The City Planning Commission at Wednesday’s vote. Photo via NYC City Planning.
GREENPOINT — The City Planning Commission voted to approve several zoning amendments and one City Map change on the Greenpoint waterfront Wednesday, clearing a path for the approval of the controversial Monitor Point development.
If completed in the 2030s as proposed, the Monitor Point project would see the total transformation of Greenpoint’s last undeveloped waterfront — the small peninsula directly north of Bushwick Inlet Park — with the addition of 862 luxury housing units and 460 affordable housing units across three towers, the tallest of which would rise more than 600ft. Developed by the Gotham Organization and the MTA, the project — located at 40 and 56 Quay Streets — would also include retail spaces, more than 45,400 square feet of public open space, and a museum dedicated to the historic Monitor Battleship.
The CPC voted to approve five land use actions Wednesday to make way for Monitor Point, including an upzoning to allow for increased housing density, and a demapping, removing the 56 Quay Street property’s park land designation on the City Map. While set aside in the 2005 Williamsburg/Greenpoint rezoning to be acquired by NYC Parks for the eventual development of park land, the City never acquired the property, allowing Gotham to pursue the demapping to facilitate the towers’ construction.
The CPC vote marks the third stage of the project’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), which began earlier this year and will conclude over the summer. Next is a public hearing before the City Council’s Zoning & Franchises Subcommittee, scheduled for May 27 at 11am at 250 Broadway in Downtown Brooklyn. A binding City Council vote will follow the public hearing, after which the project application will head to the mayor’s desk for final approval.
Traditionally, the City Council votes according to the will of the councilmember whose district encompasses the proposed development. In the case of Monitor Point, this is District 33’s Lincoln Restler, who has opposed the project since the beginning on the grounds that it does not provide enough affordable housing, and that the adjacent and incomplete Bushwick Inlet Park — much of which remains run-down, polluted and littered with debris — should be completed before any luxury developments are built on the site.
Opponents of the project — including councilmember Restler and local group Save the Inlet — have characterized the de-mapping as a land-grab on the behalf of developers. In multiple hearings over the winter and spring, Restler reiterated that he would only support Monitor Point if developers committed to a majority of the housing being affordable housing, and the City committed to completing Bushwick Inlet Park.
“For anything to move forward that I can support, we need to see a healthy majority of any housing that’s built to be truly affordable for our community, and we need a fully funded Bushwick in the park with a clear timeline,” Restler said at a public hearing at Greenpoint’s Polish Slavic Center in January.
Both Brooklyn Community Board 1 and Borough President Antonio Reynoso, however, have recommended the project’s approval, albeit on the condition that developers boost the percentage of affordable housing units and the city commits to fully funding and completing Bushwick Inlet Park.
While developer Gotham has stated in its plans that 40% of housing units will be affordable, Mandatory Inclusionary Housing rules approved by the CPC require just 25% affordable housing, leading critics to question whether Gotham will stick to its word. Save the Inlet will be holding a rally against the development outside City Hall at 9:30am before the May 27 hearing.
