Community Leaders and Elected Officials Push Back on Plans for New Residential Tower in Civic Center
As the administration of Mayor Eric Adams moves ahead with plans to develop a giant residential building on a publicly owned lot at 100 Gold Street, elected officials and community leaders are pushing back on the size, price, and pace of the project.
Mayor Adams first announced plans to redevelop 100 Gold Street, which sits alongside the Brooklyn Bridge, bounded by Frankfort and Gold Streets, in his State of the City address on January 9. In this speech, he said, “we issued a landmark executive order requiring every agency to see where we can build new housing on City-owned land, and, this year, with City of Yes for Families, we’ll move forward with the first sites, including over 2,000 new, mixed-income homes at 100 Gold Street, where many of our City Hall staff work today.” (The nine-story office structure, built in 1970, which currently occupies the site, is the headquarters for multiple City agencies.)
Within days, City Hall had announced plans to issue a request for proposals (RFP), seeking bids from prospective developers, initially offering assurances that this solicitation would not be issued until the end of March. That interval would have allowed time for input from community leaders and elected officials. But by the time of the first public meeting about 100 Gold on January 23, the Adams administration had accelerated the timeline, resolving to put forth the RFP in early March. Severely limiting community engagement, the revised timeline calls for a selection of a developer before the end of this year, followed by several years of environmental and zoning reviews, culminating in the start of construction by 2030.
In a resolution enacted at its January 28 meeting, Community Board 1 (CB1) voiced concern about “the inadequacy of the current public engagement process, the rushed timeline for issuing the RFP, and the lack of incorporation of community input into the launching of the RFP and redevelopment plan.”
The same resolution noted, “Lower Manhattan, particularly within Community District 1, has experienced significant reductions in affordable housing stock, and the need for affordable housing is critical and has been identified as the number one priority [for] Community Board 1,” while decrying, “the low number of affordable units proposed and not guaranteed.” This was a reference to the 485x affordability program, which offers developers a 100 percent tax abatement for up to 40 years in exchange for setting aside between 25 and 30 percent of the units in new residential buildings as rent- and income-restricted homes.
CB1 urged the Adams administration to delay the release of the RFP for the redevelopment of 100 Gold Street by six months to allow for adequate community engagement, and called for clarity about “the current zoning, the dimensions of the massing highlighted in the rendering, what zoning changes could be made to the site and what regulatory processes would be necessary to make such changes.” A preliminary sketch of the new development shows three towers – two apparently taller than 75 stories, and a third of approximately half that height – perched over a base of approximately ten stories.
City Hall mostly ignored CB1’s resolution and issued the RFP in early March, although the Adams administration did conduct a survey to gauge community preferences regarding the project. Among 559 respondents, 44.2 percent cited “maximizing the number of affordable homes (low/middle-income),” while 27.0 percent called for “maximizing the number of affordable homes (lowest income),” and 27.4 percent voiced concerns about “building height/density.” Of those who identified affordable housing as a priority, almost two thirds said homes should be created for families of four, while more than a third asked for apartments to house families of six or more.
One voice in opposition could prove crucial in determining the fate of 100 Gold Street. City Council member Christopher Marte may wield an effective veto (or at least a strong influence in modifying the plan), owing to a traditional known as “member deference.” This is a custom in the municipal legislature by which each member is given right of refusal over projects in his or her district, with the entire Council voting in support of the local representative.
Max Deutsch, who is Mr. Marte’s legislative director, said at the March 25 meeting of CB1, “the mayor is proposing to sell off 100 Gold Street, with no restrictions on what can be built in its place. The RFP was released this month, and only mentions the 485X program, 25 to 30 percent of the floor area to be affordable. But that’s not actually required in the proposals; it’s just an option provided to the developers. The Council member is opposed to the sale unless the buyer is committed to building 100 hundred percent affordable housing on the site. This project will have to go through the Council to be approved, and until the mayor is willing to actually put affordable housing in, the Council member will reject his proposal, and will continue to fight for 100 hundred percent affordable housing on any public property in Lower Manhattan.”