As New York City continues to grapple with housing issues, Brooklyn residents are fearful of a new development that could shake up their neighborhood and spark gentrification and displacement.
At a heated public hearing with city planning commissioners on Nov. 6, residents of Park Slope and Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, sparred with the developers who intend to build two 13-story residential buildings proposed at the Arrow Linen Supply Company, a commercial laundry service site at 441 and 467 Prospect Ave.
Windsor Terrace is a low-rise building neighborhood surrounded by Prospect Park and Greenwood Cemetery. Unlike its more commercialized neighbor, Park Slope, it’s known for its family-owned businesses and small grocery stores.
The hearing, which was almost five hours long, featured a wide variety of testimonies from local residents, many of whom expressed concerns about potential displacement, overcrowding, and a rise in rents. Several locals also objected to Arrow Linen’s lack of community involvement. Others, including representatives of the developers, argued that new developments would be the only way to solve the housing crisis in New York City.
“This neighborhood cannot support a 13-story building and the residents that come with it; there is no parking, no grocery stores,” said Brian Ritchie, who joined the hearing via Zoom, and said he lives a block away from the site. “What infrastructure are we going to have to support thousands of additional residents? What schools are their children going to? We are at capacity; we cannot handle this monstrosity.”
The Arrow Linen site. (Credit: Delfina Marchese)
The public hearing followed Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso’s recommendation to significantly boost affordability in the project by one of a few ways: increasing affordable units to 30–40 percent, developing one building as 100% affordable, or using Section 8 vouchers for one or both buildings to support low-income residents.
In the current proposal, only 25 percent of the units are affordable.
Elizabeth Denys, a resident who said she lives at the corner of Flatbush, Kensington and Windsor Terrace, attended the hearing via Zoom to speak in favor of the proposal. “I love the area,” said Denys. “But unfortunately, this neighborhood has not created many new homes and has created almost no affordable homes.”
Nora Martins, a land use and zoning lawyer from the firm Akerman LLP, which is representing Arrow Linen, was present at the public hearing. “We appreciate the community concern about the scale of the building and the impact on the community,” she said. “But we believe that this is an appropriate location for this density and that there will be no negative impact on the community.”
Martins shared for the first time the distribution of affordable housing and proposed affordability levels — information community members had requested at previous meetings.
“We are looking into the option to provide additional income-restricted housing units,” Martins added in response to criticisms, “and we could market the building as friendly to Section 8 voucher holders.”
In June, Arrow Linen requested that the site be rezoned to a medium-residential district — a designation that typically allows for a mix of housing types and densities, including multi-family housing. This would allow one of the buildings to be 19 stories.
Courtesy: Lee Goldberg
“The 19-story-building scenario is not a real scenario,” Martins said at the Land Use Committee hearing with the community in September. “It was presented in the environmental review for purposes of an extremely conservative analysis, which is standard, always done, and is not a realistic scenario for this project, even if that is approved under ‘City of Yes,’” she said, referring to Mayor Eric Adams’ plan to rezone the city, which has not yet been approved by City Council.
Jay Goldberg of Housing Not Highrises, a nonprofit formed to oppose the Arrow Linen project, disagreed.
“If they do get their rezoning, then after ‘City of Yes,’ they will be able to build up to 380 units, which would leave them with a property worth over $570 million after it’s built,” he said in an interview before the hearing.
Jerome Krase, professor emeritus of sociology at Brooklyn College, who has studied gentrification in Brooklyn, said each private sector housing project is unique, but all have one thing in common: profitability.
“If it wasn’t for gentrification, what you have is deterioration,” he said, “because the government is not involved in preventing that from happening, and they’re not in the business of building truly affordable housing. So it’s up to the private sector. And you can’t blame the private sector for wanting to make a profit.”
