Following the hubbub created by its story about a new Crown Heights condo building converted to a homeless shelter, the Daily News has unearthed another new Brooklyn development being used as a shelter, this time in Bed-Stuy.
The nine-story building, at 652 Park Avenue, is twice as big as zoning permits—the developer used a loophole allowing dorms and community facilities to be built bigger. But students and teachers from a Williamsburg all-girls Jewish school never surfaced, and residents thought maybe the building was headed for condos, just like another "dorm" built nearby by the same developer and architect.
They were wrong! The same nonprofit group that leases the Crown Heights building is paying the developer $100,000 a month for 652 Park Avenue, which houses up to 58 families at a time. The DOB is investigating the size and use of the building, but a shelter may fall under the "community facility" umbrella, making the arrangement—despite the absence of the promised Williamsburg boarders—kosher.
Copyright © 2009 Curbed
Another New Brooklyn Building Becomes a Homeless Shelter
Copyright CURBD
