Council OKs budget increases for 10 BIDs

BIDs receive over $3.1 million increase in annual spending. On November 28, 2007, the City Council passed a local law to increase the annual budget for 10 business improvement districts and one special assessment district. The increases will require property owners within these districts to pay more into their BID or SAD.

The Times Square Alliance received the largest increase at $768,000, bringing its annual budget to $10.4 million. Outside of Manhattan, the largest increase … <Read More>


New inclusionary zoning yields 536 units

HPD reports that an additional 1,139 affordable units are in the pipeline. At the Trends in New York City Land Use and Development forum co-hosted by the Center for New York City Law, HPD reported a total of 536 affordable units in construction and an added 1,139 units in the application phase as a result of the expanded inclusionary housing provisions.

The inclusionary housing provisions allow developers to increase the floor area of a development … <Read More>


Demolition threatened Father Divine’s Bklyn house

Clinton Hill villa-style mansion designated. With a demolition permit application pending, Landmarks designated the Italianate-style home at 70 Lefferts Place in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill, one of the last free-standing individual homes remaining from the area’s past as a suburban enclave. Built in 1854 for the merchant James W. Elwell, the International Peace Mission Movement and its leader Father Divine, who claimed to be God incarnate, purchased the home in 1931 and lived communally in it … <Read More>


Kiosks and trailblazing signs approved for downtown

Signs requested by MetroTech BID and local businesses. Landmarks issued a binding report approving MetroTech BID’s proposal to install “way finding signage” throughout downtown Brooklyn. The proposal developed more than three years ago from a general consensus among MetroTech and downtown Brooklyn business groups that there was a lack of signage in downtown Brooklyn to assist pedestrians in finding key destinations. Initially using its own funds, and later obtaining capital funding from Brooklyn Borough President … <Read More>


Sanitation garage construction wins court approval

Environmental study and site choice for Brooklyn garage upheld. The City filed a condemnation action in October 2003 for three lots comprising a 2.46-acre site bounded by Park, Nostrand and Flushing Avenues and Warsoff Place in Clinton Hill, to be used for the eventual construction of a new Sanitation truck storage garage to serve Brooklyn Community District 3.

The site had been subject to a June 2000 application by Sanitation and the Department of Citywide … <Read More>