Rendering of 98 3rd Avenue. Image Credit: NYC CPC.
On April 13, 2022, the City Planning Commission held a public hearing for a proposed mixed-use residential and commercial building at 98 3rd Avenue in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. The proposed rezoning area is bordered by Bergen Street to the north, Wyckoff Street to the south, 3rd Avenue to the east, and goes into the block westerly approximately 100-120 feet. The proposed project site is currently a Shell gas station.
The proposed eight-story building will have 29 units, seven of which will be affordable at Mandatory Inclusionary Housing Option 1. One one-bedroom unit will be available at 40 percent area median income (AMI) at $823; four units will be at 60 percent AMI, with three one-bedrooms offered at $1,271 and a studio offered at $1,190; and two units will be at 80 percent AMI, with a one-bedroom at $1,719 and a two-bedroom at $2,055.
The building will have 3,970 square feet of ground floor commercial space along Third Avenue. The residential entrance will be on Bergen Street. There will be a terrace on the roof for all tenants and additional terrace space on the seventh floor. Laundry, bicycle and personal storage will be available for tenants in the building’s cellar, which will also hold the building’s mechanical space.
To facilitate the development, the applicants are requesting a rezoning to change the existing manufacturing district to a residential district with a commercial overlay. Historically, the area was predominantly used for manufacturing. Over time, as the manufacturing businesses left the area it became more residential; at the moment, the current manufacturing district is surrounded by residential districts on all sides. While the current proposed rezoning only applies to a portion of the block, according to the applicant’s representative Eric Palatnik, the remaining portion of the manufacturing district will be the focus of a future unrelated rezoning application.
Brooklyn Community Board 2 approved the application with no conditions on February 9, 2022. Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso issued a favorable recommendation with conditions on March 24th, including the inclusion of units at 40 percent AMI, incorporating sustainability features such as passive house standards and onsite energy generation, coordinating with City agencies to install rain gardens and curb extensions along Third Avenue and/or Bergen Street, to reach out to local businesses at risk of displacement, and retain Brooklyn-based contractors/suppliers and provide employment opportunities for local residents.
Many sustainable features will be incorporated into the building; the building will have vegetative green roof systems, photovoltaic panels, LED light fixtures, low flow plumbing fixtures, and electric heating and cooling, among other features.
City Planning Commission Chair Dan Garodnick asked for further elaboration about comments made regarding the zoning status of the entire block the proposed rezoning sits on. According to Mr. Palatnick, as the remainder of the surrounding area is zoned for residential use, this manufacturing district in the middle results in “a desolate sort of stretch” compared to the areas around it. Many of the properties on the block are owned by the City, and at the moment the main development proposed on the block would be the building at 98 3rd Avenue. Mr. Palatnick argued that it overall makes more sense for the whole block to eventually be rezoned to better match the surrounding residential areas.
No members of the public testified for this application.
The City Planning Commission will vote on this application on a later date.
By: Veronica Rose (Veronica is the CityLaw fellow and a New York Law School graduate, Class of 2018.)