Planning Commission - Special Meeting

Sir, if you could please take your seat, we're going get started. Good morning, everybody. I'm Dan Gorodnik, Chair of the City Planning Commission and Director of the Department of City Planning. Welcome to today's meeting of 03/19/2025. We're going to start off today with a special review session to go over a couple of City Council modifications.

The first is for a mixed use building at 123.12 Sutphin Boulevard in South Jamaica. That would include a house of worship and 125 homes around 30 of them affordable. The second is for a 100% income restricted affordable transit oriented development proposed by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development at 581 Grant Avenue in East New York, Brooklyn. From there, we will open our public meeting with a few votes on projects in The Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens before getting to our public hearings. The first vote is for an authorization for 5445 Palisade Avenue in North Riverdale, The Bronx.

The owner is seeking to add a 60 square foot enlargement on the 1st Floor of the house that would include a kitchen, patio, porch extension and new pool. Next up, we will vote on the Atlantic Avenue mixed use plan, a transformational proposal to bring new homes, jobs and infrastructure to a roughly 21 block stretch of Atlantic Avenue and neighboring blocks in Crown Heights, Bedford Stuyvesant and Prospect Heights. I will have more to say on that project shortly. Staying in Brooklyn, Brooklyn will next vote on 7003 And 99 Empire Boulevard in Crown Heights. This project would include over two sixty new homes, around 80 of them income restricted affordable as well as Ground Floor and 2nd Floor retail.

The building would be close to Prospect Park and accessible by mass transit including the two and five train at Sterling Street, the BQ and S at Prospect Park and the B48 and B49 buses. Our next vote also in Brooklyn is on 166 Kings Highway in Bensonhurst. This mixed use building would include nearly 100 new homes of which 30 would be income restricted affordable on top of Ground Floor commercial space. The site is close to Seth Low Playground, the High Lawn branch of the Brooklyn Public Library and the Kings Highway N subway station. We'll wrap up our votes today with an acquisition that would allow the Administration for Children's Services to continue operating out of 160 One-one Jamaica Avenue in Jamaica, Queens.

The office space accommodates around 165 ACS staff members including child protective specialists, supervisors, managers, investigative consultants and support staff. Moving to our public hearings, we'll begin with a 100% affordable residential proposal that falls within the boundaries of the East New York neighborhood plan. Grace Houses would include over 150 income restricted homes and space for Grace Baptist Church all near several neighborhood resources such as the East New York HealthHUB Medical Clinic, two fresh supermarkets, an NYPD Community Center, the B-twenty and B-eighty three buses and the C Train at Liberty Avenue. The public is also invited to testify on 109 Marcus Garvey Boulevard, a proposed residential development that would bring nearly 300 income restricted affordable homes for seniors to Bedford Stuyvesant Brooklyn. The building would include a courtyard for tenants and be close to the Lewis And Pulaski Playgrounds.

From there we'll open the floor to testimony on 145 for Harlem. This mixed use project looks to create nearly nine seventy new homes over two ninety of them permanently income restricted and affordable. The building would be next to Brigadier General Charles Young playground and the three train at one hundred and forty fifth Street. Our last hearing for today is on multiple street map changes related to the Coney development. This proposed 1,300,000 square foot entertainment complex at Coney Island would include a gaming facility, hotel, convention center, food hall, retail space and more.

If approved, the project would be spread out on Surf Avenue across three blocks between Maimonides Ballpark and Luna Park close to the Boardwalk. In addition to the land use actions before us, the application would still need to go through the state defined siting process which includes required approval by a six person community advisory committee, which includes representatives from the mayor, borough president and local council member among others. So there's a lot to do today. Madam Secretary, let's get started.

Good morning, and welcome to the City Planning Commission special review session for Wednesday, 03/19/2025. The time is 10:07 and a quorum is present. The first item on our agenda is the City Council modification scope determination for 120 Three-twelve Saffin Boulevard rezoning. The City Council proposes to modify the zoning tax amendment to Appendix F, removing MIH Option two and adding MIH Option three and to modify the zoning map amendment and staff believes this modification is within scope. Andrew Wasserman is on Zoom to present.

Alright, Andrew. Welcome.

Morning, commissioners. Just a quick tech check. Can you hear me alright?

We can.

Alright. Excellent. Did I see the slides? Alright. So I'm presenting a follow-up on 12312 Sutton Boulevard rezoning. The CPC voted to approve this application on January 8, and I'm back with a city council modification. The city council zoning subcommittee and land use committee voted on this yesterday. Next slide, please. As a quick reminder, this is a private application by Full Gospel Mission Church and SBR Equities in the South Jamaica neighborhood of Queens Community District 12. The proposed actions were meant to facilitate the development of a new eight story plus seller mixed use residential and community facility building with 125 total dwelling units, including 31 income restricted units.

Next slide, please. The applicant proposed the zoning map amendment to change existing r three a, r three a slash c one three, and r six zoning districts to r six a and r six a slash c one three zoning districts as well as r six to r three a zoning district. The applicant also proposed a zoning text amendment to map m I h coterminous with the proposed r six a district. Next slide, please. So on this slide, we see the change from the originally proposed, zoning map change to the to the council mods.

The city council modified the zoning map amendment as follows. The proposed change from r three a to r six a has been changed to r six d. In order for this modification to remain in scope, the southernmost 25 feet of the development site, which would have been rezoned from R 6 to R 6 A, will instead remain R 6. So for that portion of the lot, there will be no change. The proposed change from R 3 A Slash C 13 to R 6 A Slash C 13 has been changed to R 6 B Slash C 13.

And the proposed change from R 6 A to R 3 A along 147th Street has not been modified. Next slide please. This table shows the maximum and building height for the proposed and modified zoning districts are modified from the proposed 3.9 for districts to a maximum of three for and 2.4 for. The portion of the project area that remains will stay at a maximum of 3.9. And the maximum building heights are reduced by 20 to 30 feet, depending on the district.

Next slide please. Because the city council modifications reduce the area being rezoned, the MH area also had to be reduced as well. It remains coterminous with the R 6 B and R 6 D Districts. The city council also modified the MIH options, removing MIH option two and replacing it with option three. This concludes my presentation, and happy to take any questions.

Great. Thank you very much for that. Let me see if there are questions from the commission about the council's modifications. Okay. Reminder, it's a scope determination. And so I will take the vote. I'll seek a sent by a voice vote at this time to send a scope determination letter to the council. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, nay. Okay. We will proceed. Thank you very much. The ayes have it. Madam Chair.

The second item on our agenda is a City Council modification scope determination for 581 Grant Avenue development. The City Council proposes to modify the zoning tax amendment to Appendix F removing MIH Option two and adding MIH Option three. And staff believes this modification is within scope.

Okay. Simpler one here. I'm going to proceed to scope determination vote. Seek a sent by voice vote to send the scope determination letter to the council. All those in favor please say aye.

Aye. Opposed?

Thank you. Okay. That is also approved for 581 Grand Avenue. Thank you. Other items on our special review session agenda?

No, Chair.

Okay. So let's proceed. Let's close the review session and move on to the next item the next meeting of the day, let's call it. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair. Good morning. This is the City Planning Commission public meeting held remotely through the NYC Engage portal and in person in the CPC Hearing Room 120 Broadway Lower Concourse. Today is Wednesday, 03/19/2025. I will now call the roll. Chair Gorodnik?

Here.

Vice Chair Nacho?

Here.

Commissioner Benjamin? Present. Commissioner Cerullo?

Here.

Commissioner Krall? Present. Commissioner Dweck? Here. Commissioner Gold?

Here.

Commissioner Goodrich? Here. Commissioner Karmani? Here. Commissioner Mann? Here. Commissioner Manin? Here. Commissioner Osorio? Here. Commissioner Rampaschach? Here. A quorum is present. The first item is the approval of minutes of the public meeting of Wednesday, 03/05/2020

Great. On the minutes, I make a motion to approve those minutes of March 5, seconded by Commissioner Rampershed. Thank you. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, nay. Okay. Minutes are approved.

Scheduling. Calendar number one, scheduling Wednesday, 04/09/2025 for a public hearing to be held in person in the CPC Hearing Room 120 Broadway and remotely through the NYC Engage portal.

Great. I make a motion to approve the resolution. Second. Seconded by the Vice Chairman. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye. Okay.

Opposed, nay. Okay. Resolution is adopted. Thank you.

The next part of the calendar is the report section on Page five. Borough Of The Bronx, calendar number two, 5445 Palisade Avenue, SNAS, CD8N250133Zax, in the matter of an application for a grant of a zoning authorization concerning 5445 Palisade Avenue, SNAD. For the adoption of calendar number two, Chair Grodnik?

Aye.

Vice Chair Knuckles?

Yes.

Commissioner Benjamin? Aye. Commissioner Cerullo?

Yes.

Commissioner Kral? Yes. Commissioner Dweck? Yes. Commissioner Gold?

Yes.

Commissioner Goodrich? Commissioner Karmani? Yes. Commissioner Mann?

Yes.

Commissioner Marine? Yes. Commissioner Osorio? Yes. Commissioner Rampaschach?

Yes.

Calendar number two has been adopted. Borough Of Brooklyn, calendar numbers three through 12, Atlantic Avenue mixed use plan, Community District 3 And 8. Calendar number 3C250014ZMK. Calendar number 4N250015ZRK. Calendar number 5, C250020PQK. Calendar number 6, C250021PPK. Calendar number 7250022PPK. Calendar number 8, C250023PPK. Calendar number 9, C250016HAK. Calendar number 10, C250019PQK.

Calendar number 11, C250017HAK. Calendar number 12, 250018PQK in the matter of applications for zoning map and tax amendments acquisitions and dispositions of city owned properties UDOP designation and project approval concerning Atlantic Avenue mixed use plan For favorable reports on calendar numbers three through 12, Chair Gorodnik?

Thank you very much, Madam Secretary. And before casting my vote, I'd just like to take a moment to speak about the importance of this neighborhood plan. Since the 1960s, this stretch of Atlantic Avenue and its surrounding blocks have been zoned for one to two story auto uses, storage and industrial buildings despite its excellent access to public transit and major job hubs. This restrictive non residential zoning has left the neighborhood unequipped to deal with the high demand to live there. Due to the lack of supply this community has seen rising housing costs, tenant harassment and displacement over the last ten to fifteen years.

The Atlantic Avenue mixed use plan is an opportunity to change course transforming the corridor into a vibrant mix of commercial, residential and manufacturing including around 4,600 new homes approximately fourteen forty of them income restricted affordable as well as space for 2,800 new jobs. To reach those housing numbers, the city will maximize the number of income restricted affordable homes that can be built on public sites in the neighborhood, making the best use out of city owned land in the area. These homes will help turn the tide and offer more residential opportunities for New Yorkers than could exist today. We're also working with the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development to advance anti displacement efforts to support renters and homeowners in the area making sure long time residents are supported as this plan advances. A neighborhood is more than just homes though, it thrives when it has the infrastructure to support residents.

This plan will deliver vital infrastructure and streetscape improvements that will help make this part of Central Brooklyn more vibrant and safer than ever. As part of this plan, the New York City Department of Transportation will implement street safety projects including planters, bike corrals and daylighting at intersections along Atlantic Avenue and nearby blocks to improve pedestrian visibility, safety and accessibility. The city is also investing heavily in the public realm including a down payment of over $24,000,000 to St. Andrew's Playground for a new synthetic turf multi use field with a running track, upgraded basketball and handball courts, renovated playground spaces and new seating, shade trees, plantings and other green infrastructure. The administration is also committed to enhancing Lowry Triangle near Atlantic Avenue and Washington Avenue to help community members better enjoy that space.

With these improvements, residents and workers alike would have more welcoming places to exercise, enjoy a coffee, people watch or just relax. And that's not all here. We're also planning for the long term with an eye toward climate change. Other ongoing work includes stormwater and sewer upgrades along Atlantic Avenue and Dean Street as well as subsurface storm water retention systems and more than 100 rain gardens. These investments will bolster sewer capacity and help these neighborhoods better handle flooding and storm events.

Building on over a decade of public engagement, this transformational plan would bring forth housing, jobs and infrastructure improvements that will benefit New Yorkers for decades to come. It would replace today's restrictive zoning rules with a more dynamic mix that would make it possible for someone to live in an income restricted apartment, walk along a safer Atlantic Avenue to their job in the commercial or manufacturing sector and enjoy lunch at a newly renovated public space. I'd like to thank council members Crystal Hudson and Chi Osei for their leadership during this planning process and public review as well as Community Boards III and VIII and Borough President Antonio Reynoso for their support. I'd also like to shout out the New York City Council Land Use Division, facilitator WXY Studio, our agency partners and the Central Brooklyn community for their collaboration in crafting this thoughtful plan. Finally, thanks to everyone at the Department of City Planning who helped us reach this milestone including community planning and civic engagement, the council's office, economic development and regional planning, environmental assessment and review, housing, strategic planning, technical review, transportation, urban design, zoning, communications, IGA, IT, web team and especially the Brooklyn team of Alex Summer, Corenza Wood, Bianca Bryant, Kyra Cuevas McCarthy, Jordan Frade, Demetrius McClester and project leads Jonah Rogoff and Jesse Hirokawa who are here in the room with us today.

I probably could have thanked the whole agency because nearly everybody had a hand in this, but those particular divisions and that particular team deserve our particular thanks. So with that, Madam Secretary, thank you for the opportunity and I gladly vote aye.

Thank you, Chair. Vice Chair Knuckles?

Well, I agree with the remarks of the Chair. This has been a long deliberative and focused, effort concentrated on a very, very important corridor, within Brooklyn. So I too salute not only the community boards and the legislative representatives of the area, but certainly the department for their engaged and hard work on this on this rezoning. And I think, the city will will see the fruits of of of, the collective labor in the very near future. I vote yes.

Commissioner Benjamin? I'd like

to thank the Brooklyn office for leading us on tours, for listening to us, for responding to our questions and concerns. And I'd like to thank the local community boards in particular who engaged in a multi year planning process and became intimately involved with the details of what this plan would look like. For that reason, I'm going to support it because this is something that arose originally from the community. And while I'm sure they have made concessions to what their original plan would have been, I also think we need to really listen to communities when they engage in this kind of a process and arrive at a point where so many different elements are supporting it. That said, I still remain concerned about two aspects of this.

The first one, which the department has addressed,

is

the MX District and the incentive to include on the 1st Floor manufacturing. And how I'm pleased to see the modification that involves a chair certification that would require additional looks at the air quality to make sure there was no impact on the above residential from the manufacturing use that could be below. I'm still not sure how it's going to work.

So I'd like to put

it out there and make sure that we continue to be involved with that process and how it's going to work. And my second concern is the future actions that will come as a result of study on Atlantic Avenue itself. As you're aware, Atlantic Avenue was a major thoroughfare, particularly for trucks that want to get through Brooklyn, through Queens, to Long Island, and cars who want to do the same. The measures that DOT has talked about, it's not clear to me how those measures will be implemented and whether they will allow traffic to flow freely on Atlantic Avenue once they are. I understand that if they are able to do the road diet, that would be the subject of its own review.

But I am concerned, particularly since we're putting all of this bulk and height on Atlantic Avenue, that we could be creating an air quality tunnel. I know that everyone involved is trying to avoid these actions creating other problems. And as I said, I am so happy to see community plans coming to fruition that I am going to vote yes.

Commissioner Cerullo? Yes. Commissioner Kual? Yes. Commissioner Dweck? Yes. Commissioner Gold?

Yes.

Commissioner Goodrich?

I wanna thank everyone involved in the project. It was a very long and extensive project with a lot of meetings. So thank you to the staff for taking your time out and meeting with us to explain everything. I think when we, as the City Planning Commission, vote yes on things and even when we vote no, most of the time the city council members just see the yes vote. I'm sorry, not when we vote no.

When we vote a yes but express reservations, most of the time they just see a yes vote and might not understand that we have some deep reservations about things. So I'm going to express my reservations about this project. First by stating that the bulk of the project, it has many good aspects that I agree with. But the main part that I am concerned about, and it won't be a surprise to most people, will be affordability. As of now, the affordability options are not set.

So there are varying options for MIH here. And some of the main ones that will be the likely one, the more lucrative one for the developer would be a ton of the units, four sixty six of them being once again $2,100 studios for the affordable housing. This area I know intimately well. I'm from Brooklyn. And for affordable housing, this is the number one thing that people express to me that is really a failure of affordable housing for it to be $2,100 studios.

And this is based off of a formula that goes beyond this project. I have an issue with MIH in general. It's based off of a gross income. And by the time you take out this is considered 30% of your income. And by the time you take out taxes, the $87,000 is $60,000 And so who can really afford $2,100 with that paycheck? There is I want to speak to the tenant displacement aspect of the project. I used to be a tenants rights attorney. And I would be one of the people representing anyone who would be facing eviction. And I can tell you that the main issue is the rent. So people will come back after.

You say you prevent someone's eviction, And if the rent still remains too high, their case comes back a year later, two years later. So I wish that some of the focus I think it's helpful, obviously, to have tenant displacement. But if we are talking about money being spent in funding, it would be helpful if that was concentrated on more deeper affordability units. What I would like to see here and I'm voting no because I want to signal to the city council when they have their negotiations. What I would like to see here is deeper affordability options.

I think that it's great that for some of the city owned properties, they are 100% affordable housing. But what we have seen time and again is that MIH is not enough. As I've shown, sometimes you have and some of these projects might well be 120% of MIH. That's six going up to 100,120 thousand dollars for one person to qualify for affordable housing, which is not helpful for this area. In this area studies have shown it is a predominantly black area and studies have shown that the rate of eviction is three times in this area for black residents and white residents.

There was a study a number of years ago. And that came up in the line of my work. So for me, when I see a project of this magnitude, when we're talking about 4,800 housing units, about 4,800 housing units and only 1,400 of them being affordable and of the affordable number, some of them are going to be for middle a chunk of them will be for middle income and high income. I consider $100,000 high income. It just ends up not being enough.

So for me, I want to say that there are many great aspects of the proposal, but I want to signal to the city council that when you're negotiating with the developers to please have deeper affordability and to listen to CB8 who also had this concern of having more affordable units. Thank you.

Commissioner Kramani? Yes. Commissioner Mann?

I also wanted to thank the community board, as Commissioner Benjamin mentioned, for their years, really years of work, to get this rezoning proposal, here, and obviously acknowledging that the Brooklyn DCP office for listening carefully and working with them collaboratively, and the leadership of the council members for, I think showing some courage, to allow for additional housing development here. There's two items that I I just would want, and I hope the council focuses on. One is the design of Atlantic Avenue. I do think there is more work there to be done. And the second piece is really making sure that we unlock every possible city owned site in the area for affordable housing. I think there's work there to be done as well. But with that, I vote aye. Thank you.

Commissioner Manin?

I'd like to agree with Commissioner Mann on his point about city owned property and studying that and making sure that that is maintained as affordable.

But I do vote yes.

Commissioner Osorio?

I I join my colleagues in commending the Department of City Planning, particularly the Brooklyn Borough Office for the strong work behind this plan and for fully discussing our questions and concerns. I also agree with commissioner Goodrich in that defaulting to MIH here is simply not enough. Having said this, I also want to highlight strengths such as the important effort to maximize as much as possible, although maybe for the time being, the number of affordable housing units in public land, the new incentive to creating open space, the proposed mechanism to anticipate potential conflicts deriving from the integration of residential and nonresidential uses, and as Commissioner Gudrich said, activating anti displacement mechanisms for current residents. But I've decided to vote no unless there's a requirement that a percentage of the building is reserved for industrial uses hopefully manufacturing in MX districts. I very much agree with the Brooklyn Borough President and that this is a necessary condition to achieving the goals of the plan.

I strongly believe that unless zoning requires this, MX districts without industrial uses will make it even harder for working class New Yorkers to afford rent here. And we will be missing the opportunity to benefit from the economic growth that is reported by NYSERDA with green jobs in New York State or what Community Board eight is asking for with their request for a green technology incubator. Finally, if industrial users cannot compete here for space and need to go elsewhere, they have no choice than to relocate to the same low income and communities of color that have historically been disproportionately burned by environmental justice impacts. Thank you.

Commissioner Rampuchak.

I too would like to thank the Brooklyn Borough Office as well as the local community boards and community members for their involvement with this project. I also like to align myself with the comments mentioned by Commissioner Benjamin and Commissioner Mann and I vote yes.

Favorable reports have been adopted 100 on calendar

numbers three through 12. Calendar numbers 1314, 7099

Empire Boulevard Rezoning, CD9, calendar number 13, C230309ZMK, calendar number 14, n two three zero three one zero z r k, and the matter of applications for zoning map and zoning text amendments concerning 7399 Empire Boulevard Rezoning. For favorable reports on calendar numbers thirteen and fourteen, Chair Grovnik?

Aye.

Vice Chair Knuckles?

Yes.

Commissioner Benjamin? Aye. Commissioner Cerullo?

Yes.

Commissioner Krall?

Yes.

Commissioner Dweck? Recused. Commissioner Gold?

Yes.

Commissioner Goodrich? Same. Commissioner Kramani? Yes. Commissioner Mann? Yes. Commissioner Manning? Yes. Commissioner Osorio?

I would yes with the recommendation to strengthen the language in the report regarding the importance to initiate the study with community to assess the needs and opportunities to guide future development in the neighborhood or in the corridor. Thank you.

Commissioner Ramchand?

Yes.

Favorable reports have been adopted in calendar numbers '13 '14. Calendar numbers '15 and '16, 166 Kings Highway rezoning, CD 11. Calendar number '15, c two three zero three seven eight z m k. Calendar number '16 n two three zero three seven 9 z r k, in the matter of applications for zoning map and zoning tax amendments concerning 166 Kings Highway Rezoning for favorable reports on calendar numbers fifteen and sixteen. Chair Grodnik?

Aye.

Vice Chair Knuckles? Yes. Commissioner Benjamin?

I would like to vote yes on calendar number 15 and no on calendar number 16.

Commissioner Cerullo? Yes. Commissioner Crawl? Yes. Commissioner Dweck? Yes. Commissioner Gold?

Yes.

Commissioner Goodrich?

Yes.

Commissioner Karmani? Yes. Commissioner Mann?

Yes.

Commissioner Mani?

Yes.

Commissioner Osorio?

Yes.

Commissioner Rampachad? Favorable reports have been adopted on calendar numbers fifteen and sixteen. Borough Of Queens, calendar number seventeen, 160 One-one Jamaica Avenue, ACS office acquisition CD12N250169PXQ in the matter of an application for a notice of intent to acquire office space concerning 160 One-one Jamaica Avenue ACS Office Acquisition For favorable for a favorable report on calendar number 17, Chair Gurodnik?

Aye.

Vice Chair Knuckle?

Yes.

Commissioner Benjamin? Aye. Commissioner Cerullo?

Yes.

Commissioner Krall? Yes. Commissioner Zweck? Yes. Commissioner Gold?

Yes.

Commissioner Goodrich? Commissioner Karmani? Yes. Commissioner Mann?

Yes.

Commissioner Manin?

Yes.

Commissioner Osorio?

Yes.

Commissioner Rampuchat? Yes. A favorable report has been adopted on calendar number 17. The next part of the calendar is the public hearing section on Page eight.

Great. Thank you very much. I'm going to ask members of the public who are here to testify today to keep their comments at three minutes. And of course, we're very happy that you're here. Madam Secretary?

Borough Of Brooklyn, calendar numbers eighteen and nineteen, Grace Houses, CD5, calendar number 18, C230 my apologies, C 240184 z m k, calendar number '19, N240185ZRK. Public hearing in a matter of applications for zoning map and zoning text amendments concerning the intent to acquire office space concerning my apologies concerning Grace Houses.

Thank you, Madam Secretary. We're going to continue the hearing on this one, and we're going to open the hearing on the next item due to a scheduling issue. Let's move on to calendars 2020 to 2022, please.

Thank you, Chair. Borough of Brooklyn, calendar numbers 2021 and '22, January. CD3, calendar number 20, C240399ZM k. Calendar number '21, n 240398ZRK. Calendar number '22, c 240400ZS Public hearing in the matter of applications for a zoning special permit, zoning map and zoning tax amendments concerning 109 Marcus Garvey Boulevard LSGD.

Great. Thank you for that. We have an applicant team here that includes Eric Vilatnik, who's here at the podium as well as Brian Newman and R. Christopher Bramwell. Mr. Palatnik, welcome.

Good morning, everybody.

You go. It's green. That makes sense. Eric Palatnik, representing the applicant, and I'll try and be brief. I know you have a very busy schedule. We have a little bit to unpack here and I'll go through it through the presentation. I'll start off by noting that almost all of the questions that were asked by the commissioners during the review sessions have been answered in the presentation. So hopefully, we've addressed your questions. But if we haven't for any reason whatsoever, please feel free to ask us. It's myself introducing the application and also on the phone is Chris Bramwell.

He's the Principal of CBEmanuel. And also on the phone is Brian Newman of Newman Designs. We're thrilled to be here today with a fully affordable where did I go here at the beginning? Okay. With a fully affordable development on Marcus Garvey Boulevard, it will be an existing in addition to an existing housing affordable housing complex already. It will include senior affordable housing, fully senior. It will create about two ninety two fully affordable senior housing developments on like the song goes, we paved Paradise and Brooklyn parking lot. Here, we're paving a parking lot and putting up a building. So there's a parking lot in the existing complex. We are taking that away and we are putting in a building.

In its place will be additional parking spots as well. You could see here on the right side of the screen is the ask that we are asking you for. It's really two things. The first thing is an R7A rezoning. The rezoning is only to facilitate addition as much additional height as we could possibly get. We're not utilizing any of the floor area. We're well over on the floor area. But we're also asking for a large scale development. And the large scale development is going to allow the maximum height of the Ares Building, which is depicted in the lower right hand corner, to rise to a height of 155 feet, which is 65 feet above its 90 foot height limit. I'll note that there are other numerous very tall buildings in the vicinity and the community board is supportive of the application as is the borough president.

When done, you can see in the lower right corner there, there'll be a total of five fifty nine affordable housing units on the property, which includes the two twenty seven new ones in addition to the previous ones, which I think are two twenty nine. Go to the next slide. This shows you the zoning map change. It's not very exciting. It looks just like the rest of them except it says R7A instead of R6. This is it again. And this I just went through, so I'll click right through. This is the money shot. This is showing you what the site is all about. It's called Willoughby Court Apartment Complex.

You could see it as I described a moment ago. It's a six building development with affordable housing within it. And there is a parking lot on the right hand side, like the song goes, for 63 cars. It's underutilized. As you could see in the parking lot picture on the screen, not all the spaces are utilized and that's the case in real life. We've done a survey. But we are providing an almost analogous amount of parking spaces in the seller level of the new building and therefore everybody in the complex. We don't think too many of the seniors are going to have cars. So anybody who's got a car now is going to probably be able to have a car in the future. The existing development, as you can see right here, it's 130,000 square foot site.

They're three to nine stories and they're two sixty seven units. The third bullet is the most important one. It was acquired in 2012 and rehabilitated using a senior loan from New York State Housing Finance Agency and using low income tax credits and also help from New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development. The property holds a Section eight contract, 100% of the units and a regulatory agreement to HFA that restricts 93% of the units to 60% AMI through 2052. So this is an affordable housing development and it will be maintained as an affordable housing development.

This is what we're seeking to build. You could see the right hand side tells you everything I just told you a few minutes ago. The fourth bullet being the most important one for your purposes, that it's at 155 feet, that is not allowed to be there. That's what we're asking your approval for. Two ninety two units, 63 cars and all of the tax incentives are listed in the lower right corner. We'd be happy to come back. The site layout is like this. You could see on the right hand side of the screen the existing buildings. On the left hand side is the proposed. As a part of the application, there must be a superior site plan.

And what's going to be done to facilitate the superior site plan finding is substantial renovation improvements of all the public areas in the complex that you can see in front of you right now depicted in white. And I'll show you pictures of what we're going to be doing, but there'll be new upgrading to landscaping, to security, to lighting, to fencing, to plaza areas. It's going have a whole new surface area put in. The existing security system that's in place has been upgraded. The buildings are extremely well maintained. Tenant complaints, if any, are handled as aggressively as they possibly can be. And we do our best. The ownership does our best to maintain it very nicely and they're going to improve upon it. This slide shows you the heights of other buildings around. Remember, I'm here primarily asking you for one hundred and fifty five foot height.

As you can see, the other buildings in the vicinity that provide affordable housing in one way, shape or form are all of similar ilk when it comes to height. And that's, of course, in order to get the funding sources that we listed a few moments ago, there needs to be an efficiency and that's what's driving the application. This answers some of the commissioner's questions about updated housing in the area. It's been almost sixty years since an apartment building of this scale was built. That's the top bullet.

The second bullet is everything I spoke about, about improving the place and how much better it's going to be as far as the surface of it goes with landscaping and lighting and things like that, new amenities and other such things. There are not much other housing being built within the vicinity of this building. There is a huge demand, and that's why we're here. The area improvements, I'll skip through this a little bit quickly, but it's everything I just mentioned a moment ago. It's about 7,200 square feet of open space and all of this is going to be improved upon with benches and trees and lighting and playground, all of that, everything I spoke about.

The Ares Building 2 will have within it supportive services for the members or for the people that live within the building. So the building itself, the new building is going to have supportive service space within it to service the people that live within the building. This is the courtyard between the existing complex and the proposed building. As I was showing a moment ago, it's all going to be really nice and state of the art and brand new. These are the sustainability features. This was asked, I think, by one of the commissioners, probably Commissioner Ossario, I believe. We've done our best to try to highlight everything. And the project architect is also on the phone, Brian Newman. He can answer any other questions you may have. Improved site safety.

This is everything I spoke about before. I won't go through it in detail. The parking lot I spoke about a few minutes ago. This shows you what the building looks like. The AMIs are important to show you here. You could see that nine as I mentioned earlier, two ninety two units which will be available primarily to people at 60% AMI. Why errors? We could go on and on and on. This is one of the commissioner's at the review session. This page is just all about it. There's no it's simple. The whole page says, There's nowhere for anybody to live. It's incredibly overpriced. And seniors don't have enough money to pay the rent. And that's so laid in all the factual data that you could find in here that it's unbelievable.

I think that the middle one tells the tale the best. Less than 600 dwelling units are in the neighborhood. So there's thousands of people that are 65, and there's only 600 units. So it's not a lot. This is the development team, and these are the plans. I'll skip right through to show you the height increase, which you probably can't see here, but the line that you're seeing there that's going through it just when it rises up is where the maximum height could be and above that is what we're proposing. We'll be happy to pause here and answer any questions you may have.

That's Okay. Great. Thank you very much. Before I go to the Vice Chairman, let me just pose one general question for you, which you partially answered in your presentation, but I just want to make sure that we flush it out. The standard for us on the large scale special permit is better relationship to Street Superior site plan. Just spend a minute making the case for that in this context. You cited the improvement of public areas within the courtyard of the existing Willoughby Court plus I believe the space in between the proposed building and existing Correct. Is

that argument? That's the essence of the thrust of our presentation to you and our justification for the request. In addition of course, the building itself is well designed and a handsome building. That's not what creates a superior site plan. Rather here, it's integrating the building into the remainder of the site and as the campus, really. And as you could see here on the screen that's in front of you, these are the landscaping plans. And we could go through it a little bit if you'd like. But everything that you see in white is being touched as a result of this application. So it's all being renovated and brought up to date. This plaza area that I'm showing you here is the plaza area that's being created between the two buildings.

This is another plaza area that's being renovated. That's between the existing complex. You can see there'll be landscaping and planting and playground equipment. And this is more detail on the plaza areas. So I apologize for it being in black and white, but you could see a great level of detail has been brought to that. The other thing which is a superior site plan, should be considered by your commission is the security features that are taking place within the property. I get to the there we go. There have been gang activity at this location through the years. And that's a real concern to the people that live there. It's just as much a concern to them as having nice trees are.

Some would argue it's even more of a concern than having nice trees. So as a comprehensive part of the application, what's being done is a retrofit of the security system. And that includes there'll be new lighting, there'll be new computer programs involved. Chris Bramble is on the phone right now to tell you. He has on his phone, just like we all have RingCentral for our homes.

Everybody in his team carries RingCentral for the building. They all the buildings, they could see every public area within the building. They're in close contact with the police department as well. And their security team is very well trained to alert to any gang activity or anything that might be out of the norm. So all of these different comprehensive things that I've been talking about, the exterior, the security, the design of the building, the provision of senior housing and support services we think supports that finding.

Thank you very much. Mr. Vice Chairman?

Thank you. Eric, good morning. Good morning. How many additional units are yielded with the height increase?

I don't have that exact number. Can give it to you in writing, but it's probably somewhere in the neighborhood of about 110 units or so or about a third of the units. It's two ninety two units, so it's about a third of them. The allowable height is 90 feet, we're going up to 155 feet. So you're allotting about an additional six stories onto a 14 story building.

90, I thought it was permitted. I thought 115 is permitted with MIH.

115 is permitted under with you're correct. 115 is permitted with MIH, so it would a 40 foot difference. I apologize. I was reading off of the non MIH. So, it would be, again, somewhere in the neighborhood of about 100 units. We can come back to with exact amount.

Thank you. I'd like to know that. Thank you.

Commissioner Osorio? Thank you, Chair. Just a quick question. I'm wondering if you can with us your response to the board president's recommendation to explore shifting the massing to the north to reduce shadows on Lewis Playground and Saint John the Baptist Church.

Yeah. The team has looked at moving the building. There's really no real way to move the building and still enable anybody to and have the open space that they need and still accommodate the program within the building. We haven't identified within any of our EAS papers that there's any impact from the shadows. Of course, there will be some shadows cast, but it wasn't anything that caused EAS to tip in one direction or another. And the community was aware of the shadows and spoke about it, they were okay with the application.

My understanding is that these were listed in the EAS, though.

They were listed, but it was not, of course, listed as as a reason

because Understood. Know. Like, did not trigger and That didn't trigger EAS. But if if you can explore if there's an opportunity for it, I I think this would be important. Thank you for Alright. I'll address that. Thank you so much.

Thank you, commissioner. Commissioner Mantel?

Yeah. I was gonna just ask the same question. So is the public space in the landscape courtyard open to the public or is

that Yes.

It is. Okay.

Got it.

So residents of the surrounding area. Yeah.

The idea is to bring in not just residents of the surrounding area, but really more for the the campus of this the buildings that are here. Everybody has families living there to make an expanded campus and to integrate the seniors with the younger people that are living on the property so that everybody can hang out together.

Right. Then adjacent neighbors can use it not Yeah.

There's no fences up. People people I mean, there is some fencing around it, but there's no gates

on the Yeah. And I assume you'll have hours of operation then for that open space?

Or The open space is well, the plaza area that you're looking at that we're showing both of the plaza areas are in the middle

Yep.

Of the building. So it's it's not so much that they're going to be locked off from people like a traditional plaza like you might think of in the sense of something in Manhattan, you know, where there's a gate that comes in at night. It's more like a plaza like I just walked through from Wall Street Train Station, the other one right across the street, the big with a statue in the middle. There's a white one right behind the building here. Gigantic Plaza you could walk through. It's more like that kind of plaza where there's no gate on it. It's more meant as a means for people to walk through the community and experience it.

Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Vlatnik. Appreciate it. Let me move on to a couple of members of the public who wish to be heard on this item starting with Ricky Williams. Okay. And Idris Abdullah. Welcome.

Good morning.

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning.

Name is Idris Abdullah. I'm a long standing member of the community. I serve on committee board three, land use committee. I am the vice president of the seven ninth Crescent community council where that particular project sits in the middle. But first, I wanna say this.

I wanna give this board thanks because a special thanks. Because me sitting on the land use committee, knowing that that's one of the first doors that these projects have to come through, they didn't just have to come to us one time. They came to us two, three times. And every time they came, they came with exactly what we needed to hear. And for us on that level to be acknowledged by this board, to know the tired effort work that we put in as board members, as committee members, it's a lot of work.

We don't get paid for it. Sometimes we'd be sitting in these meetings two or three hours, and we just be might not we wanna go home. We want but to be acknowledged by y'all and to give us the things that y'all gave us or that y'all give us is definitely, definitely appreciated. But thank y'all so much. Okay.

So this particular project was one project that we sat down, and we went through it back and forth, back and forth. And it did come back, and they definitely came with a lot of the things that we had concerns with. One of the things that we did have the concern with was the security aspect of it. Because everything that happens on that that corner or that that line, it goes to the 81, and it goes to the 79, and then it comes to our text on our phones because that's the communication that we have with our presence. So this project would be a major, major asset.

We if we we remember, that was one of the main areas where they they had the major problem with the k two. So this also would bring us a lot of attention, focus in that area to have that would have a tendency of keeping the climb down. That's one. Two, again, I wanna thank the team as they came forth with the plan, and they catered to everything that we needed. So we wanna definitely thank them.

So we're looking at hopefully keeping the communication going on. So now from here, we would like to work with them in reference to jobs, reference to outreach to the community, in reference to making this project successful and us being able to move forward to make that area a little bit more safer for the community. So but, again, this is a project that we stand behind them a 110%, and we're gonna look to work with them all the way until the ribbon cutting of the inter the the entry day. But, again, thank y'all guys sincerely. Y'all gonna be seeing me a whole lot because I'm putting this on my agenda as a land use committee member.

When I give my commitment and I put my support behind y'all guys coming through the door, then we're gonna make sure that the right thing is done. But, again, thank y'all guys for your support.

That's great. Thank you very much. And, Dave, before you go anywhere, we're have a question for you, but I wanted to thank for saying that. And we will look forward to seeing you here often. And we appreciate all of your service to the community and to the city. So thank you for that. Let me go to Commissioner Kamala.

That's basically what I wanted to say. Just thank you. Thank you for your service. I live in your district. I've lived there for So a long very much appreciate your service and all your commitment. So thank

you. Thank you so much. And again, to the development, again, the senior citizen piece is a piece that we really, really need. So if there's any housing, our senior citizen, I don't know. I might be have to move in there when I turn

65. Thank you, Mr. Abdullah. Appreciate it. Okay. Let me see if there's anybody else who wishes to be heard on 109 Marcus Garvey Boulevard. I see nobody else signed up. Okay. We're going to close the hearing on calendar 2021 and 2022. Madam Secretary.

Thank you, Chair. Borough Of Manhattan, calendar numbers '23, '24 and '25, 01/1945 for Harlem. CD 10, calendar number '23, c 250115ZMM, calendar number 24, N250116ZRM, calendar number 25, c 250117ZSM. Public hearing the matter of applications for a zoning special permit, zoning map and zoning tax amendments concerning 01/1945 for Harlem.

Great. Thank you. And on behalf of the applicant team, have Valerie Campbell, Bruce Teitelbaum, Tristan Nadal, Isaiah King and Lynn Doe. Welcome. Whenever you're ready, go right ahead for ten minutes. Sure.

Thank you. Valerie Campbell from Kramer Levin, and we are Land Use Counsel to the owner. So this is a overview of the site. It occupies the entire western block front of Lenox Avenue between West 1 45th And West 1 44th Street, and it extends down West 1 45th Street. In the larger context, the 145 site is located on the Number 3 subway line and is approximate to many cultural and historic institutions in Harlem as well as the new Universal Hip Hop Museum in The Bronx.

The total lot area of the site is approximately 68,841 square feet, which qualifies it as a general large scale development. The site is coterminous with the rezoning area and will be developed as a single zoning lot. Lenox Avenue and West 145th Streets are both wide streets. The 100 by 100 portion of the lot at the corner of 144th and Lenox Avenue constitutes approximately 15% of the total lot area and is zoned R-seven-two with the C-one-four commercial overlay. The CA3 zoning district, which applies to the rest of the site, is outdated, and it does not reflect the mixed use context of the surrounding Harlem neighborhood.

It does not permit any residential development. It is a zoning designation that is typically used for automotive and truck uses and self storage. In fact, the only significant private development in the CA3 surrounding area in recent years has been the large self storage facility, which was erected on the north side of 144th 45th Street. The southern half of the block is predominantly residential. To the north across 1 45th Street, there are small residential apartment buildings on the western side of the street, but the remainder of the block is commercial.

These photographs show the project site. It's currently improved with taxpayer retail buildings in poor condition along with one operating and one closed gas station. The northeast corner of the site is vacant. The vacant gas station site was temporarily occupied as a truck storage depot, but ownership discontinued this use permanently at the request of the community board ten at the first public hearing on December 19. So that shows that.

There are four land use actions that were required for the project. The first is the zoning map amendment to rezone the rezoning area from the existing C83 and C72, C14 zoning districts to a C46 zoning district. The second is a zoning text amendment to modify Appendix F to designate the rezoning area as included in the mandatory inclusionary housing program. The third is a special permit pursuant to seventy four thousand seven hundred forty three to modify the heightened setback regulations of Section 35.64B3. This special permit is required because the proposed gathering space is at the top of the Lenox Avenue tower, and that is not permitted under the residential tower regulations to have a commercial use in there.

The fourth action is a certification by the Commission pursuant to twenty six fifteen to allow an additional curb cut on West 145th Street. So the two curb cuts there, one will service the loading bay and one will service below grade parking. This slide shows the proposed rezoning of the C83 and the R7 to C14 districts to the C46 zoning district. The proposed C46 zoning district is appropriate at this location because it is a higher density district typically mapped along major thoroughfares such as Lenox Avenue and West 145th Street. The 145 development will be well served by public transit as it is adjacent to the 145th Street subway station and is along several bus routes, and it is one block from entrances to the Harlem River Drive and the 145th Street Bridge to the Bronx, with connections to the major Deakin Expressway and the Cross Bronx Expressway.

The proposed C46 District within an MIH designated area will allow for increased density to facilitate the development of the sorely needed market rate and affordable housing in this neighborhood. The maximum allowable FAR for residential use is 12, assuming the maximum amount of affordable housing is provided. For community facility use, it's 10, and for commercial use is 3.4. In contrast, no housing is allowed in the portion of the 145 site, Zone CA3, and only 40,000 square feet of residential floor area could be developed in the existing C72, C14 District without any requirement to provide affordable housing. Next, Tristan Nadel will come up and describe the proposed project.

Thanks, Val. And thanks, Commissioners, for your attention. So I'm going to go through the certified plan which is MIH Option two while we still are working on the enhanced plan. This is what's being voted on. The highlights here are an increase in the amount of housing over the 940,000 square foot development of about 100 units more than the prior version here, which includes two ninety one permanently affordable housing units distributed evenly throughout the towers.

We've also increased the number of family size units based on feedback to 30% of all units, which is a 60 unit increase from prior and about double what a typical development of this size would have. We also replaced the civil rights museum in between the two buildings with a new community center, which will be a technology and innovation center of about 25,000 square feet, including 8,000 square feet of outdoor space. No parking is required, but we've still included over 40 parking spaces in the base of the buildings. We've maintained the rooftop gathering space, as Val noted, 30,000 square feet of Ground Floor retail and improvements to the adjacent brigadier general Charles Young playground. Wanted to just note here the kind of context of the housing being created here.

We're creating over 20% of the amount of affordable housing that's been built in this district over the last ten years. And the ten years prior to that is even less. So, this is a monumental amount of affordable housing being placed in this area of Harlem. It also important to note that the incomes here reach about 60% of the constituents within the neighborhood. And if you carve away the highest cohort and the lowest cohort, it reaches 80% of the middle.

This just shows an axon of what I just described, residential in the towers, retail along the base with the community center in the middle, and the rooftop gathering space up top. The technology center is something in response to a lot of feedback that we got from the community and stakeholders that they need safe spaces for youths, for young adults, and other community members. And we worked really hard to come up with this concept that includes innovation space, training spaces for technology and AI, as well as outdoor rooftop garden areas. Also wanted to address some of the questions that we saw come through from various commissioners related to access, traffic, and circulation, starting with the rooftop gathering space, which it's important to note can only hold 200 people, so there will be not any large conventions. It's for smaller to moderate sized gatherings.

It has an entrance dedicated entrance and lobby off of 145th Street for pedestrians, which is near the three train stop and bus access on 145th And Lenox Avenue, as you can see, with dedicated elevators that are expressed to the roof. There's also a dedicated loading dock off of 144th Street, which is less traffic that can allow for deliveries, trucks, both for that space as well as commercial and residential move ins. And then also access to the parking entrance that you see next to the loading dock. Those elevators also reach that space for people arriving by car. We also think we've greatly enhanced the streetscape on 145th Street by removing 10 curb cuts that are currently existing, replacing none of them.

So there'll be a lot more cohesiveness in pedestrian safety. Again, everything's been dedicated back there on 144th Street, which is a lot less traffic for loading and parking entry. And also just touching on some of the aspects of the EIS study, which did a thorough review of how the new residents would affect traffic, pedestrian safety and transit. And using both pre and post pandemic data, it showed that the project during peak hours would add the equivalent of four cars or 40 pedestrians for each traffic cycle and 20 passengers per three train.

Time?

Okay. Thank you very much. If there are more core pieces of this, why don't you see if you can integrate them into responses I'm some of the just going to start off really with one. Obviously, what we have before us is an evaluation of a proposal versus what the current rules allow. But this is also the second time that this commission has seen a proposal on this site and we approved the last one. So if you can just give us a sketch of what is different between what you're presenting today and what you presented in the last go around, I think it would be useful for us and for the public.

Sure. So I'd say the main differences are an increase in the amount of housing. We've removed any commercial office space that was previously in the plan. There's now nine sixty eight total units as opposed to eight sixty six in the original plan with the corresponding amount of affordable housing increase as well. We removed the Civil Rights Museum, which was a controversial piece of the last one, replaced it with a community center.

Again, this is something we got a lot of feedback about as something really needed in the area for again, for youth, for young adults and others to be able to have a public space to go to that's both has indoor facilities, educational facilities and outdoor recreational space. And then we've also increased the amount of two and three bedrooms by about 60 units, again, in response to family sized requests from the community. We've also prepared a substantial community benefits agreement, which has many of the aspects we were offering in the last program, but also oversight commission that will be comprised of locals to oversee the execution of all the aspects of the Community Benefits Agreement, which I believe we've shared. And then those are the main, I'd say, differences between the two plans. There's some variation in the parking and exact square footage of the retail, but I would say

Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Goodrich?

Wanted

to get a little bit more information. I know you mentioned that the amount of two and three bedroom sizes were doubled. I wanted to get a little bit more information about that. I actually was surprised somewhat surprised to hear that this is 70% of these units are going to be studios and one bedroom, and only about 30 would be two and three bedrooms. And the part I was surprised about is to hear that that's typical for this size development.

I know that this was a very big issue for the community because it's Harlem and they wanted family size units. And part of people's fears about gentrification with these studios in one bedroom is just wanting sort of like, I don't know, students or not families. I wonder I just want to hear the process of increasing these units because to me, I still think that 30% is low because there's so many units.

Yes. So the doubling was relative to other projects that we've studied of this size, which is that would be typically built. That's about 15% usually are allocated to two and three bedrooms. Three bedrooms are typically less than 3%, I would say, of a typical development. We're over double that amount on new developments. There's just truly the demand doesn't bear out for it.

I mean, enough people who are applying for three bedrooms?

Correct. Yes.

Two bedrooms, there is demand for, and we've allocated I think the ratio of that 30% breakdown is approximately 22 to eight on two and three bedrooms. But that is, again, a large increase from where we started about 60 units from prior.

My next question is the community board, they voted against the application. And one of the reasons they name is the height of Building A And B, and they want it to be a shorter height, specifically because they say that it may impact sunlight. And this has been coming up a bunch with our I mean, Coney Island is coming up next. We we just voted on one. And it and for some, it may seem like, sort of a minimal issue, but it it is it is popping up as a very content sunlight and shadow casting shadows.

It is popping up as a very contentious issue among a lot of projects, particularly more recently. And I want to hear more about your work with the community. Because even the borough president, even though he approved it, also wanted to, you know, he supported working with the community board and all of their recommendations. And this was one of them.

Yeah. And we have been addressing many of their concerns, we think, through the CBA. The height is a push and pull, obviously. We're trying to generate as many units as possible within the envelope that we have, which requires certain building parameters within the zoning envelope. We've stretched, I think, the buildings in a way that we can as much as we can in terms of planarly.

And then we also completed a shadow study, which shows that the impacts the incremental impacts of the buildings relative to what's there now. So everything in the gray are shadows that you see now. Everything in red are shadows that are created by the project. As you can see, there's a small effect at the latest parts of the day in the summer on the park next door and then some in the water. But throughout much of the year, there's very little impact on resources.

And this is consistent if you look in the EIS through. So while we hear the concerns, we are trying to accommodate the amount of housing that we're trying to create here, which we think is appropriate in a dense area with ample transit. And create also space between the buildings so that there's air and light coming through them.

I think I think that's it

for now. Yeah.

You have more questions?

Is the developer here?

Yes.

I'll wait.

Okay. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Mann?

Hey, Tristan. Two questions. One, just status of HPD discussions around the enhanced portability option. And then two, just can you clarify for me the mitigation on the young playground? I'm not sure I totally understood what was being proposed.

Yes. So we're continuing conversations with HPD. We've been working with them for about a year or so now on the enhanced affordability plan. That would basically effectuate a sale of the center building to a nonprofit that we've been working with, again, over that entire period of time for them to be able to develop a 100% affordable building on that site. Those conversations are still ongoing.

There's kind of a they're looking to see how this process comes through. And but we are committed and we have committed to, as you probably saw with the Borough President and the affidavit there, to continue our conversations with them as this process moves forward and deliver those units in accordance with what they're able to provide on a subsidy side. Sorry, what was your second question?

It's about the mitigation for the Shadows on the playground, the Young playground.

There were so the mitigation there were no impacts through the shadows. There was an open space mitigation on the playground that we are currently finalizing negotiations with the parks to provide, but that would be an improvement to the children's play area along Lenox Avenue. There are other improvements being happening to the ball field, but there is a substantial renovation that would be needed for the playground area, which is what we're working on the scope with them on now.

A follow-up there. Is that so

is the

contribution of dollars to We would

do the yes, we

would deliver the construction prior Thank to

you, Commissioner Mann. Commissioner Sourio?

Thank you, Chair. Thanks so much for the presentation for addressing our questions. I wanted to give you a chance to respond to the Borough President and the Community Board's comment on the need to mitigate future flooding. I know you had an entire slide with not just that, but also sustainability and energy efficiency strategies. Specifically, if I want to understand also in addition to coastal flooding, how are you addressing the storm water inundation risk on Lenox Avenue? And learn more about the geothermal strategies that you seem to be having in place.

Yes. So I'll start with the resiliency at the building. We've removed any vital systems from the lower portions of the building. They've all been moved up to avoid any potential flood risk. We really only the kind of edge of our building nips the flood zone.

But even regardless, everything is being built up above the DFE. And even further, everything below there is being dry flood proof, but everything vital is being put above that level. So that's the resiliency at the building. Some of the sustainability efforts that we're doing, you can see in this slide here. We've always aimed to be on the cutting edge, I think, from a sustainability standpoint in this building, highlighted by the geothermal system that we want to employ here.

We've done extensive research. We've hired an engineer engineering firm, Salus, that is probably the leader in the country on this. We've done the test board down to 1,000 feet. It is viable. We found a way to fund it. So that is a portion of the project we wholeheartedly expect to do. In addition to some of these other things, heat recovery, snow melt, storm water recovery and then a lot of the other things you see here, which we would do on a standard building anyway, those are kind of the environmental portions that we expect to do. Do you want to speak about your question on, you said the Lennox?

I think you've addressed them all. Mean, maybe as a follow-up, if you can submit in writing a section so that we can see where the mechanicals are going to go and where is BSE, know, design float elevation in that regard. But also, I wanna commend you on geothermal. I I would love I would like now to understand in full detail, you know, how much what does it really mean and how much of the building energy matrix can actually

Yes. And it's be able to a substantial portion of it. We have a ton of information and data, which we'll be happy to share with you after the meeting.

I would yes, I appreciate that. And as well as just understanding how is that interacting interacting with the potential solar and other renewables that you're planning to generate? Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Benjamin?

Hi, thank you very much. I was hoping that Valerie would come back up. Hi, Valerie. I'm concerned or interested in the question of the enhanced program that you're suggesting versus the program that's involved in the application as submitted?

The application is submitted and the certified plan is what we are asking the commission to vote on. We are pursuing and that approval would also allow for the enhanced plan. But that plan is dependent on the HPD funding and those negotiations and discussions are continuing.

So what we're voting on is The certified plan. Correct. So that is not having the entire building B be affordable housing. That's spreading the affordable housing between A and B?

It would be spreading them to 30%. The enhanced plan would have in Building B. Building and Building B would be 100% affordable. And then Building A would also be, I think, 30% affordable with the MAH.

So we're

with without the enhanced, what is the total number of units? And is it a 40% studios, 40% ones, and twenty percent two and threes?

It is I think it is 60% studio and one bedroom.

It would be $9.68 total units, two ninety one affordable units. And the rough breakdown of that would be thirty percent two and three bedrooms, and then 70% would be one and studios.

So that's the same in the basically, whether it's the enhanced or the There there's application as certified. Correct. Is there any way that you could take a look and give us more family size apartments?

We can we can look further at that.

That would be quite helpful. And I know you would prefer option two, but how would this change if the council decided to not give you option two and

to give you option three instead?

Option sorry. You're saying option three on MIH? Yeah. We would have to look at that, but that's not

you know, the council has Yes. Done that. So I would expect you're probably already working on what that would mean, and I'd like to understand what that would mean for this program.

We will get back to you on that.

Okay. And you said you've been in discussions with HPD for about a year on different subsidy programs. Which ones are you looking at? It's clearly not Ella.

Both Ella and a supportive option

at 40%. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner. Back to Commissioner Goodrich.

My question before about whether the developer was there, obviously, wasn't new with your client. But I have a question because when this project came before, I was really taken aback because there were some news articles with the developer who is framed as threatened. The community, if they didn't accept this proposal that they would build a loud and unsightly truck stop. And I'm using that language from a New York Times article. And I just it gave me a lot of pause. And I wanted to know why you felt so comfortable making that ultimatum.

I don't think that that The was

client wanted to I asked. Sorry. Sorry.

Do want to speak to that, Chris?

Thank you, Commissioner. Yes. That was incorrect. So the news article was incorrect. No one was threatened.

It says an ultimatum that the client if the didn't accept then it would be allowed an unsightly truck stop.

The New York Times is not always accurate what they report. So I can tell you that was an inaccurate report. There was no threat. There was no ultimatum. In fact, the use of the site for a vehicle depot was done years and years after we initially try to get this project, moved forward. And as I said at the community board hearings publicly and I'll say it now in retrospect that was a mistake and I apologize for that. But there was no ultimatum given to the community, and that's retrospective perspective on what happened. We're looking prospectively. We announced the closure of that depot and I publicly committed that we would revisit that.

Thank you. And I just want to say for the record, the councilwoman because I've spoken about this project because the councilwoman at the time, Kristen Richardson Jordan, she was raising several concerns and was And criticized for it in the I find it ironic that the concerns that she was raising, affordability, deeper affordability, more two and three bedrooms on the second proposal, those concerns are now part of the project that weren't part of the original project. So I just wanted to note that for the record because I've had a lot of people as a commissioner come up to me and raise this project. They've raised, you know, the power of a developer being able to, as is as I you've corrected

it here, but as

it says in the press, make demands, have maybe the mayor behind them and push out a city council member. And then that's it. If they don't go along with what's planned, then the developer wins. So I'm happy to see that the project comes back and it has all of these new you know, all of all of the things that the community was originally pushing for. I think for other projects, I think it would be helpful that maybe it doesn't have to take two and three goals, and it doesn't have to be this contentious.

But I wanted to ask you that because it really bothered me as a commissioner. And I really felt it was one of the projects that I just it really stuck with me quite a bit.

Well, share your opinion about the length of time it takes to get projects done, so I appreciate that. Yeah, we've spent many years going back and forth with the community. We've spoken to all the elected officials, dozens of stakeholders, many of whom are here today. And you're right, we incorporated a lot of the concerns and the issues that were raised with us along the way. This has been a multi, multi, multi year process. And I'm happy that you acknowledge because we've done

a lot of

work to try and incorporate those changes, increase the number of affordable units, increase the number of family size units, be responsive to the community that I think is evidenced in the community benefits agreement that we provided to you. So yes, this is a collaborative process and we learned a lot. We don't have all the answers and it was a process I think that yielded a good result. So I appreciate that and I acknowledge that too.

Thank you. Thank

you. Commissioner, Vice Chair Nichols?

Mr. Teitelbaum, while we have you, what do you envision for that community space and such that assuming the project went forward, you don't have eighteen months from now vacant space sitting there?

Yes. Commissioner, it's a great question. We've spent a lot of time talking to the community and to the various stakeholders in the community about that particular piece of the project. We call it Technovation forty five. It's designed as a place for the community, for young folks and for younger adults who can come to learn AI, advanced computer training, technology services. As Tristan mentioned, it's an open public space. It's really, really important for us. I've spoken to people at senior levels in the state and the city working with community members to design that. We think that based upon what we've heard from the community that is something that's very important to them. It's a place as Tristan mentioned where people can come, they can recreate this beautiful open public space.

But more importantly, a place that we hope to house, a facility that can provide opportunity, for young people in Harlem, for young adults in Harlem. Green Energy Center by the way, part of what we want to do there. Green Energy as you all know one of the fastest growing, if not the fastest growing blue collar profession in the state of New York. Folks in Harlem are grossly underrepresented in that space. We've been talking to folks in Green Energy and advanced energy, AI, computer training, things like that. Commissioner Knuckles, that's something I feel very strongly about. I've spoken to the local council member about this and other elected officials. It's an important piece of the project that we continue to refine and work with our stakeholders on.

Do you know any other similar usage that is in existence that kind of represents a model for this? I don't. I'd like

to take some credit or my development team who were terrific, take some credit for that. We've really done a lot of research here. What we found in talking to folks in Harlem is that what they want was something like this. And I really can't find another example. There might be. I don't want to say that we're the only people who are doing it. But what we're planning on doing, we think is so accretive to the community, would be so helpful and it will lay a foundation for opportunity and growth for people in that neighborhood. I feel very strongly about that. And I think that at the end of the day, we're going to create a model that can be replicated not only in Manhattan, but all across the city.

With regard to the greater subsidy levels that you're in discussion with HPD, Were that to be attained, it would be what the 145th Street Building? The mid block building, correct. Yes. And what would be the AMI ranges within that if

you were to? I don't want to misspeak, so we'll get back to you about that.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chairman. Commissioner Rampershead?

Just one question. It was mentioned that the Commissioner Mann's question about the park. You said prior to TCO, you're going to deliver construction? Yes. What mechanism is in place so they know? Because that process is usually a long process with the billing department. Right.

So can you just walk

me through or explain this just to clarify that a little further? Again, don't want to misspeak. Let expert tell you.

Yes, there would be a restricted declaration put on the property that requires a delivery in order to obtain TCO.

Okay. Restrictive deck. Okay. Thank you.

Great. Thank you very much. Thanks to all of you for the presentation. We're now going to move to members of the public who wish to be heard on calendars '23, '24 and '25. Starting with and I'm confirming Anthony Nixon is part of the applicant team, correct? Yes. Okay. Let's go to Katrina Acosta Pele on Zoom followed by Julius Tajadine here in the room.

Hello? Can you hear me?

We can.

Greetings city council excuse me. Greetings city planning. My name is Patrianna Costappel, and I'm a shareholder of Esplanade Gardens as well as a public relations professional in the community. I'm here today to testify against one four five project and ask the city planning and city council to vote this project down and for mister Teitelbaum to build as of right. I have witnessed the gentrification of Harlem within the last thirty years.

Over twenty years ago, I attended a meeting called how sheep live amongst wolves. This was in this was held in the Schaumburg Auditorium roughly 2004, 2005. My boyfriend and I were the only African descendants in attendance. Needless to say, this was a meeting about how white Anglo Saxon people were going to live amongst black foundation population that inhabited Harlem for over one hundred years since the abolition of slavery. They talked about how black people would be eventually priced out and biding their time and to be patient with the process, smile and nod, get in before dark during the winter, and other skills to be friendly amongst the wolves for the sheep's survival.

We were appalled. The instructor was visibly uncomfortable as he never thought any people of color would be in attendance. Fast forward to today, and here we have the plan attempting to unfold before our eyes. There are so many things wrong with this project that will disrupt the livelihoods of existing residents, concerns of the height, diminution of sunlight, urban island effect, noise and light pollution, carbon emissions. However, I will stick to the most obvious, gentrification, fair housing act, breach of constitutional laws, and the voting rights act.

This project is unaffordable to any persons except white people. We have taken the median AMI from The USA census. And as of today, the project stands Asians, blacks, Hispanics, Latinos living in community board 10 all make under the necessary threshold to qualify for these apartments, leaving the only qualified candidate on the table, white people. However, this project is not set to be built today, tomorrow, or even next year. The earliest time would be at least five years from now.

Right now, AMI for African Americans is at most 52,000 with Asians under 75 k. And if the AMI goes over 200,000, the income bands in affordability package will be 300 k for families of three, which in truth is market rate. These income bands would violate the Fair Housing Act because it affects largely black families. Right now, 60% of heads of household in Central Harlem and East Harlem earn 30,000 or less. 33% are at below our federal poverty level.

Gentrification raises concerns under the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits discrimination in housing based on race and color. Gentrification leads to systematic excluding minority groups from affordable housing and could be challenged under federal civil rights laws. Gentrification Time? Systematic to discrimination and is appropriately impacts low income people of color potentially violating the equal protection cause of the fourteenth amendment. I'm almost done. When gentrification leads to to racial and economic

Please please wrap up.

Okay. So I'm just gonna go down to just say there are many large scale developments in Harlem waiting in the wings to see where this goes. The owners of Lenox Terrace are one. Harlem stands to lose its blackness if our government allows unconstitutional measures to go forward. This is not there's nothing unconstitutional about having time? Being black.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. We to end it there. I'm sorry. We have a thank you. Let me see if there are any questions. Okay. Thank you very much for joining us. We're going move on to Julius Tajuddin here in the room followed by Joshua Clennan and John Englund.

Welcome. Good morning, you all. Preserve Harlem's legacy, the majority of black residents living in District nineCommunity Board ten and I don't object to development on the proposed site. However, the project calls for two buildings that will be four zero seven feet high. That's too damn high.

The affordable housing component has income bands at the time the units will go to market likely in the range of 100,000 to $300,000 for a family of three. Triniana, she addressed that. So clearly, this project will be excluding many black families and households. Many of them live in overcrowded, dilapidated housing and deserve to live in new affordable for their income housing in their community. This project will trigger a slew of high density housing in the district that will change the voting power of the district's black population because they will no longer be the majority or have a healthy plurality.

As city planning and city council approve this proposal, they will be violating the Voting Rights Act. Lastly, the project sits in an area that is in a liquefaction potential area. However, if an earthquake of any magnitude struck at or near the project area, there's a greater than 50% chance that the soil returned to near liquid because the liquefaction potential is higher in that area. Seismologists say that New York City is due for a five magnitude earthquake. It can strike anywhere. And the worst case scenario for soil liquefaction is very possible in certain areas of the city, the 145 area being one of them. In fact, the project sits in the middle of two faults, the Dykeman Street Fault and the 125th

Street Fault.

These two faults are among the five in the city, which are the most prone to seismic activity. This information was presented to CB-ten and it was ignored, which is not only preposterous, but very suspicious because the sources of such information are highly credible. The CB10 resolution amidst these concerns and therefore offers no demand or solution. But because one hundred forty five failed to do an environmental assessment on the liquefaction issue, the project must be put on hold. One of CB10's suggested conditions consists of an advisory committee that will have CB10 board members on it.

Borough President Mark Levine claims to have entered into an MOU with a developer, which the community he represents have not even seen. This is not only preposterous, one is a conflict of interest and the other is illegal. These two opinions demonstrate that both of these offices are not acting in the best interest of the Harlem community. Because of the nature and importance of this opposition, I will be submitting a few more documents before the final vote, including a PowerPoint and other reports that I just learned of this myself. For the developer not to have a draft scoping hearing for this second go around is ludicrous.

Because the knowledge that we get, like what I knew four years ago, I know more now.

Time.

All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for being with us. And we look forward to receiving the additional information. Joshua Clennan? Mr. Clennon, are you here? Okay. Mr. England, John England? Welcome. To be followed by Ryan Geldner.

Good morning, everyone. My name John England, and I'm one of the directly impacted residents as a result of the stop one for five project. My original address is 1985 7th Avenue, but this address is 121 West 1 44th Street, 1026, Apartment 3 B. And in in qualifying, what Julius was saying about the liquefaction and everything, about Sandy and everything, we got the tail end of Sandy in 145th Street midway up the block on 7th Avenue was crowded was flooded. Okay?

As far as the community centers, we have one, Frederick Samuel, that's out of use. They haven't used it in the last twenty something years. I've been relocated for twenty four years now. And as far as HPD and you guys working with them, they're not even fixing up things in my relocation. I haven't had a paint job in three years.

Okay? I haven't my toilet and my sink are stomped up now, and I'm trying to work with HPD to get them to come and fix it. So as far as back to the one four fifth project, I oppose it because 60% of it is not gonna be affordable. I'm on a fixed income like most of everybody else that lives in that neighborhood is on fixed income, and we just can't afford that the rent hike. We just can't afford it.

And I don't know how they're gonna work as far as a museum. Why don't you put a community law library or or a a library period instead of giving us parks and things for the kids to play out in the street. They need to learn business. They need to learn infrastructure. Most of the people that are sitting on this panel can't read blueprints. I'm a retiree from local seventy nine, I know this. That's all I got to say because I don't want to beat the dead horse. I'd like to thank you for letting me share that, mister Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you for being with us. We appreciate it. Okay. Next up is Ryan Geldner.

Ryan, are you able to unmute yourself? Ryan's a dial in.

Yeah, I did too.

Chair, we do have Joshua Clennon back in Zoom.

Okay. So let's go back to Mr. Clennon, and then we'll see if we can identify Mr. Geldner, then we'll move on. Okay. Mr. Clennon, you're up.

Mr. Clennon, you can unmute when you're ready.

Hi. Hello? Hello. Hi. Good morning. Yeah. It took a while to switch over to panelists. Good morning, everyone. I wanna thank, the the commission for hearing this application today. I'm test I am giving testimony today, in opposition to the project.

While I and many others in the community would love to see this site developed, And there are many, you know, aspects of the plan that I appreciate, you know, such as the the tech center, the geothermal heating, and things of that nature. The the primary crux of the issue with this plan continues to be affordability. As you know, there's not much difference between this plan and the and the the initial plan that was rejected previously, by our community. This plan, the certified plan allocates 60% of the units to studios, which fails to address the diverse housing needs of working families in the Harlem community. While studios, know, offer some, you know, some value and and there are, you know, community space and amenities associated with the project, Just many in our community are not going to be able to assess that due to the composition of the building.

I also feel there has been some misrepresentation of this plan. The development team has repeatedly cited an enhanced plan during discussions, with the community. However, this enhanced plan is not a part of the certification process and is not subject to a vote. So, therefore, relying on this unapproved concept misleads the community about the project's true nature and its benefit. And it seems as though all the support regarding this project is contingent on the adoption of the enhanced plan.

Although should the developer choose to proceed solely with the certified plan, the promised enhancements and by extension, the affordable housing the additional affordable housing they are promising, will not materialize. The developer is under no obligation to pursue these enhancements if the certified plan is approved by this body and the city council. The developer has also cited a willingness to enter into a a community benefits agreement, yet, we have seen very few details regarding, what the CBA would look like, its provisions, or the the the signatories that would be, you know, responsible for enforcing the CBA. It is crucial for us as a community to know, you know, which community organizations would be signatories, whether those organizations have a self interest in the process in the project as such conflicts of interest would obviously undermine the accountability and effectiveness of any CBA agreement. So, therefore, due to these in light of these issues, I urge the decision makers on this commission to reconsider the approval of the current, you know, one forty five certified plan until a more robust, transparent, and enforceable framework is established that guarantees affordable, family oriented housing and holds, this developer accountable.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Stay with us. We have a question from commissioner Goodrich.

Hi. I have a question. What would the ideal affordability mix look like for you? I'm looking I see the tentative mix. I see the enhanced plan.

I've always said I too am not fond of the 120% AMI, which means you can make up to 6 figures for one person and be eligible for it. I don't feel like that's affordable housing. But I'm wondering what for you and what for this community board would a proposal look like? Because I believe this is over if I'm correct, I believe it's over the 30%. I think we're at now like 50% of the units will be affordable housing, which is much no.

48.

That's not the case for the Okay. Certified

So can you give me a sense of what would the community board accept for this project for it to look affordable?

Well, I'm I'm not currently serving on the community board, so I can't speak to them. But I would say for me, as someone who works in affordable housing, as a housing background and a and a Harlem resident, I would like to see a a more even mix. You know, I'd like to see at least 20% of the project be two bedrooms, at least, you know, 10 to 15%, three bedrooms, a decent amount of true one bedroom apartments, because, you know, we do have a lot of people in our community who who are single mep single parents, single mothers, who who even if they can afford a two bedroom apartment, would jump at the opportunity for a one bedroom, a true one bedroom apartment. But, studio apartments, this is not you know, we're a very family oriented community, that could work in, you know, maybe Midtown where you have a lot of transients, a lot of, you know, students, a lot of internationals who are here for for work and other reasons, but that's just not the Harlem community. So, we would like to see a more diverse composition, more balanced composition so

that,

you know, residents of our community are are able to take advantage of of of this project because, you know, we are a community that's very much in need of affordable housing. There's been very too little, you know, MIH affordable development done in the Harlem community, and we are not, anti development at all. We wanna see this site develop, but we want to just make sure that, developers are going to be, you know, good faith partners, that they're going to be transparent about what they're going to build, and that they are going to, work with our community rather than you know, sometimes it feels like they're trying to pull a fast one

on us.

So for the so for the two bedrooms, they have right now 23% and then 7% for three bedrooms. So I have a sense of you know, let me ask just about affordability. What would this is just my last question. What ideally would the affordability mix look like for, you know, for the community to upset?

I think we wanna see a majority of, you know, a majority of the affordable units below below the 100% AMI. I think, you know, that 40%, 60%, 80% range, that is where most of the, the residents of Harlem, are looking for. We also would like some deeply affordable housing at the 30% range AMI, but that is the sweet spot. I think most of the the units right now are designated at a 120%. So that would be great so that we can get a more diverse composition.

Okay. Alright. Thank you.

Thanks, commissioner. Thank you very much, mister Clinton. We appreciate it. Let me move on to Ryan Gelder, if he's there.

Chair, do not have Ryan. Okay.

Let's move on then to Sarah Penenberg on Zoom followed by Diana Blackwell.

Sarah, are you able to unmute your mic on Zoom?

Yes. Hello. Can you hear me?

I can hear you.

Behalf of Sarah Penenberg. She had to step out

of the meeting.

Okay. Okay.

Sorry to confuse you all there.

Go ahead. Go ahead. Thank you.

Good morning, chair Gironic.

And introduce yourself. Introduce yourself too, please.

My name is Theo Perez here. My, good morning to chair Gronick and all members of the city planning commission. Again, I am Theo Perez, and I'm here today representing SEIU local thirty two b j. Thirty two b j is the largest union of property service workers in the country, representing over a 175,000 members across 13 states, including tens of thousands of commercial property service workers, security officers, and residential building staff right here in New York City. Thirty two BJ supports responsible developers who invest in the communities where they build, and I am happy to report that the developers behind this proposed project have made a credible commitment to creating prevailing wage jobs for the workers who will permanently staff the building.

We estimate that this rezoning will allow for the creation of likely somewhere around 14 or 15 property service jobs. Good jobs like these mean prevailing wages, meaningful benefits, and a pathway to the middle class for local community members who tend to fill such positions. Moreover, we need more housing to be built in every neighborhood of New York City to ensure that working families are not displaced by dwindling supply and skyrocketing rents. The proposed development will include 968 residential units, approximately 291 of which will be permanently income restricted for low to middle income residents. As the cost of living rises and working New Yorkers struggle to stay in their homes, it is more important now than ever to create affordable housing and good jobs which uphold the industry standard in the city.

For all these reasons, thirty two BJ is in strong support of the one forty five for Harlem rezoning. Thank you all for your time.

Great. Thank you very much. Let's move on to Diana Blackwell followed by Melba Wilson.

Diana, are you able to unmute your mic on the phone?

Yes. Thank you. Good morning. I would like to first thank the city planning commission and its members for the opportunity to speak. My name is Diana Blackwell, and I'm the president of the Fred Samuel Resident Association, which is part of the NYCHA RAD PAC conversion, which we have six of our buildings which are directly impacted by January.

I'm here today to support the project and urge the commission to vote in favor of the certified plan. This certified plan will mean nearly 300 permanent affordable homes in our community that is in desperate need. I would also like to say, even though we're in this night shift pack, some of our residents are waiting to submit an application to move over there once it opens. The certified plan will mean that the by revitalization of the entire neighborhood, and it will benefit the entire community. One forty five will create nearly a thousand new homes for individuals and families across various income bands reflecting of the community needs.

One forty five will mean jobs, economic opportunity, career training, and it will bring hope to a neighborhood that has been left behind. I do support the project because it will ultimately bring tens of millions of dollars and economic activity into the community which desperately needs it. I want to also just say that this developer has and is keeping their commitments to us and have and are just demonstrating that they are willing to be good willing to be good to their word. They're working hard to earn our trust, and they are and have been making significant improvements to the project as we express our concern. I would like to just conclude, say that it is incomprehensible that any project with such benefits should take this long to complete so that I'm going to say, I ask you to support and say yes as I support and favor the one forty five certified plan.

Thank you.

Thank you, miss Blackwell. Thank you for being with us. Melba Wilson is next.

We do not have Melba.

Okay. How about, Jared, Delaney?

We do have Jared.

Hello. Can you hear me?

We can.

Wonderful. Good morning, everybody. My name is Gerard Delaney. Thank you for giving me your time today. I'm in support of this project. I am an architect and a developer. I think that we have a housing crisis everywhere right now. We need all of the above. We need affordable housing. We need senior housing.

We need supportive housing. We need home ownership. This product is a move in the right direction. The whole point of the city of yes initiative was to incentivize to create more housing. That's part of how we address the housing crisis by both preservation of existing housing stock and create a new this project built using the certified plan.

It's gonna be one of the largest development projects in Harlem in decades. And we built a project in A Hundred 24th Street. And, you know, I think that this is helpful. If you think about it, a young person in this neighborhood today that's 18, 19 years old, this is gonna serve them in four years from now. Right? How do we keep those young people to stay in the community for the future? We have to create more housing for them. So I'm in support of the project, and, thank you all for your time, and you have a blessed day.

Great. Thank you very much. Maria Davis is next on Zoom followed by William Allen.

Maria, are you able to unmute?

Good afternoon. Hi. My name is Moray Davis, and I'm trying to put my camera on. Is it on?

We we don't see it, but we can hear you.

Okay. Great. I just wanna first say that I am in full support, and I definitely strongly encourage the city planning commission to also support and vote yes on this certified plan. This certified plan will create nearly 300 permanent affordable apartments, which that word affordable is definitely subjective, so we can all have a viewpoint about what's affordable. And this project will also bring almost 1,000 new homes to our community, which is desperately needed.

The project will also create a form of economic growth and job opportunities within our very stifled commute community. Clearly, the project will become an asset and help improve the community. Thus far, the developers have maintained their commitments and their promises. And to my personal engagement, they have demonstrated their desire to behave as good actors and become good neighbors to our community. In addition, this project will assist in New York City's desperate need for housing and will also bring millions of consumer dollars into the community.

The project will also create retail opportunities and a safer and cleaner environment on 1 45th Street. Please understand our Harlem community is saturated with government, social services, drug rehabs, methadone clinics, and homeless shelters, and other treatment facilities, and other forms of supportive housing. We are saturated here in Central Harlem, so we don't need more of that element. The 1 45th project will bring new business and positive components to our community. It is imperative that the city planning commission support this project.

It's unconscionable for any of our decision makers to sit by and idly watch the area remain in a dilapidated and unsanitary state. As a native and lifelong Harlem resident, it is embarrassing and neglectful to allow this eyesore to remain when we have the ability to do something positive, productive, and hopeful and helpful to the community. And I wanna echo the chair sentiments at the end of this long arduous road to give shout outs and praise to community boards and those who make wise decisions in developing this property. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We appreciate your being with us. Okay. William Allen, followed by Larry Nickens.

William, are you able to unmute yourself in Zoom?

I just did. Can you see me?

Awesome. Thank you.

We got you. We got you. Welcome.

You know, thank you so much. You know, this this this kind of project is a long way coming. You know, when I when I was the first teenager appointed to the community board by Percy Sutton and now returning decades later, boy, we've had got some challenges. And the challenge is, unfortunately, sometime private developers are expected to do more than the government has been doing and responsible doing. And so I'm just proud the fact that these developers have reached out to the entire community.

They struggle with a community board that that they wanted to fully educate on this process, and they've reached out to every single elected official. Harlem is in need of housing. As you look from Harlem over into the Southern part of the Bronx, you see a new Bronx. It's like you look across the water. You see, Emerald City, and and and it's almost like Harlem is being left behind.

And so this is a very significant project, and and I'm just really so proud of these developers. They've reached out to everybody. They they have put affordable affordability at the top of the list. They've asked the city councilman, to reach out to HPD and others to make sure that the city government does its part to make sure this can become an affordable project, because it's very difficult to ask private people to write a check where often it is the responsibility of government. Right?

And and so I know this is very challenging. I know there are some people that might be opposed to this project for a whole variety of reasons, but I I really believe that this is a project in the right direction. And I know that there is a lot of fears about gentrification. I'm concerned about that. Right now in Harlem, as African Americans, we're down to 41 42% of the population.

And largely because we have not really truly been involved in these kind of discussions. And so the last couple of years, we now have began to focus on having these discussions. You know, up until the early nineteen nineties, the city Of New York owned, like, 81% of Harlem real estate. And that was also a chance for the community to have a bigger say in how what gets built. Unfortunately, when we didn't get David Dinkins back in office, you know, we missed that opportunity, unfortunately.

But I I truly believe that now we have the right team in place. I think Youssef Salaam is doing an incredible job. Senator Cordell Clear, assemblyman Jordan Wright, assemblyman Al Taylor, senator Robert Jackson, district leaders, we've all been coming together, and we've all shown support for this project. We've all shown support to make it also affordable. And, we're hoping that the city planning commission do the right thing because we're in support of this project. Thank you very much.

Great. Thank you, mister Allen. Thanks very much. Okay. Let me bring, Larry Nickens up, and then we're gonna try, Ryan Geldner again on on the phone. Welcome.

Welcome. Is it is it afternoon yet? Good good afternoon.

It's just barely. Just barely. On.

Let me get my old eyes together over here. Larry Nickens, of course, I've been a resident in Harlem for sixty years. The development conversation is typically new, but the landscape and the progression and the need for progression is not new.

What I

wanna start by saying is we have to learn as Harlem residents to respect people's choices. As William Allen said, the educational part is important. So I've been here for sixty years and part of a collective of a 104 residents, parents, youth content creators, etcetera. We looked at the arguments that we came across in hearings and town halls. Brownfields, that was a argument.

Environmental impact studies was a argument. As Julius mentioned, the trend line not what's the the language trend lines?

No. No.

No. No.

Let let

me read from my notes. I'm trying to go without the notes. Environmental impact. One of the things that came up on the environmental impact side was the traffic at one four five. So we, as a group, educate ourselves, and we learned that post 09:11, the traffic at one four five wasn't robust.

After 09:11, traffic subsided because a lot of people were working from home, and they weren't traveling into jobs. Long story short, I don't oppose the project. I recommend that if there's objections, we address the objections. We get to the bottom of what works for the community. But like the lady said, 145 is an embarrassment, and there's no way that it's an option to leave it in that condition.

No one can justify that. So if it's the AMI splitting out here, we gotta get we gotta get after that. If it's about an environmental impact or is there gonna be an earthquake, we gotta get to the bottom of that. But no one can justify leaving one four five in the condition it's in. That's totally unacceptable. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Okay. Let me go back to Ryan Geldner on the phone.

Ryan, are you able to unmute? Hello? Hi. Yes. I can hear you. Sorry. The phone

is giving me issues here. So I just I'm gonna try to go quick. I oppose the build because of the scale of the project. I think it negatively impacts the character of the community. I don't suppose development, but just the mass scale, it seems kind of like they're taking advantage of the local community, like, almost exploiting the local community and a little bit greedy that it needs to be so large.

Also, the runoff and the the grass on the local infrastructure, we build a brand new building, but the infrastructure is still not up to par with the sewer system. The combined sewer overflows is gonna be a lot more impacting the local wildlife, the migration patterns with the glass, and this need for bird safe glass, and kinda just taking care of not just the humans, but also there's other living things in New York City that need to be considered. And especially, think the local waterways and the impact that it's gonna have on the local waterways. And the like I said, the size is just kind of immense and doesn't fit in to the character of Harlem, which is unfortunately something that I feel like I'm just gonna say it. The community boards on the East Side Of Harlem have just completely sold out the air rights.

And thinking about why those air rights were in place in the first place. And this isn't housing local Harlemites, and we all know that. Like, you can pretend all you want to, but this is new people coming into the neighborhood. It's it's not affordable. I'm a teacher. I can't afford to live in there. I wouldn't make enough money. And to me, I think I have a good job in Harlem, a respectable job. I have teacher friends that they didn't get in on the HDFC early enough, and a lot of them, you know, they can't even get in a house. So we have teachers, nurses.

How many people in this building are gonna be teachers and nurses and people that actually work directly in this community. They're probably mostly gonna be people that are traveling downtown. And so since they're going downtown and the buildings downtown are already big, like, I just think it should be a more modest uptown feel, and and the 120% is not an affordable option. So and like the the people have said, you know, making a lot more two, if you wanna house people in Harlem, then you wanna house people in Harlem. But if you're just trying to develop and bring people into the neighborhood, that's different, and that's where all the gentrification comes in, and everything starts being more unaffordable, and it puts stress on the local community even though you might think it's like, oh, this is great.

We're building all our stuff. I mean, we can look around and do a survey. There's a bunch of new buildings up over here where I'm at, and I don't think any of the people that are living in those buildings lived in Harlem before they moved into that building. So I just I'm just that's my piece. Thank you.

Great. Thank you very much. Thanks for that. Okay. Next up is Sora Yara. And then I believe we heard from Maura Davis already, I believe. I called her as Maria Davis, but I believe it's the same person. So let's just confirm. But Sona I'm sorry, Sora Yara is up next.

Sora, are you able to unmute yourself?

Zora Yara?

Okay. And assuming that I'm correct about Moira Davis, I'm going to move on to Rick Pipps on Zoom, followed by Anthony Henriksen here in the room.

I do not have Rick

out Mr. Hendrickson, welcome. And next up will be a Chantal Ripley and a Brian Dee on Zoom.

Good evening. How are doing?

Good. Thank you.

Yes. My name is Anthony Hendrickson, Antonio. He called me I'm born and raised in Harlem. And I have about 12 or 15 businesses in Harlem. And I will have a nonprofit that work with a lot of young people and work with a lot of people who are system impact, justice involved, and a lot of them don't have jobs.

And I hope and pray that we come to some type of resolution about this project, that we can work it out. Because I just wanna echo something that mister Nick said. That community over there, it just looked terrible where everything else is going good, especially across the waters in the Bronx. The fact of the matter is this, from my perspective and I and and mister Julian Barnes, I respect him. He's an elder statement of our community.

Right? And and and we all have opinions in our views as respectfully. Speaking from the position that I work from with providing jobs for young people in the community and working with those so called gang members. And they come to me for jobs. I just got some jobs yesterday.

The project will commit will create jobs where we could train these young men and women on carpentry, brick mason, plumbing, electrician. In addition to that, they will have a place that will be teaching them about AI in the community. Also, the economy in the area. It will bring more economics to the area that will be good for the business in the area. Right now, there are businesses in our neighborhood.

And some of my businesses, it I had to close because there's no there's no movement. There's no traffic. So if the building is erected and people come into that space that can spend money to revitalize the economy and the community, and we can get those young people these jobs and these career pathways, and we can have a place that is safe and they can learn and we can qualify them to live in a building if it's affordable or not. They will have the knowledge to get the money they need to live any way they wanna live, and we won't be having these conversations. So I'm for the project from my perspective.

No disrespect to anyone else and how they feel about it, but I'm for the project unapologetically from my vantage point. Thank you for allowing me time to speak.

Great. We appreciate it. Thank you. I'm going to ask people just to hold their applause. Let me note, I'm sorry, to Maria Davis. It sounds like you are in fact there and that we have two people with a very similar sounding name. So, Maria Davis, you are up next with apologies.

Good morning. How are you? Sorry I'm not on camera. But, I am someone that lives have lived in the community for a very long time. I'm a AIDS survivor. My children grew up have grown up in Harlem. And from the years of working in Harlem and seeing Harlem, I'm not against the project. What I am against is we keep getting these promises, and the promises never pan out for affordability. I saw all of the the the the apartments. I know the West Harlem is gonna do the affordable part of it, but they have not even gotten funding from my understanding when I went to the last community board meeting.

There has been no funding yet for the affordable part of the project, the, one forty five project 45 project. And I'm concerned with that. I'm concerned with the train station. It's very small. The number three train is very small right there. How is that going to be opened up and widen? The park across the street, the people that are gonna come the community, like a gentleman said before, that does not live in this community. My daughter who works is at ACS. She makes middle income. She cannot afford to live in Harlem.

The rental on 8th Avenue close to where I live is $5,000 and $6,000 a month. And, you know, I feel that Manhattan has Harlem has become a real estate town. Everybody comes to to build in Harlem, but nobody is really caring about the people that live in Harlem. And so I would prefer I would like to see a better better amenities and better, rent prices that we can afford to live in apartment. And our young people that have grown up here, gone to college, they cannot even come back to Harlem to live because the rent is too high.

And so I I just feel that if you wanna come in the community, you wanna build in the community, you have to be a part of the community, and you have to think about the people in the community. And thank you for listening.

Thank you. Thanks for your patience today too. Okay. Chantel Ripley is next on Zoom followed by Brian Dee, which may be Brian Darling. Okay. Alright. Chantel Ripley?

Chantel, are you able to unmute in Zoom?

There we are.

Can you hear me?

We can.

Hi. Thank you for your time today. My name is Chantel Ripley, and I am in strong support here for the certified plan of the 145 development in Harlem. I'd like to say that along with my daughter and her fiance, we both live and work in Harlem. And as we all know, Harlem is facing well, all of Manhattan, but significantly Harlem as well is facing a significant housing shortage.

This plan actually plans to bring close to a thousand new apartments for individuals all the way up through small families and of all income levels. Clearly, the 300 affordable units are in dire need for more housing opportunities for current Harlem residents as well. As it sits right now, the property is empty. It's not being used. I can think of no better use for this land than to create new homes for New Yorkers from all diverse economic backgrounds.

Obviously, an approval is gonna bring jobs. It's gonna bring economic growth, more opportunity. It's gonna increase pride in the neighborhood and the community by bringing safer and cleaner streets, which will also uplift the surrounding neighborhood spirits and morales. It's really hard to understand why a project with this many benefits would take this long to be completed and approved. So to wrap up, I just wanna say I am obviously in support, and I think it's time that we all vote yes and make this a better place for everyone.

Great. Thank you very much. I'm gonna now call Brian Darling with the assumption that he is in fact Brian Dee.

I don't have either Brian D or Darling in the room.

Okay. Alright. Well, then we'll move on to a John G, John Goodell, on Zoom followed by Rhonda Hughes.

John, you should be able to unmute your mic in Zoom.

Yep. I'm here. Alright.

Welcome.

Thank you very much. Oh, you can hear see me? Yeah. I'm not actually in

the We can we can. We can now hear and see you.

Okay. Wonderful. I am a business owner for over a decade in Harlem. I've also worked there for over twenty years now. I am in strong support of this project.

Not only would it bring in large you know, tens of millions of economic boom to the area. But it is, as a gentleman mentioned, just sort of an eyesore in the area. And it's if you've actually been and walked those streets, it can especially at night, it can feel this is personal opinion, but it can feel unsafe. There's just not it's it's just not an area that feels like the rest of Harlem. And and having a project like that would just and the amount of people that that would come there and revitalize the area from the community as well as outside of the community, I think it would really help to benefit the whole area.

So I'm and just really in strong support of building building something that actually would put Harlem on on the map as a real place for people to wanna to live and grow. And I think the community centers for what the developers have done have seen this project over the past few years and the fact that they've worked with the community boards and have changed the plans over and over again. I think they're they've shown that they're willing to continue to address the issues until they especially with affordability. I've heard that until they're solved. But the the fact is that this project really, you know, should be moving forward, and already happening right now because it would it would help Harlem, and improve improve the landscape as well as the economic activity there.

Another gentleman mentioned, there's a lot of stores that are just not not operating and or operating really low and probably gonna go out of business soon. And it's a shame. And if there were more people in that area and there was more housing for them to have, that this would, the you know, that would change. That's my belief.

So Great. Thank you very much. We appreciate you being with us. Okay. Let me move on to Rhonda Hughes followed by Sarah Salzberg.

Rhonda, you should be able to unmute yourself in mute in Zoom.

Hi. My name is Rhonda Hughes, and I'm the strong support of the one four five project because it would bring jobs to the community, a new community center in the neighborhood for the youth and the community. And it'll beautify the neighborhood because right now, it does not look very nice down there right now. And I grew up in Harlem, and I'm always used to that area being active, more bright, brilliant, and just need to be something done in that area right now. Thank you.

Thank you, miss Hughes. Sarah Salzberg. Sarah Salzberg. To be followed by Fatima. Sarah Salzberg.

Hi. I'm Sarah Hold

on one second.

Can you see me?

We can hear you.

Okay. Okay. I hopefully, you can see me too. But if you can hear me, that's almost as good. My name is Sarah Salzberg. I'm writing to voice my very strong support for +1 45. I'm a Harlem resident, and I've been a Harlem resident for the last ten years. I live on 139 in Edgecombe. I moved to the area when my first child, who is now nine, was six months old, and I now have a second son who is seven. I also own a small business on A Hundred And 16th Street that I've had since 2011.

So I I've been in the area for a very long time previous to owning my business. I worked in Harlem starting in about 2000. I support this the certified plan of January for a variety of reasons. First of all, personally, as a Harlem resident, I'm very excited about improvements to the retail landscape. We

just

we need more quality of life services in the area. The neighborhood deserves that. Harlem deserves it. It shouldn't be that, you know, you wanna go to a a fancy restaurant or a retail store, you have to go downtown. Be nice to have those things in our neighborhood.

Very importantly that I don't think anybody has brought up so far, I'm a parent of two young children, and I'm very happy to see a project that is being built responsibly with environmental health concerns for our community. My youngest son has asthma, and we spend winters in and out of the hospital because he has, you know, breathing issues. So I I think that it's really important to have construction that's responsible and takes the well-being of Harlem's youngest community members into account. I also wanna echo what many people have said, which is that I I am very fortunate to live in Harlem, but we are in a housing crisis that we haven't seen since the sixties. We're at a 1.4% vacancy rates.

That's insane. There must be more housing. I think it is wonderful that this developer has taken the feedback, of the community board, of the community members to have 300 of those units, affordable. But I also think it's important to just have have different types of housing available in general. We need to have low income and market rate units to increase, you know, the vacancy rates and to offer permanent affordability.

I think that this project will create hundreds of jobs, which will benefit the community, will bring millions of dollars into Harlem, which will improve community businesses and lead to better quality of services for community sorry.

Thank you, miss Salzburg.

For our support.

Thank you very much. Fatima Cargbo. Fatima Cargbo. Be followed by Idara O'Too.

Fatima, are you able to unmute and Zoom? Fatima?

Going once.

Can we move on to Idara?

Okay.

Idara o two.

Idara, are you able to unmute and zoom?

Yes, I am. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Good morning all. My name is Idara Oto. I'm an eight year resident and business owner in Community Bourbon Town where this building is being proposed to be built. I'm in full support of the certified plan. It's no surprise that New York City faces a steep housing crisis that feels quite acute in community board ten as we've had one of the lowest number of new units added over the last ten years.

The certified plan aims to add nearly 300 affordable units that are desperately needed in this neighborhood and nearly a thousand new units, period. I watched this team listen to the community and willingly support an enforceable community board's community benefits agreement that will provide permanent jobs that are desperately needed in the district, ambitions to train youth in the green economy, build a a commitment to prioritize local business owners for commercial space, and finally, to build and manage with MWBEs. People like me need these types of projects to keep us here, quite frankly. I've heard many community residents talk about the affordability in the neighborhood. While I understand the gentrification concerns, I think it's quite reductionist to assume and believe that black people are not among the high earning population in this district or in this city.

Black people in Harlem and in community board ten occupy every socioeconomic class, so it is incorrect to assume that black people will not qualify for both the affordable and the market rate units. I am a resounding yes. Thank you.

Thank you. Gregory Christopher Baggett. Gregory Christopher Baggett. Might that be you, sir?

That's me. Yes. Thank you. So thanks a lot for giving me the opportunity to speak. As the president of the a Philip Randolph Square Neighborhood Alliance, I'm here to express my support for the one four five for Harlem resounding application.

This project has potential to bring real and substantial benefits to residents directly affected by the development project while meeting numerous community needs. Today, I wanna focus specifically on the critical need for an enforceable community benefits agreement and our vision for making this reality. I want to state clearly that working in conjunction with partners at the J. Max Bond Center, we had the opportunity to evaluate both certified projects past and present and develop scores based on objective research. And our analysis of the certified projects versus the what I call the hearsay project concluded that the new project shows a notable increase across several metrics and community priority measures.

So to the community benefits, so there are about eight planks within the community benefits, and I won't bother to list them because they're in the documents that you have. However, these proposals remain largely abstract concepts that amount to little more than items on a PowerPoint presentation. My recent investigations in the community discovered a proposed expansion of a medical facility at the site that would have greatly enhanced the developers community benefits proposal had that information been shared during the two public hearings. Our community deserves and requires much more substance, transparency, engagement, and accountability concerning these benefits. I wanna clarify what a proper community benefits agreement entails.

A community benefits agreement is a private contract between a developer and community organizations, not government officials. Under the contract, the developer agrees to provide specific benefits to the community while community groups agree to support or not oppose the development project in the governmental approval process. It's crucial to understand that the CBA is not merely a pledge, commitment, or any nonbinding deal or not even the memorandum of understanding.

Thank you, mister Baggett. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. I just wanna clarify that the CBA is not formally before us. It's it's just the land use considerations that

we I understand that, but I wanted to ask if the committee would move that recommendation forward to the mayor and to city council as it was done with the borough president's office.

We hear your advocacy. Thank you very much. Bria Mathis. Bria Mathis. Bria Mathis.

Hopefully, I have Bria.

Okay. I think we heard from Larry Nickens. Did we not?

Yes. Yes.

Okay. Shams DeBaron.

Greetings to the commissioners. Appreciate your time.

Sir. Afternoon. Good afternoon. My name is Shamster Baron, known as the homeless hero and the housing hero. I stand before you as someone whose life story is woven into the very fabric of this site.

I was once a homeless child in Harlem. As a teenager, I slept right across the street in the park that is now called Brigadier General Charles Young Playground where this development is proposed. I spent part of my childhood childhood just blocks away living on 140th Street between 7th And 8th Avenues. This is why I passionately support the 145 development. Right now, there is no housing on this site, but there could be.

This project will bring nearly 1,000 apartments, including nearly 300 permanently affordable homes to a community oversaturated with shelters but starved for housing. If we don't build housing, the alternative could be yet another shelter in a community that desperately needs homes. Recent data shows that a 146,000 New York City students are homeless today. In East Harlem, at least 2,102, that's over 20%, lack stable housing. In Manhattan, nearly one in six students are homeless.

These aren't just numbers. They're children without a home. I understand the concerns that some in the community may have, but after ten years of pushback and redesign, 145 is no longer just another development. It's a community shaped project that now includes a community curated center. This is not a recreation center, so to speak.

It'll be a space designed to meet the real needs of the people, a hub that'll foster innovation, entrepreneurship, and opportunity in a part of Harlem that has never had such a thing. This project also sets an example of how development should be done in communities like ours. A black owned development company is codeveloping the project, ensuring that inclusion is not just an afterthought but a critical piece of the process. It shows that large scale development projects in Harlem don't have to extract from us. They can elevate us.

As one of the voices who fought for and successfully helped pass the city of Yesper Housing opportunity, I know that developments like 145 are exactly what we need to undo the decades of racist zoning policies that have kept community like ours from thriving. I ask you to think about this. When I was sleeping in that park across the across the street from the site as a homeless teenager and young adult, there was no housing there for me. Today, thousands of homeless children in Harlem face the same reality. They don't need another shelter.

They need a home. One four five, there's a chance to give them that. I urge you to vote yes so that one day when I visit that park again, I can look across the street and see not another shelter.

Thank you. Thank

you, mister Hubert.

Thank you. I don't know if my mic is working at the moment. Can you hear me? Is that working?

I think I think they're working.

Are we working now? Okay. Thank you, mister DeBaron. I just wanted to address my appreciation to you. Before you go, mister Goodrich has a question or comment? Yes. Agree.

I just

want to

Thank you so much for your testimony. I take it you've been at the community board meeting.

Yes.

Okay.

I was wondering if you could provide some insight. I have to be honest, I'm a little bit surprised that at the second go round, there's it seems like there's as much or even more opposition even with the changes that the community asked for. And I was wondering if

you could provide some insight into what the Yes.