Controversial Pfizer Site Plans Approved By City Planning Commission: Report

BEDFORD STUYVESANT, BROOKLYN — The City Planning Commission has approved plans to build on Bed-Stuy’s Pfizer site, despite repeat protests from community organizers who say it will promote gentrification, according to reports.

The commission signed off on plans to build an eight-building apartment complex with 1,146 units — 287 of which will be affordable — on two city blocks between Walton Street, Union Avenue, Gerry Street and Harrison Avenue, The Real Deal reported Tuesday.

The decision comes after a City Planning Commission public hearing in July when chanting protesters charged into the meeting room and refused to leave until they were handcuffed and led away by police.

“We will stand against the development in any way,” said Juan Ramos of the Broadway Triangle Community Coalition.

The protested proposal comes from the Rabsky Group, co-owners of the Rheingold Brewery who recently reneged on a non-binding affordable housing deal. Rabsky announced in June it would not fulfill its promise to make 24 percent of units affordable in the Montieth Street development.

The Broadway Triangle Community Coalition activists argue the Broadway Triangle complex would displace lower-income residents in Williamsburg, Bushwick and Bed-Stuy, according to their attorney, Martin S. Needelman.

“[The project] proposes simply to build a development that would house a predominantly white population at the expense of people of color who will be displaced,” he said in a statement.

The group previously shut down a public hearing to discuss the development in Brooklyn Borough Hall. Borough President Eric Adams responded with a recommendation that City Planning Commissioners require developers to provide a more specific plan with more affordable housing apartments than the 287 units originally proposed.

During the July hearing, a City Planning Commissioner asked Raymond Levin, the attorney who presented the Pfizer Sites plans, whether developers would work to create a more detailed plan.

Levin replied, "We'll try."

Photo by Kathleen Culliton