A proposed new development on the Bushwick Inlet has raised deep-rooted questions about affordability and neighborhood character.
As Bushwick Inlet Park finally coalesces after years of hard-fought community activism, neighbors are considering the future of the MTA-owned parcel of land at 40 Quay Street, as well as an adjacent parcel at 56 Quay Street. The parcels abut the park, further complicating decisions about what usage might best complement it. Developers plan to construct a new residential development entitled Monitor Point on land they will lease from the MTA, consisting of an east and west tower. The towers will house about 1,050 units, with a portion under the city’s affordable housing program.
Greenpoint residents can likely all agree that the neighborhood desperately needs more affordable housing; the question then lies with how to go about it. Critics of the project say that Monitor Point is just another luxury high-rise building that further prices out long-time residents, while the project’s supporters maintain that it will add housing stock, some of it permanently affordable, and create more necessarily open space.
In an area burned by broken promises from developers, residents have earned a right to be naturally skeptical—think of the underwhelming dog park at Bell Slip. However, there’s arguably even more at stake with Monitor Point, as the project not only entails two residential towers, but the construction of a new MTA facility, a museum, and two park spaces.
The project started in 2019, when the MTA decided it was time to relocate their Greenpoint Mobile Wash/Materials Control facility, with plans to eventually generate capital funding by leasing the land for a new development. They chose Gotham Organization to lead the project in 2021. The Quay Street facility, as well as an MTA facility on Commercial Street, will move to a new location on Meadow Street, in the North Brooklyn IBZ. Gotham will construct the new facility. The relocation also means that work can start on the long-promised Box Street Park, with the Commercial Street lot freed up for construction (Box Street runs into Commercial Street). Construction on the new MTA facility is expected to start in 2026 and finish in 2028. Only after that can Monitor Point break ground, likely finishing construction in 2031.
Monitor Point has been in development for the past few years, and now its application awaits approval from city planners. Once that happens, it can officially enter into the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) process later this year, the city’s approval process for land use changes. ULURP is not mandatory for every new development but is necessitated when a project needs rezoning, as in the case of Monitor Point. Community feedback and approval from the local community board is considered, but not binding. Ultimately, the New York City Council votes on whether or not to approve ULURP projects. Barring a mayoral veto, the project then gets the green light.
Locals concerned with the project’s potential environmental impact recently started a campaign to spark awareness. Save the Bushwick Inlet maintains that the massive size and location of the project would harm local wildlife, especially migratory birds. Others worry about new construction being located in a flood zone, as the effects of climate change continue to ramp up.
Gotham Organization says that they designed Monitor Point with climate resiliency in mind. Monitor Point will include 700 feet of publicly-accessible open space, in conjunction with the park next door. The waterfront plaza and the towers’ ground level will be elevated. The landscape architecture includes native plant species, a permeable outdoor pathway, and bioswales, which help mitigate stormwater. The plaza also includes an outdoor education classroom amphitheater that will be available for schools and educational groups to use.
On top of creating and maintaining the waterfront plaza, Gotham Organization will make a yearly contribution of $300,000 to Bushwick Inlet Park. The public-private partnership echoes that of the nearby Domino Park, which Two Trees Management created in exchange for other housing developments.
Though Monitor Point’s towers will be taller than most other local high rise buildings, at 400 and 650 feet, Williamsburg’s River Ring project currently dwarfs them all at 560 and 700 feet. Gotham does not anticipate the scale impacting the nearby park space, with “limited impact from any shadows due to [the] project site being north of Bushwick Inlet Park” (quote pulled from slideshow presentation).
Gotham has committed to making 25% of Monitor Point residences permanently affordable. In New York City, the calculus of determining “affordability” often leads to a rather loose definition of the term. Monitor Point will open affordable housing mostly to those making 40-60% area median income (AMI), with some reserved for those making 80%. In the New York City housing lottery system, AMI ranges from 30-165%; the lower the AMI, the more accessible a project is to someone with a lower income.
Gotham Organization purchased development rights from the Greenpoint Monitor Museum. The museum was first founded in 1996 to commemorate Greenpoint’s role in the construction of the ironclad Civil War ship. Currently, the museum lacks a permanent home, which Gotham would help construct. The museum will be located at 56 Quay Street, just next to the housing development.
The 2005 Greenpoint-Williamsburg waterfront rezoning irrevocably altered the area, allowing larger, higher-density construction, and with it, a new influx of residents. Greenpoint and Williamsburg have added the most housing in New York City since 2010, totaling nearly 25,000 units. According to data from the NYU Furman Center, most of that new construction was market-rate, with only 15% income-targeted. Rents have also increased in tandem—Greenpoint and Williamsburg pay some of the country’s highest rents overall. The median one-bedroom rent in Greenpoint was about $2,600 in 2015, ten years later, it’s a whopping $4,587.
Gotham Organization presented to Brooklyn’s Community Board 1 on Tuesday night (they were initially scheduled to present last month and canceled last minute). The presentation prompted an impassioned reaction on both sides of the issue, with more people wanting to attend than the fire code would allow. Members from Save the Bushwick Inlet and Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park cited concerns about how for-profit development could affect the public park space and what they consider to be a unique environmental ecosystem.
Critics of the project also invoked the 2005 rezoning and still-unfulfilled promises, especially those related to transit and park infrastructure not keeping up with the population boom over the past twenty years. Despite the proliferation of housing, Greenpoint and Williamsburg contain comparatively little park space. Gotham developers say that the infrastructure and environmental impacts will be studied as a result of an earlier environmental scoping hearing in April.
Project supporters highlighted how critical the need is for any affordable housing, at a time when so many friends and neighbors have been priced out and forced to leave the area.
“What’s the point of open space if low-income community members are being displaced?” one attendee said. Some in support of the project did push for increased affordable housing, especially multi-bedroom units (Gotham said most of the affordable units would be one-bedroom, to the dismay of some hopeful families).
In the slideshow presentation, Gotham developers posited that without the upzoning and the private-public partnership, the lot would likely turn into luxury or market-rate development. Union representatives also spoke in favor of the project and its potential for job creation.
As the project awaits city approval, locals on either side of the issue must grapple with the future of a neighborhood that has undergone rapid development in the past twenty years. Monitor Point will undoubtedly change the North Brooklyn landscape. Whether that change drives away residents or gives them a place to call home, only time will tell.
Thank you for the info. My general take on this is that in a democracy, the extremes can ruin it. What I mean by it is back in the mid 20 century, rent regulations so crippled the city, landlords were abandoning properties by the thousands. They could not make a profit. Now the opposite has happened with rents sky high for only the rich or two-four people bunking up together in a rental. “Affordable housing” set asides can be some what of a joke with the rates they are charging.
I lived thru both eras.
The answer is common sense rent regs., without either the welfare state or RE billionaires bilking the public.
Good luck getting a mayor that will do it, either they are owned by RE interests or the opposite far left welfare socialists.