Crown, Prospect Heights Added 7,000 New Homes Since 2010: Study

CROWN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — In what will likely come as little surprise to those who live there, a decade of rapid development in New York City has brought thousands of new housing units to Crown and Prospect Heights.

Community Boards 8 and 9 — which extend over Prospect Heights, Crown Heights and Prospect Lefferts Gardens — gained roughly 7,000 new housing units between 2010 and 2020, according to a new study by the Department of City Planning.

The gains centered largely around North Crown Heights and Prospect Heights, where about 5,000 new units of housing were built during that time period.

Community Board 8, which covers those areas, had the fifth-highest net housing gain of any neighborhood in Brooklyn. The study's ranking takes into account demolitions or apartment mergers that offset new construction.

South Crown Heights, by comparison, only saw about 525 new units of housing built during the decade. Much of Community Board 9's growth was due to development in Prospect Lefferts Gardens area, according to the data.

The totals will likely not come as a surprise to residents who have watched the Prospect Park-adjacent section of the neighborhoods change over the years. Even more housing is in the pipeline for the next few years with the controversial 22-acre project known as Pacific Park and a slate of city-led developments.

The development boom in Central Brooklyn, though, was still not as big as other parts of the borough.

Williamsburg and Greenpoint's Community Board 1 has gained a staggering 20,000 units of housing since 2010, the most of anywhere in the five boroughs.

Community Board 2 — which stretches over Clinton Hill, Fort Greene and Downtown Brooklyn — gained about 15,000 units of housing, surpassed only by Brooklyn's CD1 and Hell's Kitchen in Manhattan.

Those areas stand in stark contrast to the minimal gains seen in a few neighborhoods like the Upper East Side, where demolitions and mergers nearly erased all new housing gains since 2010. In Brooklyn, Bay Ridge's Community Board 10 and Canarsie's Community Board 18 saw the least amount of added housing.

The study was based on filings with the Department of Buildings starting Jan. 1, 2010 through June 1, 2020.