Make your opinions on this megadevelopment known!
Borough President Adams is inviting locals to speak their minds about the controversial 80 Flatbush project that builders want to construct on the edge of Boerum Hill at a public hearing tonight.
The Borough Hall meeting follows Community Board 2’s Land Use Committee’s rejection of Alloy Development’s application to rezone a swath of land bounded by Flatbush and Third avenues and State and Schermerhorn streets in order to erect 74- and 38-story high-rises as part of a five-building complex that would also contain a 350-seat elementary school; a new home for the already on-site Khalil Gibran International School, which faculty says lacks much-needed resources in its current facility; and 900 housing units in the two towers — 200 of which will be permanent, below-market-rate rentals created in partnership with self-proclaimed affordable-housing builder the Fifth Avenue Committee.
The civic gurus unanimously shot down the plan, arguing the two towers’ proposed density — which is triple the size of what current zoning allows on the lot — and height are too big for brownstone-lined Boerum Hill.
And last month, neighbors came out in force against the super-sized scheme at its first public hearing, where Public Advocate Tish James said the project as is should be “dead on arrival.”
But the megadevelopment recently received a wave of support from members of Downtown’s Arab-American Family Support Center, whose chiefs helped open Khalil Gibran — the first city school where Arabic is spoken along with English — back in 2007.
The center’s leaders on Thursday gave the beep a letter praising 80 Flatbush and its plan for the school that more than 600 people signed, roughly 150 of which live in or near Boerum Hill, according to the center.
“KGIA’s current facilities are woefully inadequate for use as a modern high school. These facility challenges are compromising the learning of our students and hurting enrollment, and we implore you to help us get a new facility that our students deserve,” read the letter from the group’s president, Rawaa Nancy Albilal, and chairman, Joseph Botros. “The 80 Flatbush Project would bring this change by delivering a brand new, state-of-the-art high school facility.”
80 Flatbush public hearing at Borough Hall (209 Joralemon St. between Court Street and Brooklyn Bridge Boulevard in Downtown) tonight at 6 pm.
