Farragut Houses residents showed up at Brooklyn Borough Hall on October 14 to speak out about the prospect of new residential towers rising across the street from them on Downtown Brooklyn’s Navy Street. A number of community members also showed up to make their voices heard at the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) hearing that’s required for zoning and land-use changes.
Along with Farragut dwellers, people from the Ingersoll and Whitman Houses and other area residents who live on streets in the pathway took part in the meeting. Alloy Development, the real estate company that purchased the former Boys & Girls Navy Yard Clubhouse at 240 Nassau for $15 million, has plans to build a 1.4-million-square-foot development across from the NYCHA property that will feature both a 73- and a 63-story building.
Alloy’s project would take over 240 Nassau and the neighboring building that houses P.S. 287 at 46 Navy Street. The Alloy project is expected to bring the community 1,502 new apartments, a new public school building, a brand-new community center, and new cultural and open spaces.
The developer’s plans for the area have supporters, but also opponents who feel it threatens to remake the neighborhood and could both price out and make people who have lived in the area for generations feel unwelcome. Many neighbors have also said this kind of project seems out of scale with the lower heights of buildings in the area and that the market-rate rent pricings expected for the new units will only accelerate the erasure of working-class Black people in Downtown Brooklyn.
Alloy Development and the New York City Educational Construction Fund, which is partnering with Alloy to reconstruct P.S. 287, need a special rezoning permit to build the 1.4-million-square-foot project. The night before the hearing, NYCHA community organizers Samantha Johnson and Dorian Muller joined Rev. Mark V.C. Taylor of the local Church of the Open Door in putting together a meeting at the Farragut Community Center to allow residents to talk about the urgency of the situation.
Alloy representatives told the ULURP hearing that three years of outreach helped shape their plan. They promised to construct 300 permanently affordable apartments, including 95 for seniors from nearby NYCHA developments; a 120,000-square-foot pre-K-to-8 school to replace P.S. 287; a new community center; a 15,000-square-foot African art museum; retail; and publicly accessible open space. Alloy representatives said affordable apartments would match market-rate units in size, finishes, and appliances, and that they would continue to do local hiring and work with minority- and women-owned businesses.
However, the representatives said they could only afford the $470 million in public benefits if the market-rate portion of the project went through –– they argued that increasing the number of affordable units would hurt their ability to fund the project. They said some of Community Board 2’s 45 recommendations would require cooperation with city agencies, and several others were not realistic.
In public testimony at the ULURP hearing, LaShawn Doyle, who attended and later worked at the Boys & Girls Navy Yard Clubhouse and is now CEO of the basketball-centric Bucketfam, said. “I was raised in this place, so from being a youth leader to getting my first job to the present day, this is a full circle moment. Alloy has allowed my company Bucketfam to use the facility for free.
“The community center is what I’m standing for, to make sure that we continue to have this as a safe haven. Alloy provides the facility for free, allows us to have the place open so kids are not just outside. I believe since we’ve been there … hundreds of students [have] come in; they have a good time. This is not just a project. This is home for me because I am from the Fort Greene-Farragut area and for the last 30 years, we’ve watched developments go up around us, and we have no say-so. [Now] we actually have someone that we know personally there where we can voice our opinions, and it doesn’t feel like we’re just at a panel.”
Union members, contractors, and nonprofit leaders said there would be jobs, training, and youth programming with the new development. Justice Favor of the Mason Tenders District Council spoke in support of the Alloy project, saying it was because union work helped change his personal trajectory: He was born and raised in a NYCHA project, but union work helped him to progress. He sees the Alloy project as potentially transformative for locals.
“When we talk about the young men and women that are coming up in these communities … we could talk about programs, we could talk about all of that, [but] I was once one of those young individuals. [W]hat changed my life and transformed my life and [is] transforming the lives of my members is having that good union career — making money to be able to shift the paradigm and change my circumstances. So let’s not throw that conversation out. Let’s not do that. I’m proud to say that I stand in support of this project.”
People who spoke against the project said they were not arguing for no construction; they were asking for less height, more affordability, and enforceable protections. Sam Blackwell said the project “should be half the proposed size and twice the amount of affordable housing.” He warned: “You bought a building. You didn’t buy our history; you didn’t buy the right to control our future.”
Samantha Johnson said promises from Alloy should not cloud the fact that the proposed project will mean years of disruption in the neighborhood.
“Through my 20 years of advocacy in Brooklyn, I have seen many projects, and yet this project shows that this is a community that is willing to be up for sale. Our own people, who we trusted and relied on to take on this fight, are now using our children as bargaining chips,” she testified.
Deacon Jeffrey Flowers, speaking for the Church of the Open Door’s Rev. Taylor, urged Alloy to go back to the drawing board, citing the affordable-housing ratio; demolition of P.S. 287; and the absence of a clear plan for dust, noise, traffic, and parking.
Longtime Farragut resident David Banks said while the developer has acknowledged some potential impacts on transportation, open space, and construction, there are other aspects that concern him.
“There are substantial matters requiring more than assurances of good intentions,” Banks said. “I recognize the value of a new school, affordable senior housing, and community facilities, but the question before us is whether these proposed benefits are supported by enforceable commitments and adequate protections for the existing residents. As someone who has witnessed decades of change in Fort Greene, I believe development must be measured not only by what gets built, but by its lasting consequences for the people who live here.”
Latrell Masso, founder of Farragut Stakeholders, said the concern was for the community’s fabric: “These are the people I grew up with. These are the people I fight for,” she said. She did not reject the building of new housing but questioned whether the towers would deepen the divide between new private development and NYCHA residents: “Think about the whole community,” she said.
