Tower plan near B’klyn garden gets big kibosh

The sun will keep shining on the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

The City Planning Commission is poised to pan an apartment tower project in Crown Heights that would cast a shadow over the famed 52-acre plant and flower sanctuary.

The development at 960 Franklin Ave., which was being pushed by Bruce Eichner of the Continuum Company, drew fierce community opposition. In December, Mayor de Blasio announced he’d block its construction, reversing course after supporting the development.

But on Tuesday, City Planning Commissioner Marisa Lago drove another nail in the project’s coffin.

The complex, which includes two 34-story towers, is “not only inappropriate for this location, but also casts extensive shadows over the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s greenhouses and conservatories,” Lago said in a statement.

The commission is expected to vote on the project by next month.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden officials have labeled the project an “existential threat” to the famed garden.

A report by the Municipal Art Society contended the garden would lose several hours of sunlight a day, threatening its collections of orchids, cacti, succulents, tropical plants, water lilies and lotuses.

The nearby Jackie Robinson Playground would also grow colder in the winter, with the buildings blocking sunlight to the basketball and handball courts, and outdoor fitness equipment, the report contends.

The project’s supporters, however, have lauded it as a union-run project that would bring hundreds of affordable housing units to the neighborhood, and blasted those who run the garden as “upper-class ivory tower bourgeoisie, who spend more of their time at cocktail parties than talking to everyday New Yorkers who need affordable housing.”

On July 29, Lago dismissed any chance the commission would consider a last-minute change to the proposal to reduce the size of the buildings.

“A substantial change to the proposal this late in the process ... not only undermines the Department’s expertise and guidance over the past few years, but also makes a mockery of the public engagement of local residents, organizations and other stakeholders,” she said.