The city’s top housing officials spent Wednesday trading barbs with the City Council, defending sweeping changes to the zoning code that would allow taller buildings and smaller parking lots for affordable and senior housing projects.
During a raucous and packed public meeting on Tuesday night, developer Avery Hall Investments laid out their plans for a seven-story apartment building with retail and a grocery store, which will replace a Key Food at 120 Fifth Avenue in Park Slope.
The City Council held its first day of hearings Tuesday on mandatory inclusionary housing, a major citywide policy that will mandate affordable units in all new developments planned on rezoned land. Several council members grilled Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen, HPD Commissioner Vicki Been, and City Planning Director Carl Weisbrod on the program, railing about the lack of low-income units and union labor and demanding better protections against tenant harassment and displacement.
WeWork rolled out its big plans for a 16-story office building in the Brooklyn Navy Yard last summer. Now a smaller developer hopes to build a three-story office and retail project at 256 Flushing Avenue in Wallabout, across the street from the yard.
The northern Bronx is one of the cheapest areas to build market-rate housing and buy a home in New York City. And much of that development happens in Williamsbridge, a neighborhood east of Woodlawn Cemetery.
