Markowitz: NYC Needs More Affordable MF
NEW YORK CITY-Introduced as “the best-known salesman for Brooklyn” by Michael Kerr, president of the Associated Builders and Owners of Greater New York, Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz took to the podium Tuesday with an idea to sell: More affordable housing. “There remains a critical need to expand the stock of affordable housing in Brooklyn and New York City generally, ” said Markowitz in opening remarks at the start of this year’s BuildingsNY and GreenBuildings NY conference, sponsored by ABO.
In Brooklyn and throughout the city, Markowitz said, the next generation of multifamily development will require “thoughtful rezoning” of areas currently zoned for manufacturing. Several such rezonings have occurred already, and the borough president predicted that two recent ones in Brooklyn—Fulton Street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section and Ocean Hill—would soon be followed by RFPs from the city for housing development.
Noting that affordable housing is “leveraged by market-rate housing, ” Markowitz recounted a number of projects that he has championed and which will lead eventually to thousands of new affordable housing units being built in his borough. Among them is the 227-acre Gateway Estates mixed-use development in East New York, which will include nearly 2, 200 affordable units along with a retail center, single-family homes and a public school. When Forest City Ratner Cos. ’ much delayed, $4.9-billion Atlantic Yards project in downtown Brooklyn is completed, Markowitz said, it will offer a comparable number of affordable apartments along with 4, 000 units of market-rate housing.
Markowitz also cited CPC Resources’ redevelopment of the former Domino Sugar refinery along the Brooklyn waterfront, which is slated to include 660 affordable housing units out of a total of 2, 200 apartments when the site is recast as the New Domino. “Only in Brooklyn can we turn sugar into sweet affordable housing, ” Markowitz quipped. Coney Island’s transformation will also bring about new residential stock, and there’s also the pending re-use of the former Greenpoint Lumber Exchange, he said.
The borough president also urged his BuildingsNY audience to turn their attention to an underserved constituency: Retirees, who could be housed in active adult housing with on-site gyms and other amenities. Citing the growing ranks of Brooklynites who are segueing into their 60s, Markowitz said, “Rather than their moving out to New Jersey, I want to keep them in Brooklyn. ”
At the other end of the age spectrum, Markowitz asserted, “The movement of young people out of Manhattan and into Brooklyn continues. ” He joked that while it was once the dream of young adults to leave Brooklyn behind for the bright lights of Manhattan, now it’s the other way around.
None of the projects that have brought about, or will bring about, new housing have been easily accomplished, said Markowitz. “There are none without conflict--anti-development fever is powerful in this town. ” Somehow, though, the city manages to get the projects accomplished, he added, although the process is lengthy.
Markowitz recalled a visit to Istanbul in which that city’s mayor showed him the startling before-and-after contrast brought about by the redevelopment of one part of town. The transformation was accomplished in just six months, he said, a time frame unheard of here. “They don’t have ULURPs, community boards and everything else you have to go through to get things done here, ” he said.