Borough President Eric Adams "Disapproves" Controversial Plan to Develop Heights Library
In a surprising move, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams submitted his official recommendation to “disapprove with conditions” the plan to sell and redevelop the Brooklyn Public Library branch at 280 Cadman Plaza West in Brooklyn Heights. Adams’ announcement is an official part of the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) and means that nine affirmative votes are required…
In a surprising move, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams submitted his official recommendation to “disapprove with conditions” the plan to sell and redevelop the Brooklyn Public Library branch at 280 Cadman Plaza West in Brooklyn Heights. Adams’ announcement is an official part of the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) and means that nine affirmative votes are required from the City Planning Commission on September 22 in order for the development plan to move forward for a City Council vote.
Adams took issue with the fact that the plan contained no explicit guarantee that cash from the library sale would go back to the Brooklyn Public Library rather than into the city’s general fund. He proposed additional changes to the proposal, including adding a public school annex for the overcrowded PS 8 and permanent affordable housing to the site.
Adams also outlined an entirely new model for funding Brooklyn’s library system.
As submitted to Adams, the redevelopment plan calls for the city to sell the site of the Brooklyn Heights Library branch — currently public land — to private developer Hudson Companies for $52,000,000. Hudson would then build a 36-story luxury condo tower on the site with a new library at its base, in addition to 114 units of affordable housing in Clinton Hill. The idea is to use $40,000,000 from the sale of the site to repair other dilapidated libraries in the borough.
But, “as it stands, the public library system [in New York City] is not a proper working model,” said Adams in a press release Wednesday, noting the unreliable funding sources for library maintenance, operations, and staffing. Adams proposes merging the Brooklyn Public Library with the City’s other library systems.
The original development plan called for a library with smaller square footage than the existing branch, and for moving the Business Library elsewhere. Adams rejected this idea, recommending that any new library have the same accessible square footage and also retain the Business Library.
“It is appropriate for the City to pursue opportunities that utilize our municipal air right assets but any such utilization must maximize community benefit above and beyond what has been the standard to date,” said Adams. “Moreover, we must seize this opportunity to resolve the larger fiscal crisis that our libraries face, with solutions that guarantee equitable and dependable funding for capital upgrades and branch programming.”
It is unusual although not unheard of for the Brooklyn Borough President to disapprove a development plan of this scale. Adams’ predecessor Marty Markowitz disapproved the controversial 2005 rezoning of the Williamsburg and Greenpoint waterfront. (It was ultimately approved and allowed the development of the residential towers that have transformed the area.)
But Markowitz approved many plans since, including what is now the Lightstone development in Gowanus, the Domino Sugar redevelopment in Williamsburg, Greenpoint Landing in Greenpoint, and the Rheingold Brewery development in Bushwick.
Adams’ recommendation will now be considered by the City Planning Commission at its September 22 public meeting. If the City Planning Commission approves the development plan, it will proceed to a vote in the City Council.
Read more about the proposed Brooklyn Heights Library development:
Brooklyn Heights Library: Borough President Eric Adams Listens to Community Concerns [Brownstoner]
Hudson Companies Navigates Public and Private With Brooklyn Heights Library [Brownstoner]
280 Cadman Plaza West Coverage [Brownstoner]
Most of what Adams says makes perfect sense. A lot of the comments here are nuts.
The city, through the planning department and other agencies, should be pursuing development in the public interest, not just development that benefits the developers.
First of all, without a legal guarantee that the proceeds are dedicated to the library system, the whole premise of the deal is a sham. Selling this public asset is supposed to help Brooklyn libraries. What happens if the city changes its mind on how to use the funds – the public asset is gone and library still needs to find other funding. Horrible outcome, and not unprecedented.
Why shouldn’t the affordable housing be on this site? People complain some in the Heights are NIMBYs for opposing the affordable housing at nearby Pier 6 (in a park). Here, in a place where residential development actually makes sense, people are called “obstructionist” for WANTING the affordable housing here. Talk about damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
As Andrew points out, moving the business library out of the downtown business district is just boneheaded and a plain giveaway to developers who want more space.
I think linking approval of the development to better schools infrastructure is a noble idea but I agree with the Adams critics who say that it’s a city-wide issue to be addressed, not something that should hold up individual proposals. And this development isn’t really the right forum to address library funding.
The shadows issue from high-rise development is legitimate to discuss and it’s a shame the City Planning department and others are so beholden to De Blasio’s “affordable housing at any cost” program that they’ve given up on any responsible urban planning.
All of you who think a developer would make no profit if these reasonable conditions had originally been stipulated by the city’s RFP are living in a dream world. There would have been plenty of people lining up to develop this super-prime property even if it was smaller because of some of the conditions. This is what responsible planning would have come up with to propose to the development community, not a backwards process where the library and some developers arrive at a plan to be rubber-stamped by the planning department and the politicians.
Eric Adams is the first politician to take a stand on this . The plan is a disaster as is the sight of the affordable housing.
We need a library system not a real estate development firm. This is bigger than the heights and has to do with the disrepair of libraries all over the Borough. Stephen Levin needs to step up. He has been absent on this issue for too long
The business library was never used and was filled with homeless. The idea is to create a smaller local branch of the library the families of the surrounding area can actually use. It will be great to have. Eric Adams is a political mess! Just ignore everything he says.
Eric Adams has learned to play politics and is basically cowtowing to the “not in my backyard” heights activists.
Who do they think will build much needed housing if private developers cannot make a profit.
Mr Adams, Deblasio and all the other numbnutsshould not be public servants
The Shadow strikes again. Welcome to Brooklyn Heights NIMBY land – they are against tall buildings except where they are for them -like in your neighborhood. I believe that the BP’s PC ‘disapproval’ is really a veiled approval by only raising conditions that City Planning cannot really address (affordable housing, schools, money, library size (I assume BPL had something to do with the proposed size of the new library)). By exclusion from his disapproval, he obviously supports replacing the library with a new one, wants the money for the reasons intended, and is ok with stacking 36 story shadow creating condo tower on top of it.