Let the sun shine in.
A controversial high-rise development that neighbors feared would cast a harmful shadow over the Brooklyn Botanic Garden has gotten the OK from the City Council — with changes that would bring more necessary sunlight to the beloved greenspace.
The final-hurdle council vote Thursday was years in the making, notably after plans for a 34-story building with 1,578 units — about half of those being affordable — at the Crown Heights site was struck down in 2021.
“After more than six years of discussion, debate, and vigorous public advocacy, the threat of permanent loss of sunlight for our living museum of plants is over,” Adrian Benepe, President & CEO of Brooklyn Botanic Garden, said in a statement.
The newest amendments to the project included lowering the height of the planned 14-story mixed-used building to 11-stories and reducing its slope from 15 to 10% – both of which will “protect some of Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s most vulnerable plant collections from shadows that would cause them permanent damage,” a garden rep said.
The garden and its supporters had aggressively fought against the development proposal that, at one point, was expected to throw shade that would cause “existential harm to Brooklyn Botanic Garden for generations to come.”
The project’s developer, Continuum, even threatened to scrap the hi-rise in September after the City Planning Commission approved “financially unworkable” plans that lowered the number of units from 475 to 355 – 30% of which were affordable for households earning 115% of area median income, per The Real Deal – to angle the construction in such a way to avoid casting damaging shadows on the garden.
“A well-meaning project that cannot be financed will not be built. We are currently evaluating our path forward, but we intend to withdraw the application,” an attorney for the project’s developer told The Post after the CPC vote that month.
But Continuum’s plans were never officially pulled, according to a source familiar with the matter, and the project continued to move through the city’s review process — all the way to the finish line.
Continuum will also add lighting and structural upgrades to the botanic garden and nearby Jackie Robinson Playground, which officials had said would also be affected by hi-rise shadows.
The mayor has five days to veto the council vote’s final step before the plans are officially greenlit.
“After years fighting tirelessly to protect the gem that is the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, our community can finally rest,” Councilmember Crystal Hudson, who represents Crown Heights, said last week after a subcommittee vote on the project.
“We fought for sunlight and we won.”