Paging through Department of Buildings filings, YIMBY has seen a number of applications over the past few months for new buildings around the border of Ridgewood and Bushwick, and especially around the Myrtle–Wyckoff Avenues station on the L and M trains. As developers are priced out of the more prime sections of East Williamsburg and Bushwick, they’ve pushed deeper into northern Brooklyn – so deep, in fact, that they occasionally hit Queens.
But a pair of filings for new buildings at 18-14 Gates Avenue and 18-16 Gates Avenue are the first we’ve seen in recent months for new apartments so deep into Ridgewood that they’re not within walking distance of the L or J. Located between Seneca and Onderdonk Avenues, the buildings would be just around the corner from the Seneca Avenue M elevated station, just three stops from the end of the line.
There, Samsol Gates LLC – led by Solomon Jacobowitz, who gets his mail sent to 199 Lee Avenue, the same address as every property owner in South Williamsburg – plans to erect a pair of identical four-story buildings. The designer is listed as Diego Aguilera Architects, based in Rego Park.
Each of the buildings would have seven apartments (rentals, surely) spread across 4,800 square feet of space – two units on the first through third floors, and one full floor unit up top. The buildings would have no parking, and indeed parking requirements would seem to be the reason the development was broken up into two separate structures – had the 14 apartments been in the same building, the developer would have been required to include seven spaces. Instead, the builder opted to pay a lesser price to duplicate mechanical equipment and common areas.
No fires in the ’70s mean there aren’t many developable sites in Ridgewood today
Ridgewood is unlikely, however, to ever see the same sort of development as Williamsburg and Bushwick, thanks to a dearth of buildable sites. Unlike its neighbors to the south and west, Ridgewood never saw the same level of white flight and disinvestment, and didn’t experience the same burning and abandonment that freed up land for development in those other neighborhoods. To this day, Ridgewood remains 40 percent non-Hispanic white, compared with around 10 percent for Bushwick.
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