Broadway Triangle Ain't Going Nowhere—For Now

Don’t look for action at the site of the super-ambitious Broadway Triangle project in the very near term: According to The Real Deal, a judge has refused the city’s request to lift a stay of development at the site. The project, which is planned for the 31-acre parcel at the intersection of Bed Stuy, Williamsburg and Bushwick near the old Pfizer plant, is supposed to result in 1,900 units of housing—800 of which are to be affordable. The development, which the City Council green-lighted at the end of ’09, is under legal fire: “The Broadway Triangle Coalition, which consists of 40 organizations in Bedford Stuyvesant and Williamsburg, alleged in its September 2009 lawsuit that the city’s rezoning of the so-called Broadway Triangle was discriminatory in favor of certain Hasidic community groups and two developers, United Jewish Organization of Williamsburg and Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council, the latter of which was founded by [Vito] Lopez. …In addition, the coalition alleges that the building height requirement of eight stories is discriminatory because members of the Hasidic community are not allowed to take elevators on the Sabbath. In addition, at a proposed site at 100 Throop Street, about half the subsidized units were designated to have three and four bedrooms, designed to accommodate large Hasidic families.” A judge put the case on hold in October following the U.S. attorney’s probes into Lopez.
City Loses Bid to Lift Hold on Broadway Triangle Projects [The Real Deal]