Brooklyn Library-Condo Hybrid Approved by City Council Committee

Photos via Marvel Architects

A ridiculously contentious plan to let a condo developer tear down the Brooklyn Heights Library and re-build it inside a new, 36-story residential tower was approved Thursday afternoon by the Land Use Committee of the New York City Council.

Seventeen committee members voted “Yes,” two voted “No” and one abstained.

The plan won’t be finalized until the full City Council takes a vote on Dec. 16. However, now that councilmembers on the Land Use Committee have given the library-condo hybrid a green light, their colleagues on the council are likely to follow suit.

Councilmember Ritchie Torres, of the Bronx, cast one of two “No” votes Thursday.

“The real story here is not the sale of public land, but the historical failure of our political leadership… to invest in our public institutions,” Torres said.

A quick history of this long and ugly neighborhood war: NYC developer Hudson Companies wanted to build a giant tower of condos in Brooklyn Heights. The Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) system, meanwhile, was grasping desperately for library repair funds. So BPL officials agreed to let Hudson Companies tear down its existing Brooklyn Heights branch at 280 Cadman Plaza West — as long as developers promised to build a new library on the ground floor of the condo tower. Local NIMBYs, led by the outspoken Citizens Defending Libraries group, freaked out; city politicians negotiated concessions.

Today, we’re left with a quite generous plan, all things considered — but one that still, in the eyes of many, doesn’t address the core absurdity that Brooklyn must bend to the will of a luxury condo developer to save one of its most important public institutions.

The plan in its most current iteration, the one just approved by the Land Use Committee, requires Hudson Companies to:

• Build the ground-floor library out to 26,620 square feet, around 25 percent larger than in the original offer
  
• Add STEM education labs to the library
• Keep the library open seven days a week
  
• Build an entirely new 5,000-square-foot library in the DUMBO/Vinegar Hill/Farragut Houses area
• Build approximately 115 units of affordable housing in nearby Clinton Hill (but none within the Brooklyn Heights tower)
  

The sale would also infuse around $40 million into the hurting BPL system. For more details, see local Councilmember Steven Levin’s website.

BPL officials released a triumphant statement in the wake of Thursday’s vote.

“We are one step closer to bringing a new, inspiring, state-of-the art library to Brooklyn Heights and a $40 million investment to libraries throughout the borough, including a new library in Dumbo/Vinegar Hill/Farragut,” library leadership said. ”We look forward to continuing the review process with City Council and ensuring that our patrons will be served in world class libraries.”

The NYC Office of the Comptroller has been more skeptical that BPL’s deal with Hudson Companies is in the public’s best interest.

“At this time, I remain concerned that the proposed sale of the Brooklyn Heights Library does not maximize public value and fails to address the ongoing capital needs facing BPL,” Alaina Gilligo, first deputy comptroller, wrote in a letter to the mayor’s office on Dec. 9.

Michael White, head of Citizens Defending Libraries, expressed similar concerns in an email to the Brooklyn Eagle.

“The public has wearied of ‘last minute’ compromises that look like they were always contemplated from the beginning, and are basically last minute theatrics designed to draw attention away from the lack of public process throughout,” he said.

If the Brooklyn Heights Library deal is given final City Council approval on Dec. 16, its critics are worried it will serve as a precedent across all boroughs — creating a trend in which high-end condo developers prey on decaying library branches as easy portals into already crowded, rapidly gentrifying NYC neighborhoods.