URBAN DESIGN COMMITTEE
What’s In My Back Yard (W.I.M.B.Y.) ARTICLE BY JANE MCGROARTY, AIA
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Revisiting Downtown Brooklyn In 2018 I prepared an Urban Design report entitled And You Thought Downtown Brooklyn Was Full? I described the new and planned (mainly residential) construction and what I believed were the impending issues of school capacity, open space, infrastructure that this amount of development would require. In the flurry of activity for the 125th Anniversary the report never made it into the PYLON. Two years later I think it’s time to take another look at Downtown Brooklyn development. The Covid-19 pandemic hit New York City in March 2020, and although the cases diminished over the summer, a so-called ‘second wave’ seems to be imminent. The pandemic has affected residential rents; prices are down 17% in Downtown Brooklyn in the past year, according to M.S.N., a Williamsburg real estate company. However, in relation to Manhattan, the Brooklyn market is strong, especially as landlords are offering incentives, such as several months free rent, to induce customers. Douglas Elliman reported that sales of Condos, Co-ops, and 103 family homes are down 40% in 2020 in Brooklyn. This is not reassuring news to developers with new apartments coming onto to the market. In 2018 there were 5600 new residential units planned or under construction in Downtown Brooklyn and its nearby neighborhoods. Today that number has grown to over 6670, a 19% increase. On a positive note, an additional 335 units of affordable apartments have been added to the 400 that were on the books in 2018. In addition, the alteration to an existing building at 50 Nevins will provide much needed single room occupancy and supportive housing. Breaking Ground, a well-regarded supportive housing developer, will be converting the former Jehovah Witnesses hotel at 90 Sands Street into 491 units of affordable and supportive housing. Breaking Ground, unlike other affordable housing, believes that decent housing is crucial to providing a safe and supportive home to homeless people, to the mentally ill, to veterans with PTSD, to former inmates — all of whom have struggled to find housing that will accept them. This conversion will be beneficial to the neighborhood. The bad news is that the progress of public investment to support this massive new residential construction has been slow. Remember that when the plan for downtown Brooklyn was first unveiled, it assumed 90% commercial and 10% residential uses. New schools, open and public space, local retail, street safety, and mobility have
