Aristide Economopoulos
A controversial hi-rise plan that throws shade at the “sacred’’ Brooklyn Botanical Garden — potentially damaging its sensitive exotic plants — got the go-ahead from the City Planning Commission on Monday.
The panel voted9-3 to approve developer Continuum’s pruned-back yet still towering plan for 962-70 Franklin Ave. — as garden advocates argued even the revised proposal will prove devastating for such treasured denizens as tropical orchids, tropical desert plants and South African bulbs.
“@BrooklynBotanic is sacred, and this one-of-a-kind community resource deserves one-of-a-kind consideration,” Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso wrote in a recent X post. “This proposal fails to meet that standard.”
Façade modifications had been made over the summer to reduce the building’s height from 14 to 10 stories, lowering the number of residential units from 475 to 355, including 89 income-restricted units.
The shadow impacts to the garden will “vary on different portions of the garden, ranging from no shadow impacts on sunlight-sensitive conservatories to a range between 47 and 69 minutes on Hardy [Plant Nursery Yard] and [NY] Native plant sections where the impact is considered partially mitigatable,” a DCP rep told The Post, lauding the revised approved plan.
Continuum has also pledged funding to mitigating shadow impacts in other ways, such as added lighting and structure upgrades to both the botanic garden and nearby Jackie Robinson Playground.
“With today’s action, we are charting a path forward that balances the need for new housing with critical protections for a treasured community space,” said Department of City Planning Director Dan Garodnick in a statement.
“The Brooklyn Botanic Garden is a jewel of the borough, and the special protections that we have proposed will ensure it can thrive far into the future while also creating the housing this community needs,” he said.
The proposal will now go to the City Council for a vote. The council has been known to give weight to Planning Commission recommendations.
The planning panel’s approval Monday comes after it overwhelmingly struck down similar plans in 2021 for the coveted location on Franklin Avenue. That proposal called for two 39-story buildings – a far cry from Continuum’s current plans.
Brooklyn’s Community Board 9 also rejected the plans in June, citing “significant adverse effects on portions of the community district including the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) and the Jackie Robinson Playground.”
Despite the developer’s emphasis on the pruned plans at a public hearing last month, the proposal, if approved by the City Council, is still poised to create “existential harm to Brooklyn Botanic Garden for generations to come,” Adrian Benepe, Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s president and CEO, has previously said.
BBG Vice President of Horticulture Rowan Blaik has also accused the developer of implementing a study into the shadow impacts that “cherry-picks” data and measures sunlight in inappropriate areas, such as rooftops rather than plant beds.
City Planning Commissioner Leah Goodridge, who cast one of the dissenting votes, criticized the “affordability” component of Continuum’s plan — pointing out the “abhorrent” $3,000+ monthly price tag for the market-rate studio units in the planned building.
“Housing versus green spaces,” Goodridge said. “I understand that there is a housing crunch, but we also see, from a policy standpoint, that it is forcing people to make this sort of decision that green spaces are not important, and we see that happening throughout the city.”
Garodnick said at the meeting, “This has certainly been one of the most debated private applications to come before the city Planning Commission in years, and for a good reason: It calls out the need to balance an opportunity for new housing in the midst of a generational housing shortage, and the protection of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, one of the jewels of the borough.
“With the modifications that the DCP team has laid out and is recommending to the commission, I’m confident that we have achieved an appropriate balance,” he said.