80 Flatbush Proposal Approved By City Planning Commission

BOERUM HILL – The controversial 80 Flatbush proposal was unanimously approved by the City Planning Commission on Monday in another stage of the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), Curbed reports.

As part of the ULURP process, City Planning held a hearing in June to hear testimony from supporters and opponents of the project where 34 attendees spoke in favor of the proposed development and 11 against it. The hearing followed two public hearings on 80 Flatbush (on March 28 and April 30) and Community Board 2’s vote against the proposal.

Alloy Development has requested that the project site—bounded by Flatbush Avenue, State Street, 3rd Avenue, and Schermerhorn Street—be rezoned to allow the project to rise much higher than the current zoning allows. The taller of the two proposed new towers would stand 986 feet tall.

Alloy plans to build two new mixed-use towers on the site, one 38 stories and one 74 stories. 80 Flatbush would include 700 market-rate apartments and 200 permanently affordable units and feature a 15,000-square-foot cultural space, a 40,000-square-foot ground floor commercial/retail space, and two schools—a 350-seat elementary school and a new facility for the Khalil Gibran International Academy High School.

Two days after the City Planning hearing in June, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams released his advisory recommendations on the proposed 80 Flatbush project, calling for a “reduction in the bulk and height of the proposed skyscraper on 3rd Avenue,” recommending a cap of 600 feet (one-third less than the proposed height for the taller tower). Adams’ recommended height would be comparable to that of The Hub, the adjacent 55-story, 610-foot-tall tower located at 333 Schermerhorn Street. One Hanson Place stands 512 feet tall; many neighbors do not want the new skyscrapers to block their view of the former Williamsburgh Savings Bank clocktower.

Opponents also argue that the project is out-of-scale for the neighborhood, would increase congestion, and would block the sun at nearby public spaces. Supporters counter saying that a new facility is needed for Khalil Gibran and that the development would bring additional school seats, more office space and affordable housing units to the area.

The next step of the ULURP process is a hearing with the New York City Council’s zoning subcommittee scheduled for next week, followed by a vote by the City Council’s land-use committee, according to the Commercial Observer.

Council Member Stephen Levin, whose District 33 covers the site, has been absent from the local ULURP proceedings and has not released his position on the project. The full City Council will vote on 80 Flatbush at the end of September, the Commercial Observer reports.