Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Finally Some Action at 487?

















This banner went up at 487 Fourth Avenue within the last couple of days.  487 has been a mystery lot for years, handed over (it seemed) by the city to Mercy Housing in 2011, to build a home for the developmentally disabled.   I had heard rumors from residents on the block that the city wanted to develop housing at this site in conjunction with Mercy (taking over higher floors of a future building) but that Mercy was opposed to this. Well, it was a rumor, so I tried to find out more about this from Brad Lander's office over the summer & after a couple of enquiries there finally got a response in February, with this quote from CB6's Sixth Sense:

 Congratulations Sister Kay Crumlish, and the entire Mercy Home familyIt's been nearly 2 decades in the making and on February 5th, they finally closed on the HPD property at 12th Street and 4th Avenue. This former community garden site will be developed as a home for 8-10 frail developmentally disabled adults and will include space for a future community garden too. Win-win.

No confirmation from the Landers office of any other housing going up here in conjunction with this. As one who works with the developmentally disabled, I know what a critical shortage of housing there is for this population, so I'm glad this particular development finally seems to be happening. There's currently a Stop Work Order in effect at 487.

An earlier post on this site, with an 80s photograph of its community garden days:

http://www.onemorefoldedsunset.com/2013/09/so-whats-going-on-at.html


No comments: