Among the insufferable urbanist bike riders mumbling ferociously about lane safety at a recent Community Board 3 meeting in Bed-Stuy, city officials were also moving along with plans to circulate requests for a contract on a longtime vacant lot near Marcy Houses — for the “development of affordable housing.” It was part of a new project by the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, part of a larger effort to move through these development plans on an abbreviated schedule.
This is the debut of the agency’s new Neighborhood Builders Fast Track process, launched by Mayor Mamdani “to speed the delivery of affordable housing on City-owned land,” as the agency puts it.
“The overarching theme for this site includes the focus to explore creative strategies for creating different social and cultural communities and practices are accommodating in the collective,” an agency rep told board members.
The site was an empty lot on 784-800 Myrtle Avenue, stretching between a quiet synagogue and a dental surgeon, near the Myrtle–Willoughby Avenue G station.
There was no sense yet of what exactly could replace it, though yellow-colored illustrations were provided. “This illustration shows one example of what could be built under the proposed zoning. The final design could change in shape, height, and where various ground floor programs are placed,” read an accompanying note.
Under this development process, the new Expedited Land Use Review Procedure, or ELURP, takes the place of the slower, more standard Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, or ULURP process. ELURP claims to shorten “the pre-development Request for Proposals process by eight months for certain projects.”
Chi Ossé, the area’s city councilman, has supported this move, saying in a statement that he was “proud to have approved thousands of units—spanning deeply affordable, middle-income, and supportive housing—that meet the diverse needs of my constituents.”
“We sent emails to 5,703 people on email lists and received 1,481 responses to our questionnaire,” the rep was now reporting to the board. They had talked to “over 26 groups comprised of community-based organizations and institutions,” including Black Veterans for Social Justice, Uplift Communities, and the United Jewish Organizations.
The latter group, United Jewish Organizations, “was very involved in spreading the word which contributed to a very high number of questions and responses,” the rep said.
The proposed development site—in a slim area of Bed-Stuy zoned for medium-density—is two blocks south of Flushing Avenue, the dividing line between Bed-Stuy and South Williamsburg, the latter being a cultural center in Hasidic Brooklyn.
Since the 1990s, hasidic residents have increasingly crossed over Flushing Avenue to settle in Bed-Stuy, calling parts of nearby Bed-Stuy “New Williamsburg,” as detailed by Nathan Deutsch in his gentrification history A Fortress in Brooklyn. It was part of a bigger historical process. “By the time Hasidim began their expansion into the area, non-Hasidic gentrifiers were purchasing its many brownstones for higher prices than most Hasidic buyers could afford,” Deutsch writes. This had been an early result of Williamsburg’s housing crisis: affordable rents in the 1990s have morphed into a single bedroom costing $5,000/month, per StreetEasy.
The lot on Myrtle Avenue, located across the street from the Marcy playground, was, in some ways, in the center of that long-running historical clash between the area’s two lower-middle class populations, and its future would be reflective of who was winning that fight. Perhaps.
Ossé didn’t make it out here to hear this report, but his City Council colleague Lincoln Restler did, arriving mid-presentation and jotting notes down on a pad. It’s nice to see elected officials do the work of showing up at places, though he didn’t ask any questions. Sometimes, he looked down contemplatively, as if the talk of housing development had consumed him with the quietude of deep thought.
The questions were left for board members and others in the crowd, there to evidence loud confusion about everything that was in front of them. This was fair enough. There was nothing in front of them, and that ought to be confusing, for sure. Board members wondered how important feedback from community groups would be, since the presenters had said that developers would determine the scope of the building and what kinds of apartments would be built.
Because it was city-owned property, there was a commitment to market these apartments at budget, or “affordable” rates,” but it would be the prospective developers who determined what rates those actually be, and for what kinds of apartments.
The agency rep said the agency had observed that “the majority of respondents would like to see lower incomes served at this site,” which the agency was determining was around the $90,000 band. But largely, agency reps couldn’t say anything about what the project would look like, deflecting questions to a future time, when plans were in front of them.
And there would be time. Expedited, or not, the project wouldn’t start construction until “a couple years out from 2027,” with no top-off date in sight.
Photos by Andrew Karpan.
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