City Council Votes to Approve Domino Sugar Redevelopment
By Al Barbarino April 25, 2014 12:20 pm
reprintsTwo Trees Management has reportedly struck an agreement with the City Council that would allow the firm to build 55-story towers at the mixed-use Domino Sugar refinery development project on the Williamsburg, Brooklyn waterfront.
In exchange for the go-ahead to construct buildings that rise 15 stories taller than anything else on the Brooklyn waterfront, the 700 below market rate residential units at the site must offer average rents deemed affordable for families of four making 70 percent – about $60,000 a year – of the area median income, according to the Wall Street Journal.
With the support of the area’s city councilman, Stephen Levin, the Council’s Committee on Land Use voted on Thursday to approve the project and is set for a final vote on Tuesday.
“After weeks of discussions we have reached an agreement on the project at the Domino Sugar site that will build on the gains made by [Mayor Bill de Blasio‘s] administration to maximize affordable housing and open space to the Williamsburg community,” Mr. Levin told WSJ.
In a new stipulation to the previous plan, the administration is also expected to provide Two Trees Management with tax-exempt financing to sustain the affordable component.
In March, the City Planning Commission unanimously approved the developer’s revised plans to bump the number of affordable units to 700.
Two Trees plans to transform the former refinery into a nearly three-million-square-foot mixed-use development with more than 2,200 housing units, approximately 480,000 square feet of office space, 110,000 square feet of retail space, and 143,000 square feet of community facility space, including a school.
