Community Board 2 backs affordable housing rezoning
in Sunnyside despite opposition from tenants, electeds
BY ANGÉLICA ACEVEDO
Community Board 2 voted
in favor of Phipps Houses’ rezoning
application for an affordable
housing building in
Sunnyside, following a heated
general meeting where the nonprofit
developer’s current property
management took center
stage on Thursday, Dec. 3.
Phipps Houses is proposing
to build a seven-story, mixeduse
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). They 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). They 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
affordable housing complex
located at 5101 39th Ave. in
Sunnyside — including leaks,
mold and insect infestation.
Other concerns included
additional traffic 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
TIMESLEDGER | QNS.10 COM | DEC. 11-DEC. 17, 2020
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 fivemember
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.
“This 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 confidence that maintenance
would be handled
better.”
Assemblyman Brian Barnwell
attended Thursday’s Community
Board meeting after
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.
“They are also using an #AMI
formula that doesn’t create true
affordable housing.”
Phipps Houses declined
QNS’ request for comment in
response to the elected officials’
comments.
The 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, co-president 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). They cited the need for affordable
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
long-term, safe, sanitary and
affordable 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.”
Their 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.
“The 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. The application will
move to the Queens borough
president’s office.
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 final 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.
His stance on their new application
isn’t as clear.
Van Bramer told QNS he
recognizes Community Board
2’s decision on the updated application
and emphasis on the
need for affordable housing.
Rendering courtesy of Phipps Houses