Crown Heights project near Brooklyn Botanic Garden may be scrapped despite city approval

After securing a key approval from the city after years of delays, the developer behind a controversial residential project near the Brooklyn Botanic Garden said they plan to withdraw the application. The City Planning Commission (CPC) on Monday voted to approve a modified rezoning of 962-972 Franklin Avenue in Crown Heights that would result in fewer shadows cast on the garden from a new 14-story building developed by Continuum Company. But despite the approval, an attorney for Continuum’s Ian Bruce Eicher told The Real Deal the group plans to withdraw the application because the modifications make the project impossible to finance.

“As we told the commission, these changes significantly impact our ability to deliver on the promises we’ve made to the community — including the creation of much-needed affordable housing units and hundreds of good-paying union jobs,” David J. Rosenberg, a lawyer representing Continuum, told The Real Deal. “Today’s vote makes that financially unworkable.”

Rosenberg added: “A well-meaning project that cannot be financed will not be built. We are currently evaluating our path forward, but we intend to withdraw the application.”

According to Rosenberg, the modified rezoning, if enacted, would effectively devalue the site—preventing anyone from building on it. Money lenders require that projects, on paper, are profitable enough to compensate for the risk that they will fail, as reported by The Real Deal.

Eichner had initially proposed building 475 apartments, with 119 set aside as income-restricted. However, the CPC’s modified plan reduced the total number of units to 355, with 91 to 106 designated as income-restricted. According to Eicher, the reduced number of market-rate apartments would make it financially unfeasible to supplement the affordable units.

The modified proposal was the result of extensive negotiations between Continuum, the office of Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer, the Parks Department, the Department of City Planning, the Botanic Garden, and Mayor Eric Adams’ office.

“This has certainly been one of the most debated private applications to come before the City Planning Commission in years, and for good reason,” Commission Chair Dan Garodnick said ahead of Monday’s vote. “It calls out the need to balance an opportunity for new housing in the midst of a generational housing shortage and the protection of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, one of the jewels of the borough. With the modifications that the DCP team laid out and is recommending to the commission, I am confident that we have achieved an appropriate balance.”

Officials expected the garden to accept the rezoning. Continuum argued that the garden should instead support their proposal, claiming that it would provide better protection against shadows than the current zoning.

The revised plan would’ve shortened a portion of the building on the west side of the site, closest to the garden, and left the east side of the site at 14 stories.

Without the zoning update, the site at 960 Franklin Avenue could be developed as an all-market-rate project.

On the same block at 960 Franklin Avenue, the site of a former spice factory across from the 52-acre Botanic Garden, Continuum first released plans for the site in February 2019. The initial proposal featured two roughly 400-foot-tall towers with more than 1,500 apartments, half of which would be priced below market rates.

Garden officials rejected the initial proposal, arguing that the development would block sunlight from shining on the site’s 23 greenhouses and nurseries and put rare plants at risk. According to the garden, the project’s construction would affect 20 percent of its collection, including endangered and extremely rare orchids, cacti, and bonsai trees.

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio also expressed opposition to the project in December 2020, claiming that it would harm the research and educational work carried out by one of his city’s prized cultural institutions.”

Other opponents of the plan said the buildings were out of scale with the rest of the neighborhood and would also block sunlight from the nearby Jackie Robinson Playground. Current zoning rules in the neighborhood cap building heights at seven stories, or 75 feet.

In February 2021, the developers released a modified proposal that would reduce the height of the complex to 17 stories and offer 279 affordable units, instead of the original 789 affordable units. However, former CPC Chair Marisa Lago said the new plan was not submitted with enough time to review it.

In September 2021, Continuum sued the CPC, alleging that officials refused to consider a “reasonable alternative” to the project, according to The Real Deal.

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