Controversial Pfizer Site Development Approved By City Council

BEDFORD-STUYVESANT, BROOKLYN — City Council has approved plans for a controversial development plan that spurred protests and accusations of racial prejudice.

Eight new apartment buildings can now be built on a site near the Broadway Triangle after City Council gave its approval with a vote of 37 to seven on Tuesday afternoon.

Neighborhood activists protested the development — staging a walk-out at a Brooklyn Borough Hall public debate and a sit-in at the City Planning hearing — arguing the apartments would promote segregation by catering to the neighborhood’s Hasidic Jewish residents.

The project supporters’ argued in response that development’s opponents were guilty of anti-Semitism.

The 1,146-unit apartment complex — 25 percent of which will have rent controls — can now go up on the site, formerly occupied by the Pfizer drug company, between Walton Street, Union Avenue, Gerry Street and Harrison Avenue.

"Today's vote shows that the lives of Black and Latino families are not important to the City of New York,” Churches United for Fair Housing organizer Alexandra Fennell said in a statement.

“They have been completely ignored and once again find themselves marginalized by a plan that should have benefited all New Yorkers at risk of displacement.”

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