Williamsburg, NY – It’s a gamble that, if it goes sour, could potentially cost the city 220 affordable housing units.
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For years, a development team proposing to build a $1.5 billion luxury apartment complex on the former Domino Sugar factory site in Williamsburg has vowed that 30 percent – or 660 – of the project’s 2,200 apartments would be affordable units.
However, city officials confirmed that when the City Council votes Thursday on the controversial project’s needed zoning change, the zoning amendment’s text will include standard language of the city’s Inclusionary Zoning policy – thus guaranteeing that only 20 percent of the units will be set aside for low- and moderate-income residents. In Domino’s case, that translates into just 440 affordable units.
The 30-percent affordable-housing promise, however, has been memorialized in a “Memorandum of Understanding” that both the city and the development team of CPC Resources and Isaac Katan recently signed off on. However, as even the document notes, it is a non-binding agreement.
City officials yesterday declined to explain why the zoning text wouldn’t include language guaranteeing 30-percent affordability.
But Susan Pollack, project manager for “The New Domino” plan, said the MOU “which we have signed, is the format the city selected to codify and memorialize our commitment. “ She vowed to deliver on the 30-percent guarantee.
Phil DePaolo, a North Brooklyn activist, said relying on a non-binding MOU rather than guaranteeing the 30-percent promise through the zoning text puts the city in position to be fleeced by the development team. He also said there is no guarantee the property will now be sold to another developer, who could then ignore the MOU.
The Domino project is only set to go before the full council because Mayor Bloomberg helped broker a deal last month to get the council’s support The agreement was reached after Bloomberg convinced Councilman Steve Levin, who represents the neighborhood and has been a project opponent, to back the plan with modifications that include the developer reducing the size of the two tallest towers from 40 stories to 34 stories while still delivering the affordable apartments proposed.
Levin declined comment yesterday.
Government reliance on nonbinding MOUs has long been a source of debate in the city. Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards project is one such example, as its MOU has come under fire for not legally holding developer Bruce Ratner fiscally responsible if the project doesn’t get delivered as planned.
The mixed-use Domino project also includes four acres of public recreation space, 274,000 square feet of retail space, and an esplanade overlooking Manhattan. It needs city approval for a zoning change to allow for residential use because the 11.2-acre footprint was not part of the 2005 neighborhood rezoning.
The project, the second biggest in Brooklyn behind Atlantic Yards, came under fire last year over the possibility that the illuminated “Domino Sugar” sign would be lost. But the developer opted to keep it following massive opposition from residents.
The New Domino is expected to be built over ten years, beginning next year.
I hope these subsidized apartments for low income families never get built. We already have too many subsidized units in willy and don’t need more government interference in the market. The Domino development is an architecturally innovative and exciting concept that will enhance one of the most beautiful sites in Brooklyn. It provides a great opportunity for young professional couples to live close to their work in Manhattan. We don’t need to dilute this development by forcing the owners to subsidize low income families on such a beautiful site. If they want cheap apartments with 8 bedrooms than they should be looking to move to Monsey or Lakewood.