Community Board 10 report offers snapshot of Dyker Heights

Document looks at 8th Avenue Center, housing, jobs, population trends

September 20, 2017 By Paula Katinas Brooklyn Daily Eagle

The Eighth Avenue Center will have a major impact on the surrounding area, according to a new report from Community Board 10’s Zoning and Land Use Committee. Image courtesy of Richard Chan Architects, P.C.

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A planned residential-commercial development on the Dyker Heights-Sunset Park border that includes a hotel, a shopping mall and hundreds of housing units could have a significant impact on housing, transportation and jobs in surrounding communities, according to a report issued by the Zoning and Land Use Committee of Community Board 10.

The 31-page report, titled “6200 Eighth Avenue: Where Neighborhoods Collide,” took a look at the Eighth Avenue Center, a development planned for the site. The report also includes data on current population figures, jobs and housing.

“The plans for 6200 Eighth Ave. describe a mixed-use megaproject that will undoubtedly have a major impact on the surrounding area,” Michael Devigne, a Hunter College graduate who assisted the committee, wrote in the report.

Committee Chairman Brian Kaszuba issued the report to Board 10 on Monday.

Kaszuba said he wants Board 10 members to use the document as an informational tool when the Department of City Planning comes to the board seeking input on whether Eighth Avenue Center should be given a go-ahead.

“In order to make decisions on the future, you have to know where things stand at the present time. It’s important to know where the trends are,” he told the Brooklyn Eagle in a phone interview.

Using city records, Census data, and other research materials, Devigne focused on the area bounded by Seventh Avenue to the west, 49th Street to the north, 14th Avenue to the east and Bay Ridge Parkway to the south.

Board 10 serves in an advisory capacity but does have a say in whether the property owners should receive a special permit from the city to move forward with the Eighth Avenue Center project. The board can also voice concerns to city officials about the project.

The owners of the property at 6200 Eighth Ave. are looking to develop the site into a massive complex that will include an 11-story hotel, a shopping mall, 250 residential apartments, a health care center, a library and a private pre-school.

The project would need a special permit from the city because the land is zoned for manufacturing, not residential use.

The property, which stretches from Eighth Avenue to Seventh Avenue, between 62nd and 64th streets, is owned by a group of investors that formed an entity known as 62-08 Realty Corp., according to Department of Finance records.

Richard Chan Architects, P.C. is the firm designing the ambitious project.

The report doesn’t make a recommendation as to whether Board 10 should vote for or against the project. But the document does point out that the area’s population grew exponentially between 2000 and 2015. A large scale development is bound to have a major impact, the report concludes.

“The population has grown at a rapid pace,” Kaszuba told the Eagle.

The population grew by 15 percent between 2000 and 2015, the report found. “Dyker Heights North has captured more than half of that growth,” according to Devigne, who noted that in 2000, the population of the Dyker Heights North area was 31,505. By 2015, it had jumped to 39,024, a 23.8 percent increase.

“Development has been particularly intense in parts of Sunset Park and Borough Park where new residential construction is unable to keep pace with increasing numbers. Dyker Heights has begun to feel the pressure of this unbridled growth that is manifested in the proliferations of illegal conversions, school overcrowding and strains on other public services,” Devigne wrote.

“The 6200 Eighth Ave. project could be the accelerant for changes many residents do not welcome,” Devigne warned.

Local residents view illegal home conversions as a major problem in the area. Illegal home conversions take place when a property owner subdivides a single-family or two-family home into multiple units, in some cases as small as a single room, and rents them out to tenants.

Between 2010 and 2016, there was a 56 percent increase in the frequency of 311 calls from residents complaining about illegal home conversions.

“6200 Eighth Avenue: Where Neighborhoods Collide” also looked at the area’s housing stock.

It turns out that 56 percent of the area consists of one and two-family homes. Another 25 percent are multi-unit buildings and 11 percent are mixed residential.

The average building was constructed 86 years ago, but the oldest one and two-family homes were built between 1900 and 1929.

The report looked at job trends. The findings revealed that 21.6 percent of the residents of the study area are employed in the health care and social assistance industry. Another 11.6 percent work in the accommodation and food services industries. And 10.8 percent worked in the retail trade sector.

Interestingly, the study found that 11.9 percent of the population both lives and works in the area.