[NYguy]

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/201...ush-suggests-eliminating-planned-offices

Gatekeeper for 80 Flatbush suggests eliminating planned offices


by JOE ANUTA
September 5, 2018

A 986-foot complex proposed across from the Atlantic Avenue–Barclays transit hub in Brooklyn may have to shed some of its commercial square footage to gain the approval of the City Council, a key lawmaker said last week.

Councilman Stephen Levin indicated that Alloy Development should consider sacrificing the portion of the building dedicated to office space in order to shrink the project, while preserving as many of the 900 planned apartments as possible, according to a Brooklyn Paper report.

In negotiations over the project's size, sources and published reports have said Levin proposed chopping the project by one-third, but the development team countered that even a 22% reduction would require cutting the public benefits, which include the schools and affordable housing. The council must vote by Sept. 21.

https://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/41/36/dtg-80-flatbush-update-2018-09-07-bk.html

B’Hill pol: 80 Flatbush must shrink by a third, lose commercial space, to get my vote

BY JULIANNE CUBA

The developer asking the city to rezone a swath of land in Boerum Hill to make way for its five-building 80 Flatbush complex must reduce the size of the massive project by a third in order to gain the critical vote of the councilman whose district it would rise in, the pol told the Brooklyn Paper.

“Right now I would like to see the scale of the project be decreased,” Boerum Hill Councilman Stephen Levin said on Wednesday.

The councilman also asked both city officials and Alloy bigwigs for more details on what he called the “complicated” financial agreement they brokered in order for the builder to develop the shared public-private lot, he said.

Levin previously accused the Department of Education of forcing him to make a Sophie’s Choice between the schools and the polarizing towers they would sit inside, blasting the agency for not being more proactive in bringing more desks to his overcrowded district over his eight years in office.

But last week, Mayor DeBlasio, whose administration supports the 80 Flatbush project, said it’s more important to build the complex as proposed and alleviate that overcrowding problem than bicker over what led to it.

“If something wasn’t built in the past, I don’t have a time machine. I’ve got to deal with today,” Hizzoner said during a sit-down with local media on Aug. 23.

A rep for Alloy declined to comment on whether it would act on Levin’s suggestions before Council’s vote on the rezoning, which is likely to happen on Sept. 14.