Steve Madden threatens to move if "affordable housing" development takes over parking lot

  

 

NY Post

Steve Madden’s shoe company is ready to walk away from its Queens headquarters — and take 400 workers with it — over a proposed affordable-housing development that will step on the company’s parking.

The designer’s eponymous brand uses two buildings on Barnett Avenue in Sunnyside for offices and shoe production and says it relies on a parking lot across the street for employees.

A plan by non-profit developer Phipps Houses calls for rezoning the lot to build a seven-story building with 167 units.

“Without the public parking, Madden would have no feasible way to maintain its Barnett Avenue presence,” Andrew Luskin, a lawyer for the shoe mogul, wrote in a January email to City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer.

Luskin said the company rents about half of the 223 spaces in the lot and many company employees have been driving to work, rather than using public transit, during the pandemic.

He wrote that the company’s more than 400 workers patronize area businesses and that the company donates to local causes.

“Madden urges that the neighborhood would have much to lose if the company were compelled to relocate due to the approval of the proposed housing project and conversion of the Project Site from its present use as a public parking facility,” Luskin wrote.

A "real affordable housing" conundrum develops in Sunnyside

LIC Post

Four years ago, Phipps Houses withdrew their application to build an affordable housing complex in my Sunnyside neighborhood after I had come out against it.

It was a project that the community board voted against and which faced significant community opposition. I too was opposed, but not because I didn’t want to see affordable housing built here.

As I said then, my opposition focused on four key issues:

1) Phipps’ unwillingness to commit to good jobs, paying good wages, offering real benefits. I have always and will always stand for good union jobs.

2) The “affordable” apartments weren’t truly affordable – income levels were too high.

3) The existing tenants living in the Phipps Garden Apartments across the street complained of serious maintenance issues.

4) The new building would be nearly twice the height of the building across the street

Those were real issues and real concerns. And I wish Phipps had been able to address them then.

They weren’t.

But Phipps maintained ownership of the property, currently a large parking lot. They revised their proposal and came back to me and the community with it.

Some of the same voices opposed to the project four years ago are once again demanding that I block it. They say it’s the same project, with the same flaws, and if I opposed it four years ago, I should do so again. But this is a different, and much improved proposal. Here’s why:

Phipps has changed their tune to hiring and now offers good jobs widely, including both in this newly proposed development and the Phipps Garden Apartments. The affordability levels have been lowered dramatically, with 20% of the units at 40% AMI and the highest income band at 80%. We have never seen such levels of affordability in this area.

 Phipps is also one of the worst slumlords in the World's Borough. Something Jimmy is willing to overlook to pander for the votes of the rent-burdened. 

Here's another thing Jimmy overlooked.

LIC Post

The fashion shoe company Steve Madden is threatening to leave Sunnyside if the seven story, 167-unit building development planned by Phipps Houses on Barnett Avenue goes up.

Steve Madden, which penned a letter to Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer Jan. 14, said that it employs more than 400 people at its 52-16 Barnett Ave. location and it would be forced to relocate if the Phipps development moves forward.

The company says that it rents 120 spaces on the 220-space parking lot where the development is proposed to go. The spaces are used by its personnel and are rented from Phipps. Without the parking spaces for employees, it says it would have to leave.

“Without the public parking lot, Madden will have no reasonable way to maintain its Barnett Avenue presence,” the letter reads.

The letter also notes that its employees help bolster the local economy by patronizing local merchants and eateries.

“In short, Madden and its employees provide substantial economic support for the local community and its retail businesses,” the letter reads.

Phipps needs to get its Barnett Avenue property rezoned in order to develop the site. The application currently rests in the hands of the City Council, having been approved by Community Board 2, the Queens Borough President and the City Planning Commission.

Van Bramer issued a public statement today announcing his support for the project, citing the need for affordable and low-cost housing. He did not address Steve Madden’s concerns in his statement and did not comment for this story.

Steve Madden, however, has done little in the way of outreach to make its concerns known other than the solitary letter to Van Bramer. It did not reach out to Community Board 2 nor did it speak to Queens Borough President Donovan Richards or the City Planning Commission.

The Jan. 14 letter to Van Bramer was also not released publicly but surfaced on social media via the Facebook page Small Town Confidential.

The Queens Post called the attorney representing Steve Madden whose name appeared on the letter. The attorney–Andrew Luskin, of the firm McLaughlin & Stern–confirmed that he wrote it and said the issue was real.

President Richards gives the thumbs up for rezoning in Sunnyside

  

Queens Post

  proposal for a seven story affordable housing complex in Sunnyside is one step closer to becoming a reality.

Queens Borough President Donovan Richards has come out in support of a rezoning application put forward by Phipps Houses, a non-profit developer, which seeks to construct a seven-story, 167-unit building at 50-25 Barnett Ave.

All of the units in the building would be “affordable” and there would be space on the ground floor for a community facility.

The borough president’s recommendation comes one month after Community Board 2 voted to approve the controversial project by a vote of 28 in favor and 13 against—subject to a series of conditions.

Those conditions centered around Phipps Houses’ questionable history as a property manager in Sunnyside, which many say should disqualify it from developing the new building.

One of those conditions requires Phipps to conduct a series of repairs to the 492-unit Sunnyside Gardens Apartment complex it manages on 39th Avenue over the next six months.

Phipps Houses looking to get rezoning approval for affordable housing development

 

 

 

  

Queens Post

Phipps Houses has filed plans to rezone its Barnett Avenue property and build a seven-story, 167-unit building.

The non-profit developer applied for a zoning change earlier this year and the application was certified by the Dept. of City Planning on Oct. 5– officially kicking off the public review process. Phipps needs to rezone its site from manufacturing to residential in order to proceed with the project that would go up at 50-25 Barnett Ave.

The plans call for a mixed use building on the north side of Barnett Avenue between 50th and 52nd streets. The building would consist of 167 units that would all be deemed affordable–subject to income restrictions. The units would be 1, 2 and 3 bedroom apartments and there would be no studios.

The development would also include room for a community facility as well as 170 attended parking spaces, of which 111 would be made available for the public.

The application comes four years after Phipps abandoned a more ambitious rezoning plan for the site after facing fierce community opposition.

The current plans are about to go before Community Board 2 for review. The board is expected to hold a public hearing in November before it renders an advisory opinion. The plans will then go to the Queens Borough President’s office, the City Planning Commission and then the city council for a vote. The whole public review process is expected to take about seven months.

The proposal is smaller than what Phipps put forward in 2016, when it sought a rezoning to build a 10-story, 209-unit building. The units in that plan would have all been affordable, although at higher income brackets.

The affordable units in Phipps’ latest plan would target households earning significantly less.

It does seem nice that Phipps was persuaded to bring down the size and the rents. A welcome change to how they operate their other buildings.

 

 

 

Van Bramer stops de Blasio backed project

From the Daily News:

The developer of a Queens affordable housing project has scrapped the proposal amid opposition, another defeat for Mayor de Blasio’s home-building push.

Phipps Houses yanked the application to build 209 apartments in Sunnyside, all of them income restricted, a day before the City Council was set to hold a hearing.

Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Queens) had vowed to oppose the plan, making approval all but impossible on the Council, which usually follows the lead of the local member on development projects.

It’s the second defeat of a project under de Blasio’s mandatory inclusionary housing rules, after an Inwood proposal was voted down in the Council. But a large project for the Bronx was approved last week.

De Blasio got personally involved with the push for the Sunnyside plan - saying he would have a “polite but firm” conversation with Van Bramer to persuade him the project was a “blessing.”

But Van Bramer said the mayor’s intervention backfired.

“The mayor’s involvement here was not helpful,” he said. “His comments about me sort of ratcheted this thing up and helped to get my community riled up, and that was not conducive to working out a deal.”

Van Bramer opposed to affordable housing project

From Sunnyside Post:

Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer has told the Sunnyside Post that he will block Phipps Houses’ proposal to build a 10-story residential development on Barnett Avenue, essentially killing the controversial development plan.

Van Bramer said Phipps’ proposal, which would bring 208 units—all affordable—to 50-25 Barnett Ave., was too big and out of scale with the neighborhood.

“Ten stories is out of character and inconsistent with the rest of the neighborhood,” Van Bramer said. “It’s across the street from the existing Phipps [Phipps Garden Apartments], which would be dwarfed by this.”

Phipps, a non-profit developer, is seeking a zoning change in order to build on the Barnett lot that is currently zoned for manufacturing. As part of the rezoning process, the City Council must approve the change.

Van Bramer essentially decides whether the council will vote it up or down, since it is council protocol for members to follow the recommendation of the local representative.

“They can’t build this building without my approval,” he said.