Heated Bronx Rezoning, Backed By Mayor Adams, Secures Council Approval

A land use battle in the Throggs Neck neighborhood of the Bronx has ended in a compromise, with a rezoning on Bruckner Boulevard approved to allow for hundreds of new housing units.

New York City Council Member Marjorie Velázquez said she has reached a deal with the developer seeking a rezoning to build 339-unit, mixed-income housing development, clearing the way for its approval, The Real Deal reports.

Specifics on what the developers, Throggs Neck Associates, have agreed to is not clear, but Velázquez said at a hearing last month that the project would not get her support unless she was given an assurance that the local infrastructure can handle it and local labor would be engaged to build it, per TRD.

Neighbors in the suburban-feeling section of the Bronx had loudly protested the project, prompting Mayor Eric Adams to attend a union rally supporting the rezoning, the first he threw his weight behind in his first year in office.

“The housing crisis impacts all of us, and every community has a responsibility to be part of the solution and help us provide safe, quality homes to all New Yorkers,” Adams said in a statement. “I’m proud to have been a vocal proponent of this project, and I look forward to working with the speaker and the entire City Council to advance citywide changes that will allow us to finally build the housing we so desperately need.”

The development is set to feature 166 permanently affordable apartments, replacing an empty batting cage, a Super Foodtown grocery store and 12 vacant parcels of land. Peter Bivona, part owner of the Foodtown, is one of the developers, and has said a refreshed 54K SF grocery store will be at the base of the new development.

Locals had railed against the development, complaining that it would change the neighborhood’s character and overwhelm its public services. A crowdfunding campaign had garnered $36K for legal fees to oppose the project as of this past June, Gothamist reported.

While developers have decried the city council's approach to new building this year, there have been several big wins for projects in the city lately. The New York City Planning Commission last month gave its support to a $2B mixed-use development in Astoria after Queens Borough President Donovan Richards voiced his opposition to the project.

City Council Member Tiffany Cabán in September said she will back Halletts North, a Astoria development that would bring 1,400 units to the area, and the city council gave it the go ahead last week, per Crain's New York Business.