Brooklyn, NY – A Park Slope building designed to house a mikvah faces revocation of its construction permit after the Buildings Department challenged the sponsor’s plans to have hotel units and a conference center on site.
The news comes after some neighbors of the building, on 15th Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues, told the city they feared it would generate traffic and parking congestion.
“This is a residential street and we already have a lot of problems with parking, and we have constant buses and delivery trucks,” said Kathryn Roake, a 20-year-resident of 15th Street, who organized a community meeting last Wednesday night.
The three-story structure, to be built by Chabad of Brownstone Brooklyn, is slated to have separate mikvah facilities for men and women on the first floor and in the basement — plus a conference room and two apartments that would be rented for short periods to Frum Jews visiting the neighborhood.
The developer has said that the apartments were designed for overnight stays by people visiting relatives at nearby New York Methodist Hospital.
Although the plans approved earlier included the conference room and apartments, those facilities are now under review, said Buildings spokeswoman Carly Sullivan.
The department says the design violates the zoning and must be addressed within 15 days, or the permit would be revoked.
(Source: Brooklyn Paper)
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One Response
Park Slope’s antisemitten rear their ugly heads.
You know, the ones who used to cut down the eruv strings, before it was rerouted away from residential streets. We tried taking the eruv problems to the local Community Board, but they didn’t want to encourage Orthodox Jews to live in the area. I wonder if Ms. Roake was one of them then, the eruv used to go up 15th St.
Same story, different decade.
“Hotel units and conference center” my foot – makes it sound like the shul wants to build a 15-story tower on the site. The mikva is underground, this way the rest of the building isn’t wasted. There’s presumably a 2- or 3-story house on the site already.