Our good friends Moses Fried and David Tepper, at 205 Parkside (i.e. the one-time Free Rathole of Craigslist a/k/a The Luxury Squatter Gardens complex so centrally located in our neighborhood) has WON approval to build their latest real estate assault on Brooklyn.
Community Board District Manager Pearl Miles informs me that the owners have received all the necessary approvals to build a 19-unit Apartment Hotel in the dilapidated building.
Brownstoner and Hawthorne Street had reported just last April that the application had been denied to build more of the Prince Hotel Group's Junkie/Prostitution Hotels. It would appear that the owners decided to sneak through a loophole, and create instead a complex of Junkie/Prostitution Apartments. If a building is intended for stays longer than 30 days, you don't need to change the zoning of the building.
I've asked that we be granted a meeting with the architect (and owner) to discuss what's really going on here. If the owner intends for these to be decent, affordable apartments...great. But the duo's history suggests otherwise. We'll need to be vigilant - any building of this size so close to the Q at Parkside is bound to make or break the feel of the neighborhood. The problem we have with Apartment Hotel is that it encourages transience, not permanence, and cash transactions over leases and the rules and protections that go with them.
Anyone care to join me for a meeting at Community Board 9's office?
7 comments:
this sucks! Please keep us updated on how we can help, who we can call, what meetings we can go to, etc. I would suggest posting this info to the lefferts yahoo group and also to brooklynian. That corner is a mess, people frequently urinate and defecate and leave used condoms under the scaffolding there and on Parkside Court. It's disgusting to walk down the street and that is what you see. Particularly the residents of Parkside Court should be informed about this. If you want to give me some info on how we can fight this, I will put flyers under their doors. A hooker/junkie hotel is really not what needs to occupy that building. I am not very politically involved or much given to getting into neighborhood politics but this is too much.
There's a sign (quite offical looking) on the scaffolding around 205, indicating that the owner is NYC HPD. No ownership change shows up on the Dept of Finance website. Is the sign a joke, like the ads offering the building for free? IF Fried, et al, are no longer the owners and the building has been seized by the City, that would change things, no?
Thank you for this. It does not sound at all like something good for the neighborhood.
Please keep us updated, meanwhile I will share this info in the building where I live.
Bob: No such luck. Maybe HPD owns the scaffolding? :)
This just in from Pearl Miles, who runs our Community Board.
The building is being developed with the same number of existing units so there is no need for a variance, hence no need for CB input.
The previous request for a variance was for increasing the bulk of the building to 24 apartments which was denied by CB9 and the Board of Standards and Appeals.
Pearl R. Miles-Lee
District Manager
NYC Community Board 9
FYI for those of you new to the process, the Q at Parkside is in the far SW corner of CB9. A Community Board must be consulted whenever a building owner wants a variance - that is, to change the nature of a building or zoning. CB9 rejected Prince David LLC (Tepper & Fried) when they tried to do a daily use hotel (or in their case - hourly), so this is the next best thing as far as they're concerned.
It's important to be clear about what's going on. A landlord has the right to LEGALLY do what they want with a building. And god knows we need decent affordable housing in this City. But these two are notorious, and their rep precedes them. Even the mighty Tish James (Workers Party Councilwoman from the district above Empire) had to "settle" with them about their Notel Hotel "Lefferts" up in Bed-Stuy.
Thanks for this scoop. Please let us know about any CB9 or other meetings where this will be discussed. It doesn't seem unreasonable for one or another PLG City Council member (or, for that matter, Eric Adams) to arrange a meeting among the owners (however negligent), the architects (however nefarious), the folks from the 71st Precinct and the community ...
... so how do we convince our City Council folks to set such a meeting up?
y'know, some of us actually like drugs and prostitution...
Senator Adams is a great contact, and his office is just up Flatbush Ave. He is available, responsive, and truly interested in our community, unlike our more local elected officials (as in our City Councilperson), who are more interested in collecting "campaign contributions". PLG is not really CB9's area of interest either and Pearl Miles is most uncooperative.
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