Restraining Order On Brooklyn Botanic Gardens Towers Thrown Out

CROWN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — A restraining order meant to stop a controversial Franklin Avenue development has been thrown out by a judge, setting the stage for the towers to start the city's land use review process, the Brooklyn Paper reports.

The decision comes less than a month after The New York State Supreme Court first granted a temporary restraining order on the 960 Franklin Ave. rezoning following a lawsuit by opponents of the project.

The Franklin Avenue development has been criticized since it was announced last year given the shadow it would cast on the botanic gardens and its lack of affordable housing.

Groups filing the lawsuit — including after Movement to Protect the People and City Council candidate Michael Hollingsworth — claimed the city did not release required information about the project to the public and that the Department of City Planning refused to respond to Freedom of Information Law requests from residents and Community Board 9.

The legal action came just days before the proposed towers were set to be certified and go through the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, or ULURP.

A spokesperson for the DCP told the Paper last week that no date has been set yet for the certification.

Developers still need to finalize the "environmental impact statement" for the project, the last step before it begins the ULURP process, according to the city's tracker.

The developers, Continuum Company, aim to rezone the property to allow for two 39-story, approximately 420-foot tall towers 150 feet away from the garden, city records show. They have said the buildings will bring 700 much-needed affordable housing units into Brooklyn, but activists have questioned for whom the proposed units would be affordable.