Some months ago, the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership issued a big report that more than 3,300 apartments were currently under construction in the neighborhood. More than 6,500 residential units have been built since 2005, with over 9,000 in the pipeline, set to be completed by 2018. Logically concerned that the area will become packed full of new and future residential towers, families in the area banded together last year to form Downtown Brooklyn School Solutions, which is pushing hard for more public education options for the area as its population swells. To that end, the advocacy group has mapped all the buildings and residential development sites (a.k.a. future buildings) going up in Downtown Brooklyn, which gives a vivid visual of the ongoing boom there. It all makes our last map of Brooklyn's residential development, which used a different data source to conclude that about 9,000 apartments were hitting or about to hit the market in the borough, seem like a vast underestimation.
A group member explains the origins of the map in 2012. "Back then, I had to make my case to politicians and the DOE by proving how big the building boom is in aggregate with this map, and things have only accelerated since," he writes. "I've been tracking and mapping all the announcements of buildings in the works to help strengthen our case in hopes of warding off an over-crowding problem due to bad city planning like what is currently happening in lower Manhattan, Sunset Park and Queens."
Just take the two tallest, 388 Bridge Street and Avalon Willoughby West, which would have 1,119 apartments between them, and you get a sense why residents are panicking about schools.
Earlier this month, Downtown Brooklyn Schools Solution penned an open letter to developers listing 10 possible sites where a school could be built. Unlike with, say, Hunters Point South in Long Island City and other major projects, in DoBro developers are not required to build a school and aren't subject to city review because of a 2004 rezoning that deems most residential construction as-of-right. That just means the school advocates have to fight that much harder.
· Downtown Brooklyn School Solutions [official]
· Dear Developers, Please Build a New Elementary School in Downtown Brooklyn! [DoBro School Solutions]
· Mapping 9,470 New Brooklyn Apartments Hitting the Market [Curbed]
· Mapping 7,000 New Apartments Rising in Manhattan Right Now [Curbed]
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