Our garden needs its sunlight
Brooklyn Botanic Garden is under attack. While New Yorkers have been trying to survive the COVID-19 pandemic, a wealthy developer has been working to erect an enormous luxury building less than 150 feet from our entrance. The building would cast shadows all over the garden (and across the street into Prospect Park) and destroy one of the city’s crown jewels, a space that is treasured by New Yorkers of all backgrounds. We cannot let this happen.
The garden was established more than 110 years ago and has one of the world’s most impressive collections of flora, with rare plants native to the New York City region, venerable trees that are more than a century old, and greenhouses that transport visitors to far-flung places. We’re proud of the horticultural expertise that created and maintains this urban oasis, and we’re keenly aware of the impact it has on the thousands of visitors who seek it out every day for a moment of calm and peace in their hectic lives.
More than two years ago, a team of developers saw an opportunity to profit off the Crown Heights neighborhood in which BBG is located, purchasing a few adjacent plots of land to build luxury towers a block from the garden. Because the proposed building complex included towers much higher than the original zoning, they needed approval from the city to rezone the area.
Enormous shadows cast by the proposed buildings will endanger the most sensitive section of the garden, blocking hours of sunlight every day to our conservatories, greenhouses and nurseries. It would harm many of our plants, including endangered orchids, rare cacti and hundred-year-old bonsais. There is no substitute for sunlight.
We started the Fight for Sunlight campaign to make sure that the community knew of the potential impact of the new building. A few weeks ago, the developers submitted a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), as required by the City Planning Commission, and our worst fears were realized.
The garden would not be the only part of the neighborhood affected. The DEIS indicates that the shadows would also cover Jackie Robinson Playground, Medgar Evers College and the Prospect Park Zoo: The entire neighborhood would be darkened by the building’s shadows. Elizabeth Goldstein of the Municipal Art Society notes, “The existing zoning was put in place to protect sunlight on Brooklyn Botanic Garden; nearby spaces like Jackie Robinson Playground and Medgar Evers
College have been protected by it as well. If a developer wants special permission to defy that zoning, the people of Crown Heights deserve an honest assessment of the way their neighborhood may be forever changed.”
Fortunately, the developers could not hide their intent from the community, despite releasing their updated plan during a pandemic. More than 53,000 New Yorkers signed a petition in protest, and many elected officials including Mayor de Blasio, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, and local Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo, said they opposed any project that harmed the garden.
But the developers have nonetheless moved forward. They recently offered an alternative that would contain fewer affordable housing units than the original, mammoth plan, in an effort to pit affordable housing proponents against community residents. It is a cynical ploy by a developer trying to make a buck off our neighborhood.
I regularly walk around the garden, and I am often stopped by visitors who remark about how important this rich, tranquil, reinvigorating space has been to their lives. Among the visitors was a Brooklyn resident who told me that she learned a lifelong love of plants and nature, beginning in our 105-year-old Children’s Garden — and now she brings her elderly mother here to connect with natural beauty. These conversations remind me of the importance of open space to urban dwellers and young learners.
New Yorkers know the importance of ensuring that our dense, noisy, overbuilt city has space for reflection and tranquility, recharging our batteries, and enhancing our mental health. We cannot let developers come in, turn us against one another, and destroy a community treasure. The pandemic will come to an end at some point, and we will need to ensure that the places that we love come back as strong as ever.
Now is the time to act. Though the public review of the rezoning has been temporarily halted by a legal order, thanks to a community lawsuit, this is no time to let down our guard. Come out to a socially distanced protest, sign our petition, testify at public hearings, follow us online or call your elected official to ensure that luxury developers cannot destroy this cultural gem. For the sake of an institution that all New Yorkers love and need, we must fight to protect it.
Benepe is president of Brooklyn Botanic Garden.