about an opportunity to have small businesses? Because it is so close to the Bronx Zoo. There was no discussion about how 16 stories will impact the zoo and foot traffic there. There is no parking in front of the Bronx Zoo. So could we not have...

(03:21:51)

...included underground parking in that new development? Like, we are going to build 16 stories and that 16 stories on Mapes Avenue, it is not just buildings. It is small families and small family buildings, like eight stories or six stories, small buildings. We do not have 16 stories. The 30-story building that they spoke about is three blocks down.

(03:22:10)

The area that they are building into is largely a small family community vibe and it is completely breaking the character of the neighborhood. The community is asking for other...

(03:22:25)

...things. If we are going to develop this neighborhood, we are just asking that Phipps come back to the community and design that project with, you know, just being respectful to the community. The community board voted yes 10 years ago to the Maloney rezoning. I was on the community board then and there was a need for schools and Phipps did not build a school back then. And if the Borough President is going to say yes with conditions, if CM Feliz is going to say yes with conditions, we do not want it to be yes with conditions. Maybe if possible we want a concrete yes, we are going to do this and this is the timeline. Because Phipps has shown that they will say yes and then they will not build it. There was a need in 2017 for schools and they never built a school.

(03:23:09)

Okay, thank you Chair, and like I said, thank you for your testimony. It is very helpful to the decision that we... thank you. Thank you Chair. CM Feliz, yes, thank you so much for coming to City Hall to testify.

(03:23:20)

So you actually kind of answered the question that I had. My question was what would the ideal project look like. So now you mentioned out of character, also potentially doing co-ops, home ownership, parking space, schools. Anything else that you think... and I know you also mentioned that we need to go back to the community board and speak as a community, but based on the conversations that you have had, anything else that you think we should keep in mind in terms of the needs of the community?

(03:23:48)

I heard Phipps say earlier that if they had to redevelop, if they had to expand beyond the 1,500 square foot ground floor, that they would act to build taller, which is obviously not what we would like. But that ground floor — one of the things I would like you to write down is: is it possible that a space could be set aside for a small business? How can local small businesses support and build on the tourism that comes from the Bronx Zoo?

(03:24:18)

Any ideas for small businesses? Anything like a restaurant? I am sure a restaurant in the Bronx — there is tourism, there are people.

(03:24:25)

A restaurant. We are also considering a food co-op, groceries, there is a farmers market... there is a list of things that we would like.

(03:24:43)

All right, so let us definitely continue that conversation. We will make sure to touch base with the community board as well. And also, just for the record, everybody in the room — I still have not decided how I am going to vote on this, but I look forward to speaking with everybody on the many details. Thank you. Thank you, Council. I have not dismissed you yet. I just wanted to encourage the applicant to please have a conversation — obviously with Community Board 6 as appropriate.

(03:25:10)

But definitely have a conversation with her. She is here now, so that conversation can happen today, and then you can schedule time to have a larger conversation. But you heard the concerns that she is bringing forth from her community, the concerns that CM Feliz has brought forward. Everybody is here in the flesh right now, so this is a great opportunity to start that conversation. This panel is excused. You want to request to respond? Yeah, hold on.

(03:25:39)

Regarding having a conversation, you could do that offline, you could do that outside, but today is a good day to at least start this conversation because she is here, the union is here. This is the time. Thank you. This panel...

(03:25:51)

...is not excused. Thank you. For folks online, we have a few.

(03:26:04)

Rafael, Bridget, Laura, Annette and Reggie. Is Rafael on? You may begin. Good afternoon. Thank you for holding this hearing. My name is Rafael Marie. I am the District Manager for Bronx Community Board 6. The community board voted no on this. I wanted to clarify some of the points made by the board in our letter to the committee. Community Board 6 — this area is an area where a lot of as-of-right development happens.

There are regularly tall buildings built out of, you know, houses that are combined — multiple lots into one new building. As a result, Community Board 6 has a very active development market and we are doing more than our fair share of new housing construction for the City. This rezoning, this discretionary rezoning before the Council, is not going to make or break the real estate market in our district. We have encouraged the Council to vote no on this because we know that Phipps can still build 300 units on this lot without rezoning, and we believe that the City Council should really only reward responsible developers with rezonings.

A developer that does not have a good record in a neighborhood is not a good candidate for discretionary rezoning. The board hears on a regular basis from many Phipps tenants, including a tenant last night at our housing and land use committee, with serious concerns about Phipps's management practices, some of which have been brought up today. A federal class action lawsuit was filed against Phipps alleging management practices that caused severe harm to the tenants, whether regarding repairs, rent certification or things of that nature. The buildings in this rezoning area are referred to in our letter as having high housing code violations and serious problems for the tenants in that...

(03:28:20)

...area. Thank you so much, Rafael, for your testimony. We appreciate it. We will now hear from Bridget. You may begin, Bridget.

(03:28:29)

Hi, good afternoon. My name is Bridget Brantley and I am here today as a Bronx resident and a community advocate. I want to address Phipps directly because you are very aware of my stance. Tenants have been raising concerns about conditions, repairs, management and how they have been treated for far too long. The City has allowed these concerns to continue without enough accountability.

Phipps, we have heard these promises before. Tenants have been told things would change, conditions would improve, yet people are still waiting. So my question is simple: how can you ask for something new when you have not fixed what is already broken?

I also have to talk about where you are asking to build. This is one of the poorest congressional districts in the country. Many of the people making these decisions are not from here and do not live the everyday reality of this neighborhood. We have heard statements about bringing income from somewhere else, so I have to ask: who is this development really for?

Development in the Bronx should benefit the people who already live in the Bronx. Before we talk about rezoning and expansion, deal with the complaints, deal with the violations, deal with the repairs, deal with the tenants asking to be heard. To every City Council member listening, whether you represent my district or not, I hope you hear me loud and clear: listen to the constituents, listen to the tenants, do not let developers or management companies have louder voices than the people you are elected to represent. This is not anti-development. This is about accountability. Phipps, please fix what you already have before asking this community to trust you with more. Thank you.

(03:30:16)

Thank you. We will now hear from Laura. You may begin.

(03:30:20)

My name is Laura James. I am the Second Chair at Community...

(03:30:24)

...Board 6. Thank you for listening to my testimony today. I want to start by saying we did not know about this meeting until yesterday because CM Feliz did not inform us until yesterday. So I am not actually sure how much you want to hear from us, and it has already been said that you cannot actually do anything about voting down this proposal.

In any case, I would just echo the sentiments of the people who have already spoken against this project. The community board has sent many letters about Phipps and their bad practices and it is just really disappointing that nothing really gets done about it. There are no consequences, especially when the mayor is apparently cracking down on bad landlords.

In any case, they want to build yet another building. This is like the ninth one in a one-block radius in our district. They are not taking care of the buildings they already have. Even the new buildings have problems. We are just asking that you at least hold them accountable, as the mayor says he is going to do with bad landlords. Phipps is obviously a bad landlord, and besides awarding them with the ability to build and profit from tripling and quadrupling their housing stock, what are you going to do about their bad practices? Thank you.

(03:31:33)

Thank you. We will now hear from Annette. Annette? I will now hear from Reggie. You may begin.

(03:31:47)

Good afternoon. Can you hear me?

(03:31:49)

We can hear you. Go ahead.

(03:31:52)

I am pretty much going to have to piggyback off much of what a lot of the representatives from the community have spoken on, especially that of Miss Hurley. I would like to ask the Council to really vote no for the Sojourner Truth – Mapes Rezoning, and the reason why is that we have some obstacles already with Phipps's conditions. When you talk about what they are doing in that particular area right now with Lambert Houses, they replaced over 740 units and put 1,600 in, and yet out of those 700 units they only have about 60% of those original tenants back into the units. Those tenants who were there already have numerous complaints about conditions and the quality of their apartments.

And now Phipps is getting ready to go over to Mapes and take over that building, and when you look at the City records for Phipps and their violations, they have over 1,100 violations. Now that has got to be one of the worst landlords in the City. What we are asking is that things can be rezoned in that area without going from R7 to R8. You can do some of the things that want to be done. We want economic growth in that community and in this particular area. We also want affordable housing. We also want to see some affordable homeownership there — co-ops. Phipps can do that. They can work with it. They did that in the past. Also, one more thing...

(03:33:52)

Your time has expired. Thank you. Thank you, Annette. If we could unmute yourself, Annette. You may begin, Annette. Annette, if you could unmute yourself.

(03:34:03)

Hi, good afternoon. I am also a tenant of Phipps and I was relocated as well into a tall building. But where we moved from, they are about to put like four more buildings there, and then across the street they are going to put more buildings on the other side. There is no parking already. We are having a hard time with parking. So if they have to build, all I am saying is maybe they can do underground parking.

Also, I just want to mention that I am the tenants association president. We needed one because there are so many issues that we were having, so we had to form one with the community board. I also like the idea of homeownership, so if we could possibly get that, that would be a great idea as well. Thank you.

(03:34:52)

Annette, someone signed up but did not indicate their name. Your name comes up as Zoom User. If you could please unmute yourself, you may begin.

(03:35:03)

Your name comes up as Zoom User, but I am trying... okay, we can hear you. What is your name?

(03:35:13)

My name is Eugenia Austin. Okay, you may begin your testimony.

(03:35:17)

My testimony is: I live in the Phipps Houses. I am a breast cancer survivor and I am in the process of going through chemotherapy. I have been flooded in that apartment over five times since I have been there. They have been flooded from the sewer outside and now I am being flooded from inside the pipes. I just want to know where I can go to get the repairs done at my apartment. I have been experiencing this from day one I moved in there.

I was in the original building and they moved us out of that building and relocated us to different sites. I just need to know where I can go to get some repairs done. The building management — we call, our phone calls are never answered, nobody ever calls back. The emergency line where we call to put in a complaint, they take the message but nobody ever gets back to us, and this is an extreme urgency. When the superintendent comes out to the apartment, they do not help you. I have had to sweep tons of water out of my apartment that backed up from the sewer, alone, because I live alone, and that day I had chemo. Anytime it rains we were having that experience. I do not have a problem with development. I just want whoever is supposed to do repairs to do repairs and get our rent reduced. We are entitled to repairs for our apartments.

(03:36:48)

Thank you. All right, I just want to thank everybody that testified on this project. Clearly there is a need for homeownership, parking, schools, spaces for small businesses and much more, and I look forward to continuing the conversation with all of you, the community, the developers and Phipps. I just want to also say that again, I still have not decided how I am going to be voting on this, and I look forward to talking with everybody about how to make this better.

(03:37:32)

Thank you, CM. This panel is now excused. This is the last call. If there are any members of the public who wish to testify regarding this proposal remotely, please press the raise hand button now. If you are in person, please identify yourself to one of the sergeants. We have 30 seconds.

Seeing that there are no members of the public who wish to testify regarding the preconsidered items relating to the Sojourner Truth – Mapes Rezoning proposal, the public hearing is now closed and these items are laid over. That concludes today's business. I would like to thank members of the public, Council Land Use and Council staff, and the sergeant at arms for participating in today's meeting. This meeting is adjourned.