Landmark preservation fight heats up in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights
Residents in a corner of Brooklyn are gearing up for a unique preservation battle that isn’t about safeguarding a landmark building, but about protecting the land and the view.
Other than demolishing a later addition, developers don’t plan to touch a brick on the 19th-Century Romanesque revival building that houses the Hebron Seventh Day Adventist School in Crown Heights.
Instead, builders plan to add two seven-story structures and 152 units of housing to a lot at the Sterling Place site which is on a piece of land shared with the Hebron building, which was constructed in 1889 as the Brooklyn Methodist Episcopal Home for the Aged and Infirm.
Despite the school’s landmark status, the project already has the go-ahead from the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission.
A stop-work order last month briefly halted excavation, but construction has since resumed, and community leaders are hoping a new lawsuit can stop the machines again.
“The construction is damaging my apartment and has destroyed my belongings, and they have not even begun to demolish the south wing yet,” said Cari Hauck, who lives nearby. " The proposed building does not fit at all in the neighborhood, certainly not at an historical site. This cannot be allowed to continue. This is a far cry from landmark preservation.”
Hauck voiced her opinion on an online GoFundMe site that was launched to raise money for the opposition effort. A list of complaints about the project include the disappearance of green space, the loss of historic culture and the accelerator of gentrification.
On top of that, neighborhood residents say, the units aren’t really all that affordable.
“We’re not against development at all,” said Fior Ortiz-Joyner, an activist who is leading the opposition. “The fact of the matter is that this particular project will not be affordable to the people who live in the immediate area.”
A spokeswoman for the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which approved the project, declined to comment because of the pending litigation.
But city officials said the application went through a robust hearing process, including nearly three hours of testimony at a public hearing in October 2020.
Although opposition was voiced, the commission asked for a reduction in height and a change in the design. The new proposal was approved in May, 2021.
Ortiz-Joyner said she is pushing for a compromise solution. Since the school itself is in need of major repairs, she thinks the church that runs the school should repurpose the building and use it for affordable housing.
“It’s a campus,” Ortiz-Joyner said. “That’s what it was built for. It’s one of the only campuses of that kind left. For it to be destroyed would be a travesty.”
