🌱 Signs of Life in the Vacant Properties and 🚶Our Walk with HPD

🌟 Author’s Note

Hello and welcome to the 5 new advocates of the Better Block Project! Our total group of advocates is now 78 individuals who care deeply about improving their neighborhoods 🙌 

Before we dive into the update, we have an exciting announcement. In our effort to improve trash on Fulton Street, we’re going to do a 🧑‍🎨 sidewalk art installation with street artist Felix Morelo. If you have ever walked by a large chalk circle “Good Luck Spot” in the city, you’ve passed Felix’s art. You can see him spotlighted here in the New York Times. We’re going to create our own version to educate on illegal dumping, including a “Clean Block Spot” and “No Dumping Spot” (we’re still brainstorming so I welcome all creative inspiration 😅 ). The installation will happen on August 23rd at 9:30am, starting at Franklin Avenue and Fulton street. We’ll have music, drinks and art as we walk down the block and educate folks on illegal dumping. More details to come in next week’s update!

🌱 Signs of Life in the Vacant Properties

For longer term followers of the Better Block Project, you’ll know this civic organization got started out of a desire to improve 1105 Fulton Street, a vacant building on the corner of Claver Place and Fulton that had been this way for more than 25 years. From there, we expanded to work on 4 vacant properties, including 26 Jefferson Avenue, 73 Macon Street and 75 Macon Street. Working to improve these properties requires a combination of grit and reality distortion, as despite a tremendous amount of effort, improvements are very difficult to come by.

Why is it so hard to improve these properties?

• The properties are privately owned, so if the owner chooses to do nothing, they have that right

• Laws to compel the owner to improve properties are limited, only requiring trash to be cleaned up in front, the building to be safely constructed, and windows and entryways to be boarded up

• Resources to enforce the laws are limited and ineffective, as only after a visit from the head of the Department of Buildings were we able to get enforcement on two properties, despite many prior visits from building inspectors. If you need the CEO to come in to get enforcement, something about the organization is broken

• The penalties for violating these laws are small compared to the value of the properties, so when they do eventually get fined, many properties owners can ignore them

Despite this dim picture, we at the Better Block Project continue to move forward, as it is a core value of our organization to get things done, no matter how long it takes. Finally, some of that effort has begun to pay off this week:

• 26 Jefferson: After a sale of the property reported in our last update, the Stop Work Order has been rescinded and we’ve learned from neighbors the owners plan to resume construction. Within that, the owners are required to do a building stability test, which is a direct result from our advocacy 💪 . There is still a lot of uncertainty on when the project will start and if construction will go better than before, but we view this as a positive step

• 1105 Fulton: In multiple days this week, we’ve observed trash being cleaned out from 1105 Fulton. We view this as a positive sign that activity is happening in the property and it may mean upcoming construction, or a potential demolition of the property as we’ve heard (unverified) from a source close to the prior owner

• 75 Macon: The public administrator plans to place the property for sale with a broker in 2 weeks, after which it will go for sale to whoever the highest bidder is through a city-defined process. We are talking to one potential buyer, 7th Street Development Group, who recently finished 105 Putnam Avenue on time (from sale to completion in less than 2 years) and with no open complaints. We think they could be a good fit to get this property occupied both responsibly and quickly. However, if you know someone else that might be interested, feel free to reply and I can share more details on the buying process. Our goal is to find good buyers for vacant properties as we believe occupying them is the best way to avoid neighborhood blight and it increases the supply of housing, making New York more affordable (you can read more here). This is an important subject in Brooklyn so if you have thoughts or feedback, just reply, I’d love to hear them

• 73 Macon: 73 Macon’s deed theft case is now in front of the court, and the sale of the property could be one of the recommendations. We’re going to continue monitoring this, but typically a sale is a good sign as often the best path to occupying a building is through a new owner

Next, for both 26 Jefferson and 1105 Fulton, we finally confirmed our follow up with Department of Buildings at 11am on Friday, August 8th 📆 . This is a crucial call as we’ll finally get deeper on the status of both of their violations with the DOB, and it should give us much more clarity on the path forward. If you’d like to attend this call, just reply to this email and I can add you.

🚶 Our Walk with HPD

This week, we also had our walk with George Jones, who leads HPD’s Zombie Homes initiative. The Zombie Homes initiative monitors abandoned or dilapidated properties, with the goal to force banks to make repairs. We surveyed all four properties above, and unfortunately, none of them qualify for this program 🤦 The Zombie Homes initiative targets a very specific set of properties that meet the following criteria:

• 1-4 Family Homes

• Abandoned and Vacant

• Physically Distressed

• In Foreclosure or Pre-Foreclosure (so the owner is not present, and the property is owned by the bank)

While our properties qualify for the first three, the owners are present for both 1105 Fulton and 26 Jefferson, so neither qualify. For 75 Macon, this property is about to go for sale so also would not qualify. It’s unclear and unlikely that 73 Macon would qualify for this program as well.

It’s unfortunate that we can’t use this as a lever to mandate repairs, but the silver lining is George offered to help improve other properties in Bed Stuy that do meet this criteria. I have heard from many folks here the challenges of vacant buildings, so if you know of a vacant building that meets the criteria above, send them my way. You do not need to know if it is in foreclosure (a law firm does this research for the city), but a good proxy for this is if you know the owner is not around. The best candidates for this program are those that are severely physically distressed, as it takes time for the city to investigate and enforce (likely 6-12 months), so it’s really only worth it for severe issues. If there is only light damage to the property that isn’t causing immediate danger, it’s likely not a fit. Regardless, I am going to be working to build a list to send to George of properties in Bed Stuy that look to be good candidates as a way we can activate this program to improve our blocks.

⏳ Where we are on the other problems we’re working on

• 🚌 Improving the Bus Stop on Franklin and Fulton: We’ve reached out to Chi Osse and Phara Souffrant Forrest’s office to schedule walks to review the situation at the bus stop. We haven’t heard back from either office, and followed up this week. If we don’t hear from them, we plan to gather a large group to discuss the issue at the first Community Board 3 meeting in September

• 🐝 Enabling Residents to Make Their Own Tree Repairs: Through an introduction from Jabari Brisport’s office (thank you, Nick!), we were able to get a conversation scheduled with a member of the Park’s Department to discuss the pruning policy. We learned of the Citizen Pruning program, but we don’t believe this is sufficient to solve the issue. We plan to speak on Monday, to then organize a larger community meeting in September about the potential policy change

• 🗑️ Fulton Street Trash Clean Up: We have not heard back from DSNY about increased collections or increased enforcement, or the City Council about the budget opportunity. This is unfortunate given how many residents showed up for our community meeting, and I plan to follow up with all of them next week to understand next steps, and get their participation in the sidewalk art installation event

• 🏠️ Protecting Residents from Property Tax Reform: We also met this week with Senator Andrew Gounardes on Property Tax Reform, one of the most knowledgeable individuals yet that we have spoken with on the topic. In next week’s update, I plan to go deeper on the state of property tax reform and what to expect moving forward

That’s all for this week’s update. If you like what we’re doing here, share betterblockproject.com with other community members you know who are looking to drive change in Brooklyn.

See you next week,

David