City Planning Unanimously Approves Brooklyn Heights Library Sale and Tower
The controversial plan to sell the current site of the Brooklyn Heights Public Library branch to private developer Hudson Companies took another step toward reality on Monday when the City Planning Commission voted 10 to zero in favor of the proposal. The current Brooklyn Public Library branch in Brooklyn Heights As Brownstoner readers well know,…
The controversial plan to sell the current site of the Brooklyn Heights Public Library branch to private developer Hudson Companies took another step toward reality on Monday when the City Planning Commission voted 10 to zero in favor of the proposal.
The current Brooklyn Public Library branch in Brooklyn Heights
As Brownstoner readers well know, the library plan entails selling the city-owned site at 280 Cadman Plaza West for $52,000,000 so that Hudson can construct a 36-story luxury condo tower with a new library and retail space on the ground floor. Hudson will also build 114 units of affordable housing in Clinton Hill as part of the deal.
After passing Community Board 2 in July, only to be “disapproved” by Borough President Eric Adams in September, the plan went before the City Planning Commission on Monday. Now that it’s been approved by the commission, it has 50 days to go up for vote before the City Council.
The unanimous vote was crucial. Because Adams “disapproved” the plan, it needed at least nine out of 10 votes from City Planning to move forward.
A rendering of the proposed new library interior
On Monday afternoon, the Brooklyn Public Library issued a statement:
“We applaud the City Planning Commission for joining Community Board 2, Brooklyn Heights community organizations, and Brooklynites who care about the future of their libraries in supporting BPL’s plan for a new Brooklyn Heights branch. As the Commission recognized, this project is a win-win for Brooklyn. In addition to bringing a new state-of-the art library to Brooklyn Heights at no cost to BPL, it will also help to alleviate the system’s capital crisis by generating more than $40 million that will be invested in libraries throughout the borough. We look forward to continuing this dialogue throughout the public review process.”
The plan has received vocal criticism from members of the local community. While $40 million from the proposed sale would be slated for fixing other branch libraries much in need of repair, Borough President Eric Adams has called for a more sustainable model for funding Brooklyn’s library system.
In a statement issued in September, Adams said, “we must seize this opportunity to resolve the larger fiscal crisis that our libraries face, with solutions that guarantee equitable and dependable funding for capital upgrades and branch programming.”
[Renderings: Hudson Companies | Photo: Barbara Eldredge]
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Okay — I’ll be the dissenter: what about the fact that it adds to a school overcrowding crisis at PS8 and does nothing at all to address the problem it compounds with its additional residential housing (one example of how infrastructure needs of new developments are planned for as part of these developments)?
Meant, are NOT planned for . . .
“Zero bearing”? The way the system works, there’s a formula (that may not be accurate –some argue it understates the impacts of new residential on schools, but we really don’t know) that projects school demand from new residential. In Brooklyn, it’s 29 public elementary school kids for every 100 units. The numbers keep changing slightly, but I think the library development is currently projected to have 139 units, which translates into 40 elementary schoolchildren. You may think that’s insignificant but it’s not. It’s 2 classrooms. In a building with a capacity of just over 500 kids and more than 700 kids currently in it. The DOE explicitly states in its public presentation that the rezoning proposal simply serves to keep the overcrowding at PS8 at the level it’s at now — 130ish to 140ish % capacity — so it’s at best a partial solution. And DOE doesn’t have a very good track record in accurately projecting and planning for the impacts of development on our public schools, so there’s a fair chance when it says the rezoning will leave PS8 where it is now, that really means that things will continue to get worse.
I don’t mean to say that schools should be the only issue. I do think having strong, effective public schools is pretty important for a host of reasons for all of us as a community and society — including those without kids; and I think we should all be mindful of the infrastructure needs that new residential (and other) development brings and not simply say that’s somebody else’s problem to fix.