New development in Sunset Park hopes to rezone area within Dunkin' parking lot

Sunset Park is a neighborhood with a growing housing shortage and now a new developer hopes to rezone an area within a Dunkin' parking lot to make room for more residents.

News 12 Staff

Nov 12, 2020, 4:11 AM

Updated 1,430 days ago

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Sunset Park is a neighborhood with a growing housing shortage and now a new developer hopes to rezone an area within a Dunkin' parking lot to make room for more residents.
The project developers, Totem, have their eyes set on the parking lot along Fourth Avenue right next to the 25th St. R train subway stop.
The new multi-story building hopes to be a home for families in Sunset Park but residents say they feel it is contradictory to the real needs of the neighborhood--some saying that new housing can only be helpful if it is mostly unaffordable--even though the plan promises to make one in every four units affordable based on the area’s medium income.
They say they plan to rebuild one-to-three-bedroom units, making 25% of them affordable--a requirement by the city through the Mandatory Inclusionary Housing Program.
Many in the community say they will rally ahead of the next community board meeting when the entirety of the plan will be laid out to the public.
They say only making a quarter of the apartments affordable does not actually help the housing crisis.
"The income requirements and the associated rents to those income requirements would be lower in this building,” said Project Manager Elizabeth Canela.
The public hearing for the project, which must go through the city’s Land Use Rezoning process to change from manufacturing to residential, will be streamed on Zoom Thursday at 6 p.m.
Anyone can register to join on the Brooklyn Community Board 7 website.