Rezoning in Bay Ridge – 11 Properties in One Area
Tonight there was a Community Board 10 Zoning and Land Use Committee Meeting for 9114 5th Avenue.
Richard Lobel spoke for the developer.
Lobel was seeking to change the Bay Ridge C82 District to a R7A. Currently the area is commercially zoned (which is okay for a hotel) and he wanted to change it to a residential zone, so a large development can be placed there.
What you may not realize about this rezoning is somehow eleven properties were grouped into this rezoning! CB10 Board Members were up for the challenge! Residents (like us) were surprised that many properties were added to this.
While adding one large building to the area may be somewhat taxing, can you imagine 11 huge buildings more? Residents asked if the owner had purchased these other properties. People felt like that was the plan!
We want to give a shout-out to Dean on Community Board 10, who was pushing and fighting for Bay Ridge. He was persistent! We were cheering for you Dean!
Every single person representing Bay Ridge on Community Board 10 was interested in doing the right thing for our community. These are people who should be representing us in public office!
Shout out to the Bay Ridge business, Windows We Are at 9110 – 5th Avenue for showing up to this meeting. The owners spoke about how the area is already busy and the rezoning will bring a lot more traffic to the area. These owners are fun people to work with if you need screens or windows – yes, we used them and found them to be helpful and fair-priced…..no, they don’t know me.
Final shout outs got to residents who spoke for our community: Allison M. (great points and research), Brian L., Ralph S and Charles. These residents came to show show concern for the area, the school, the traffic and the other development in the area. Kentucky Fried Chicken is changing into a medical office unit, so there will be more traffic from there.
Most disappointing at the meeting was Councilman Brannan. Brannan said that he wanted to talk the developer away from a hotel. OK when he did that, then changes needed to be made in Bay Ridge. Brannan made no plans for the traffic and parking this new building would bring. Cutting the red tape for the developer should have been second – not first. Leaving all these loose ends made more work for Community Board 10.
We appreciated Bay Ridge resident, Mustafa calling in and urging Community 10 to not go along with the politician, but to fight for us. (In case you don’t know why he said that – see here)
In the end, Community Board 10 put in the recommendation to downsize this project. While this one project can be accepted (it’s better than the hotel), CB 10 believes that future development and more traffic would hurt the area.
Will this recommendation be allowed? That depends if Eric Adams is with the people or with the developer.
This rezoning will go on Eric Adams’ agenda for November 10th.
The Youtube Live stream will be available here.
You can still call in comments and concerns to Community Board 10. No home owners from that area connected during the meeting.
This new building is going to do as little low income housing as possible (it is required to do some units), but the developer is here to make a lot of money.
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Hugs,
marlene
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