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Agreement Between Continuum, Brooklyn Botanic Garden Ends Six-Year Dispute

Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG), New York City Council Member Crystal Hudson and Ian Bruce Eichner’s Continuum Company have reached an agreement on the height and affordability of Continuum’s proposed residential tower at 962-972 Franklin Ave in Crown Heights.

The City Council’s Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises signed off Tuesday on the revised proposal, ending a dispute stretching back six years. It’s slated for a vote by the full Council on Nov. 21.

At issue was the potential for the two 39-story towers originally proposed by Continuum to block out sunlight to BBG’s plants. The proposal now entails 355 apartments, 30% of which will be workforce housing, in a project rising nine stories on its western wing nearest BBG and 10 stories on its eastern side. It includes a 10-degree slope, which BBG said “will better preserve sunlight access” than the 15-degree slope approved by City Planning.

“We are grateful to our elected officials for their steadfast support and diligent work to craft a plan that ensures the sunlight that plants need to survive, protects the Garden from permanent damage and enables affordable workforce housing,” said BBG president and CEO Adrian Benepe. 

Image courtesy of NYC Tourism. Photo credit: Tagger Yancey.

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About Paul Bubny

Paul Bubny serves as Senior Content Director for Connect Commercial Real Estate, a role to which he brings 16-plus years’ experience covering the commercial real estate industry and 30-plus years in business-to-business journalism. In this capacity, he oversees daily operations while also reporting on both local/regional markets and national trends, covering individual transactions across all property types, as well as delving into broader subject matter. He produces 7-10 daily news stories per day and works with the Connect team and clients to develop longer-form content, ranging from Q&As to thought-leadership pieces. Prior to joining Connect, Paul was Managing Editor for both Real Estate Forum and GlobeSt.com at American Lawyer Media, where he oversaw operations at both publications while also producing daily news and feature-length articles. His tenure in B2B publishing stretches back into the print era, and he has served as Editor in Chief on four national trade publications. Since 1999, Paul has volunteered as the newsletter editor of passenger rail advocacy groups (one national, one local).

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