Locals endorse Crown Heights development
BY BEN VERDE
Crown Heights civic
buffs endorsed a rezoning at
Pacific Street and Grand Avenue
that would make way
for a nine-story building
with 64 residential units.
Community Board 8’s
Land Use Committee voted
9–4 to recommend the rezoning,
which will affect a
small stretch of land on Pacific
Street near Grand Avenue.
The land is currently
zoned M1-1, which allows for
light manufacturing. The
applicants hope to rezone
it to R7-D, which will allow
medium density, mixeduse
apartment buildings.
Ground floor retail space
would also be mandated under
the proposed zoning.
“Right now you basically
have empty lots,” said
Richard Lobel, a land-use
attorney representing the
developers. “They’re not
productive for anyone.”
“It would create activity
where if you walk by right
now it basically doesn’t exist,”
he added.
The full board will vote
on the committee’s recommendation
on Nov. 14, which
is only advisory, before it is
sent to the Borough President
for review.
Elie Pariente, the rezoning
applicant, hopes to construct
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COURIER LIFE, N 14 OVEMBER 15-21, 2019
the nine-story building
on an empty lot he owns
on Pacific. The building
would contain roughly 9,000
square feet of retail space
on the ground floor, which
Pariente estimated would
create five new jobs, two of
which he estimated would
be full time.
The building would contain
roughly 16 affordable
units if approved, according
to Lobel. Studios would go
for $856 a month on average,
one-bedrooms would cost
$1,081 a month and two bedrooms
would ask $1,309.
The proposal comes in
the midst of the M–Crown
rezoning scheme currently
being worked out by Community
Board 8. The board
aims to upzone six blocks
east of Atlantic Avenue
– Grand Avenue, Bergen
Street, Franklin Avenue
and the stretch of Atlantic
between Grand and Vanderbilt
Avenues, while requiring
that developers include
space for light manufacturing
businesses or community
spaces, in an effort to
increase density and foster
economic growth.
Committee member Gib
Veconi, who voted in favor
of the rezoning, said he felt
it was important for the
board to work with developers
that were willing to include
the types of uses the
community pushed for, such
as light industry.
“It’s important to see
when you have an applicant
that is putting a project forward
that says ‘I can do this,
I can include the types of
uses the community is looking
for,'” Veconi said. “It’s
something we want the city
and the department of planning
to take notice of.”
However, other board
members expressed concerns
over the development’s
meager affordable
housing component, with
one dissenter claiming the
city’s Mandatory Inclusionary
Housing system, which
promotes the construction
of cheap housing by offering
builders development
rights, doesn’t go far enough
to tackle the borough’s housing
crisis.
“They’re really not promising
to do more than the
bare minimum that MIH requires
of them,” said Sarah
Lazur, who voted against
the rezoning.
The building would include roughly 9,000 square feet of retail on the
ground fl oor. Photo courtesy of Archimaera
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