8 THE QUEENS COURIER • DECEMBER 10, 2020 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
CB 2 backs aff ordable housing rezoning in Sunnyside
BY ANGÉLICA ACEVEDO
aacevedo@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
Community Board 2 voted in favor
of Phipps Houses’ rezoning application
for an aff ordable housing building in
Sunnyside, following a heated general
meeting where the nonprofi t developer’s
current property management took center
stage on Th ursday, Dec. 3.
Phipps Houses is proposing to build a
seven-story, mixed-use residential complex
with 167 units dedicated to low- and
moderate-income households at 50-25
Barnett Ave.
After ongoing negotiations with
Community Board 2’s Land Use committee,
Phipps adjusted the income bands for
the units from their initial 110 to 90 percent
of the Area Median Income (AMI).
Th ey also designated 25 units for formerly
homeless families at 40 percent of
the AMI.
Frank Wu, a Community Board 2 member,
shared a breakdown of how the AMI
translates to the district’s income levels.
Phipps plans to include 5,323 square
feet for a community facility, residential
amenities such as a laundry room, an outdoor
recreation terrace and 170 parking
spaces (111 of which would be available
for public use). Th ey also committed to
unionized maintenance with 32BJ SEIU.
Community Board 2 held a public hearing
on Nov. 18, where Phipps presented
the project, answered questions from the
Community Board and heard from some
current tenants of their housing — some
with good experiences, and others with
unfavorable experiences.
Lisa Deller, chair of Community Board
2, said they received written testimony
about Phipps as a landlord before the
public hearing, with 32 in favor and 46
opposed.
Deller said the large amount of opposed
testimony were in regards to unsuitable
living conditions at Phipps’ housing
complexes, mainly Phipps Garden
Apartments, Phipps’ longtime aff ordable
housing complex located at 5101 39th
Ave. in Sunnyside — including leaks,
mold and insect infestation.
Other concerns included additional
traffi c with the new school coming to
Barnett Avenue, impact on existing local
businesses, and possible environmental
impact due to an existing pipeline in the
vicinity of where the construction site
will be.
Before voting on the application,
Community Board 2 members subjected
Phipps’ representatives to a series of
questions and commitments to address
the current living conditions at Phipps
Garden Apartments.
Michael Wadman, vice president of
Phipps Houses, did not agree that the
housing complex isn’t “properly maintained.”
“On the overall management of Phipps
Gardens Apartments, we do not think
we’re mismanaging the property. We
know that we have not done everything
we could have done, and we know that
we have some residents of the building
who are very unhappy with us,” said
Wadman, in response to a community
board member’s question about why tenants
feel the property’s management has
declined recently.
Wadman said working within the constraints
of a “very limited rent roll” and
no government program may be part of
the reason.
“I don’t really think it’s true that the
property has been declining every year for
10 years. If anything, from what I’ve gathered,
is there was a period of decline that
was previous to the more recent years,
where things have improved a little,” said
Wadman. “We’re unhappy that we have
people as unhappy as they are, and we are
going to try to address those issues.”
He pointed to the $3 million investments
they’ve made since 2017 to
improve their properties — they own 79
buildings across the city, most of which
are concentrated in the Bronx — as well
as the new Improvement Plan they created
in response to the board’s calls for
better maintenance and tenant communication
at their existing properties.
The Improvement Plan includes
increasing communication with Phipps
Garden Apartments’ tenants association;
addressing building maintenance issues
(including hiring a new porter to make
it a fi ve-member porter staff once again,
focusing on trash management and recycling);
expanding extermination (including
identifying root problems for persistent
infestation); conducting a third-party
annual tenant satisfaction survey; and
annual apartment inspections.
Several community board members
found Wadman’s apparent dismissal of
the concerns from current tenants troubling,
particularly due to their neighbors’
comments about Phipps’ reputation as a
landlord.
Following Community Board 2’s public
hearing, Van Bramer arranged a walk
through of Phipps Garden Apartments.
Several members of Community Board 2
also attended.
“Th is morning I arranged a walkthrough
of the Phipps Garden Apartments
with tenant leaders & reps from Phipps
and CB2 to discuss resident concerns
and the need for immediate action to
address them,” Van Bramer wrote in
a tweet. “Phipps must do better by its
tenants here.”
State Senator Michael Gianaris joined
another tour of the Phipps Garden
Apartments that week, and called on
Phipps to better maintain them. He also
said the approval of the Barnett Avenue
application “would be troubling without
greater confi dence that maintenance
would be handled better.”
Assemblyman Brian Barnwell attended
Th ursday’s Community Board meeting
aft er coming out against Phipps’
application the previous week.
“I do NOT support the #Phipps
Houses’ rezoning due to various reasons.
We should not reward bad developers
who continuously fail to maintain
the current properties they already have
with new property,” Barnwell wrote in a
tweet. “Th ey are also using an #AMI formula
that doesn’t create true aff ordable
housing.”
Phipps Houses declined QNS’ request
for comment in response to the elected
offi cials’ comments.
Th e night before Community Board
2’s meeting, about two dozen Sunnyside
residents gathered under the elevated
subway tracks at 46th Street to call
on the board and Councilman Jimmy
Van Bramer to oppose Phipps rezoning
application.
Speakers included Gerald Perrin, copresident
of Phipps Garden Tenants
Association, Phipps Garden tenants, City
Council candidates Hailie Kim, Brent
O’Leary, Denise Keehan-Smith and
Emily Sharpe.
Sharpe, a longtime Sunnyside resident
and lawyer, spoke about Phipps’ controversial
track record as a landlord.
In the end, the board voted in favor of
the application (28-12). Th ey cited the
need for aff ordable housing in Sunnyside
as the main reason to move forward with
the project.
“Community Board 2, for many, many
years, as long as I’ve been on the board,
has recognized the urgent need for longterm,
safe, sanitary and aff ordable housing
in this district, which, as many people
have noted, has been made more
urgent by the COVID-19 pandemic,”
said Deller. “You can see there are more
homeless people under the elevated train
on Queens Boulevard, the food pantries
are over subscribed, and many volunteers
in this community are trying to help
people who are food insecure.”
Th eir resolution included Phipps’
Improvement Plan to address ongoing
living issues within their current properties
in the next three months and for the
AMI to decrease even further from 90
percent to 80 percent.
“Th e circumstances of this rezoning
application aren’t perfect,” Deller added,
citing tenant concerns and Phipps’ 11th
rank on the Worst Evictors list. “But this
vote, however, is not a referendum on any
of those other issues.”
Deller emphasized that there will be
more opportunities to comment on the
application during the ULURP process.
Th e application will move to the Queens
borough president’s offi ce.
Nick Berkowitz, secretary of
Community Board 2, was adamant about
Phipps following through with their
promises to tenants by the time their
application is in its fi nal stages, which will
take a few months.
In 2016, Van Bramer shut down Phipps’
application for the project, citing the
application’s 10-story building was out
of character for the neighborhood and
other concerns regarding nearby local
businesses at the time.
Rendering courtesy of Phipps Houses
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