Jonathan Rose’s Planned Shore Hill Expansion Upset Many Bay Ridge Residents
The developer for the expansion of Shore Hill Senior Housing at 9000 Shore Road was at Community Board 10’s Zoning and Land Use Meeting last night. (See video here)
This new building will bring 156 more apartments to Shore Hill affordable housing for seniors, which is needed. But this design will have an enormous impact on the residents on 89th Street, 91st Street and Colonial Road. (See here)
To the homeowners on these blocks Shore Hill, we heard you and we feel terrible for you. Everyone else – see how close this property is going to be to these one-family homes! (here)
In 2018, Jonathan Rosen Companies purchased the Shore Hill property from NYU for $150 million. (Info here and here) Most of the property is in a R7A zone, so they can build most of this large building in this zone – there is a small section of the building that is in a lower level zone.
The developers spoke about this new Shore Hill development will be a green building that will have solar panels and use less water. Yet, the design is not green for the the neighbors homes and doesn’t show the same care towards the neighborhood‘s environment.
The developers spoke a lot about the landscaping and drainage that the landscaping areas will be providing. It’s a bunch of shrubs – it didn’t need that much time in the presentation. This is the only thing the developers are doing for drainage – they will not be doing any work on the sewers in this area.
Currently, Shore Hill has two fourteen-story buildings with 558 apartments for seniors (Source):
This new building will add 156 more apartments to this complex and no additional parking for any of these new residents. Why doesn’t the new building match the two existing buildings in design or color?
Parking:
The developer is decreasing the parking from 73 spaces to 56 spaces (17 spaces), while moving over 150 new people into the area. The developers said that Shore Hill only needs 38 to 43 spaces at Shore Hill.
These developers want to increase the building with people by 26% (plus all their doctors and providers) and reduce parking! How disingenuous! The presenters fumbled back and forth during the Zoom any time real questions were presented to them.
Affordable housing isn’t required to have parking, so they aren’t going to put any. Why couldn’t they add a parking garage under the building for all their residents and visitors?
**The existing building is required to provide parking and Community Board 10 will have an advisory vote on this topic after the paperwork is submitted.
The developer said that the parking survey revealed that there was enough street parking around the area. The parking survey was done in April 2022. *What time of day was this parking survey done? Residents at the existing building have visitors and doctors visiting during business hours. Everyone spoke out against this because there are ambulettes and other double parked cars here all the time. One of the men on the builders team lives in this area and HE KNOWS what parking is like.
Steve from Community Board 10 explained that removing parking spots will be a burden on that community, especially during the day. The developers said they are removing parking because “they want to develop more apartments for seniors.
Schedule for Development:
It will take two years to complete this building. They want to start next year, but they do not have a projected start date yet.
They offered these preliminary dates:
*When the developers submit the BSA application, there will be environmental reports that will be given to Community Board 10 as well.
Concerns from Ridgites:
1) Residents asked the developer to talk about the sewer and water table. They said they were aware that storm water pools in the area, so they are adding a lot of landscaping. They are not going to do any work on the sewer (and they added they are not required to.)
2) A nine-story building will block the sunlight of the one-family homes of neighbors of this property. The developer talked about “sun studies.” Additional questioning from a resident made the developer reveal the truth: They don’t have to do anything about the reduction in sun, so talking about “sun studies” upset residents because the sun studies don’t matter. They don’t live there, so they don’t care.
3) A trash compactor will be behind the facility and near homes. What’s the air quality going to be like for the homes near this?
4) 91st Street gets a lot of traffic. Are you keeping the 91st Street entrance to the parking area? Yes, they are.
5) One resident from 89th Street asked if they could not put windows on the 89th Street side.
**Ann F. from Community Board 10 came prepared to speak up for Bay Ridge. At the end, she asked the developers to move back on the 89th Street side because many of the comments were coming from there.
When the paperwork is submitted and CB 10 receives it, Bay Ridge residents will be able to add public comments to a meeting which is planned for September.
Hugs,
marlene
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