Out in the borderlands between Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, Brownsville, and East New York, there’s a working class, largely black neighborhood called Ocean Hill. A small new development is headed to the area at 2353 Dean Street, between Rockaway Avenue and Eastern Parkway.
New building applications filed today call for a five-story, mixed-use development. It’ll replace a little two-family, wood frame house built sometime around the turn of the century. Seven apartments and 6,900 square feet of residential space will be stacked on top of a 1,000-square-foot community facility. Typical apartments will be a surprisingly spacious 985 square feet, meaning three-bedrooms are likely.
The developer is Chinweike Ukaegbu, the long-term owner of the property. He purchased the 2,700-square-foot site for an undisclosed amount in 1989. Ibrahim Greenidge, of Bolt Design Group, applied for the permits.
It’s worth noting that the city just rezoned part of Ocean Hill, starting on the next block between Eastern Parkway and Sackman Street. That may explain the uptick in filings we’ve seen here recently. The area immediately east of here—which is close to the A/C, J/Z, and L trains at Broadway Junction—was exclusively zoned for manufacturing and heavy commercial uses, like auto shops and garages. When the City Council approved the new zoning for East New York in April, it also switched the zoning for the industrial area near the Junction and the cemeteries. For the first time in half a century, new apartments and mixed-use development can grow where only little houses and factories could before.
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Location can’t be divided the building such a five-story, mixed-use development starting in the project.