As the proposal for the $900 million, mixed-use Brooklyn complex known as 80 Flatbush wends its way through the city’s public-review process, it faces opposition over density, congestion and what its critics regard as a sweetheart deal between its developer and a city agency.
But the real hate appears to come from residents of a single neighboring building — One Hanson Place, the former Williamsburg Bank tower that’s home to condo owners fearful of losing their views, a Post analysis has found.
The 80 Flatbush plan from Alloy Development and the New York City Education Construction Fund is to have 900 apartments (including 200 “affordable”), office and retail space and two new public schools.
Although often described as a “megaproject,” 80 Flatbush will have only about 1.3 million square feet, the size of a single large office tower, spread over five buildings on roughly 1.4 acres — three of them new and two dating from the 19th century. The triangular site two blocks from Barclays Center is bounded by Flatbush Avenue, Schermerhorn Street, Third Avenue and State Street.
The project is in ULURP because it needs a zoning change to allow larger buildings than are currently permitted.
Much of the staunchest resistance to it comes from residents of One Hanson Place, as reflected in negative comments submitted last summer to ECF Executive Director Jennifer Maldonado prior to an environmental review, and obtained by The Post.
Of 153 critical comments from nearby residents, more than 25 percent were from condo-dwellers at One Hanson Place. Some mentioned that a slender, 74-story tower planned at 80 Flatbush would block their views. Others reversed the perspective and said that it would prevent residents of other Brooklyn neighborhoods from seeing their own landmarked tower, famous for its top-floor clocks on four sides.
Among the One Hanson Place residents who wrote to ECF was Ben Richardson, the head of resistance group Block 80 Flatbush Towers, which recently conducted an online poll for area residents to weigh in on 80 Flatbush.
As New York YIMBY first reported, the poll was taken down when respondents came out in favor of the project by 3-1. Richardson later told the Brooklyn Paper he took down the poll because he believed it had been “hacked” by mysterious votes cast from foreign countries including Romania.
Richardson told us by email that he’s not opposed to redeveloping the site, but he believes the 74-story tower is wrong for it and the financial arrangements between Alloy and the ECF are too favorable to the developer.
The project is also opposed by the Municipal Art Society. But it’s supported by the New York Landmarks Conservancy, Transportation Alternatives and the Arab-American Family Support Center.
The latter is pleased that 80 Flatubsh includes a larger, modern Khalil Gibran International Academy, the city’s first Arabic-language public school, which is currently scrunched into an antiquated small space.