Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams is calling upon the city conduct a study that explores opportunities to create new mixed-use and affordable housing along the 3 train line, near Livonia Avenue in Brownsville.
The proposed planning study would measure the feasibility to transform vacant lots along 98th Street from East New York to Livonia avenues, and from Livonia Avenue east to Van Sinderen Avenue.
“In addition to the vacant sites identified by the Brownsville Plan, I believe that the neighborhood’s 3 line corridor may be a possible site for beneficial transit-oriented affordable housing, and I encourage DCP to study the impact of such potential development,” said Adams in a press statement.
The recommendation from Adams comes as part and parcel of a Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) response that requests the approval of applications, submitted by the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), for zoning amendments that will allow an eight-story development with 125 affordable units to rise on Livonia Avenue between Grafton Street and Howard Avenue. The project could also create new affordable retail and community facility space, if it moves forward.
Adams is also calling upon the MTA to prioritize plans to create a free connection between the 3 line’s Junius Street station and the L train’s Livonia Avenue stations. Back in 2015, the agency promised to fund a connector but construction isn’t slated to begin until 2018 and there is no guarantee that the connector will be free once it is actualized.
“With additional development coming into this community, and considering the existing challenges facing economically-challenged riders, duplicating the free out-of-station transfer that Upper East Side straphangers use every day [at the Lexington Avenue/59th Street and Lexington Avenue/63rd Street stations] is the right and just move,” said Adams.