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Since 1978 • (718) 260–2500 • Brooklyn, NY • ©2019 14 pages • Vol.Serving Brownstone Brooklyn, Sunset Park, Williamsburg & Greenpoint 42, No. 26 • June 28–July 4, 2019
CLASS DISMISSED
Developer ditches plans for 580-seat school Downtown
Park Slopers: Gimme shelter
Residents sign petition in support of controversial planned homeless housing
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By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
School’s out forever!
A developer scrapped plans
to build a six-story public school
at the base of a proposed Downtown
The Leser Group
YouTube celeb found dead in river
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office tower after the city
raised concerns about the building’s
size and location, a rep for
the builder said.
Borough Park firm Leser Group
offered to include a 580-seat elementary
school in the lower levels
of a planned 21-story commercial
development at 101 Fleet Pl.
— located between Myrtle Avenue
and Willoughby Street — as
the developer seeks city permission
to rezone the lot from residential
to commercial.
However, bureaucrats with the
Department of City Planning complained
that the influx of school
busses and pint-sized scholars
would overburden the narrow,
one-way Fleet Place, in addition
to criticizing the tower’s density
and lack of loading facilities, according
to Raymond Levin, a rep
for Leser Group, who discussed
the developer’s plans with members
of Community Board 2’s
Land Use Committee at a meeting
Wednesday.
In response, the developer
choose to simply ax the school and
reduce the tower’s overall height
to 14 stories, Levin said.
“We were in negotiations with
the School Construction Authority
Borough Park developers Leser Group scrapped plans to
build a six-story school at the base of a proposed 21-story
tower and reduced its proposed height to 14 stories on
Fleet Place after the Department of City Planning raised
concerns, according to a lawyer for the firm.
for almost a year and had plans.
City Planning had tremendous concerns
about having that many kids
on the street, in order to have a
school we couldn’t have a loading
dock, so City Planning didn’t
like that either,” Raymond Levin
told Community Board 2’s Land
Use Committee.
One board member blasted City
Planning officials for failing to
promote the school, while questioning
why the agency allowed
the mega-development at nearby
80 Flatbush Avenue to include two
new schools , while forbidding the
Fleet Place tower’s single educational
facility.
“This is mind boggling,” said
Ernest Augustus. “I appreciate
your comment and it’s new to me
that City Planning have failed the
school at that location and that
street — but not 80 Flatbush.”
A spokesman for the city agency
said officials were correct to raise
concerns about the building’s density,
saying its size remains troubling
even in its reduced state. The
agency should not, however, be
blamed for axing the school,
which it has no authority to approve,
or disapprove, the spokesman
explained, noting that only
the city’s School Construction Authority
has that power.
“The Department of City Planning
did not refuse the inclusion
of a school as part of this project,”
said Joe Marvilli. “We did express,
and continue to have, concerns
about the requested density for
this mid-block site on a narrow
street, but we did not make a determination
on the school.”
Now, instead of adding new
school seats to the neighborhood,
the tower is poised to eliminate a
childcare facility currently located
in a squat, one-story brick edifice
at the lot, and operator Brooklyn
Community Services will have to
make a decision whether to pay
a higher rent for digs at the new
By Aidan Graham
Brooklyn Paper
More than 1,600 people have
signed a petition supporting the
city’s plan to open two homeless
shelters in Park Slope, backing the
effort which has drawn fierce opposition
from some locals since it
was announced in April.
“I felt that people in the neighborhood
were supportive of the plan,
but where’s the evidence to back that
up?” said Kathy Price, who stated
the petition on June 13 on behalf of
the civic engagement engagement
group Citizen Squirrel . “I wanted
to show the receipts.”
When city officials unveiled
their proposal to open the two neighboring
shelters — located at 535
and 555 Fourth avenues, and offering
a combined 253 housing units
— some Slope residents blasted
the plan as harmful to the neighborhood.
In an effort to get the city to reconsider
the plan, one community
group launched an opposing petition
protesting the shelters, which
has gathered over 1,100 signatures
since its creation on May 26.
The pro-shelter effort came as
a direct response to that petition,
which Price said dramatically overstated
the anti-welfare sentiment
among Park Slopers.
“I was disappointed by that petition
when it was signed by 200 people,”
she said. “When that number
climbed to 800, I felt that it wasn’t
reflective of the neighborhood.”
Within days, the supportive petition
overtook its protesting counterpart,
which Price said proved
her presumption.
“I was relieved and happy to
see that what I felt about the neighborhood
was panning out in the
numbers,” she said. “1,500 signatures
is where we can really declare
victory.”
The shelters figure to occupy two
buildings — a 12-story tower and
its 11-story neighbor — which were
originally intended as market-rate
rentals before the city brokered a
deal with the developers to house
homeless families there.
Anti-shelter advocates raised
concerns in their petition about
the inevitable increased population
density in the neighborhood, the
potential impact on local schools,
and the high price the city figures
to pay to rent the space.
Local Councilman Brad Lander
(D–Park Slope) defended the shelters
— which are the brainchild of
the Department of Homeless Services,
not the City Council — arguing
that the developments would
bring more residents whether they
were used for shelters or for private
residents.
Additionally, Lander committed
to providing the nearby public
schools with additional resources
to help integrate any new
students who enrolled as a result
of the shelters.
Paying market-rate prices for
the units is unavoidable, according
to Lander, who said the city
does not own nearly enough housing
units to dent the homeless problem.
Still, critics charged that the
agreement is providing an undue
windfall to the properties’ developers,
who stand to charge the city
almost $11 million annually. Price
started the petition before the city
unveiled the project’s steep price
tag, but called the cost-critique unwarranted,
speculating that spend-
Park Slope residents flocked
to sign a petition supporting
two proposed Fourth Avenue
homeless shelters.
Google
ing-hawks were using the criticism
to hide anti-shelter bias.
“If we’re really talking about
technical, financial details, it makes
me wonder — would this ever apply
to another building that was
both useful and necessary to a
community?” she asked. “I don’t
think so.”
The major point of tension for
many anti-shelter demonstrators,
however, is the potential negative
impact on local property values.
Shruti Kapoor — who authored the
anti-shelter petition in May — questioned
Department of Homeless
Service reps’ claims that shelters
do not affect the value of neighboring
homes.
“Even though in the town hall
they said historically there’s no
data that shows property values
aren’t affected by shelters, the fact
is there’s very little date on this type
of huge… we’re not talking about
one shelter, we’re talking about two
huge shelters near our properties,”
Kapoor said. “There’s no doubt this
will have a negative impact on the
property value.”
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
A Downtown Brooklyn resident
and popular Youtube personality
was found dead on Monday, just a
few days after posting a disturbing
online video and then vanishing
, police confirmed.
Cops discovered 29-year-old
Desmond Amofah — best known by
his Youtube channel, Etika, where
he posted videos of himself playing
video games — in the East River off
Manhattan’s Pier 16 at 6:18 p.m., just
a few hundred yards downstream
of the Brooklyn Bridge.
However, police reportedly located
items belonging to Amofah
on the Manhattan Bridge, including
his wallet, identification, a Nintendo
Switch gaming console, his laptop
bag, and clothes, a law enforcement
source told Inside Edition . A spokes-
man for the department could not
confirm those details.
Amofah was last heard alive during
a phone conversation on June
19, which occurred shortly after he
posted a Youtube video in which
he discussed suicide and his struggles
with mental illness.
“I wasn’t suicidal before, but one
thing I didn’t realize was the walls
were closing around me so fast. I
really had no intention of killing
myself, but I would always push it
too far. I guess I am mentally ill,”
Desmond Amofah said in a June
19 video deleted by Youtube, but
which pro-gamer Rod Breslau preserved
on Twitter .
A spokeswoman for the city’s
Chief Medical Examiner could
not immediately confirm Amofah’s
cause of death.
The late online personality was
cuffed last April after he took to
Instagram and live-streamed an
alleged threat to kill himself inside
his apartment, which caused
police to barricade the street outside
his home for hours.
The police’s investigation into
Amofah’s death remains ongoing,
a department spokesman told this
paper.
The 29-year-old had a history of suicide threats, including
one which caused a lockdown of the street outside his
apartment after an online threat to kill himself last April.
Photo by Kevin Duggan
See CLASS on page 6
Spreading love
Brooklynites gathered for some communal paint by numbers at Atlantic Terminal Mall on
June 22, where the shopping center invited locals to fill in a new mural by famed Brooklyn
artist Patrick Dougher with vibrant colors. Read more on page 6.
Photo by Caroline Ourso
Scoot ’em up
Brooklyn Paper reporter Kevin Duggan took his life into his own hands when he merged
into the multi-lane maelstrom of traffic at Grand Army Plaza. Duggan downloaded the
app and test-drove one of Revel Transit’s “shareable” mopeds to share his experience
with our readers. Read more on page 3.
Photo by Trey Pentecost
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