239 Banker Street is a former sweater factory located in the manufacturing zone in the Bushwick Inlet area. Residential use is, therefore, not allowed as of right. Transient hotel use is allowed as of right (and the owners have permits to convert this building to such), but as Heather documents, the owner is marketing this is as apartments (“each apartment is unique within itself” – wtf?), not even going through the pretense of calling it a hotel. From the owner’s website:

you can carve out your own space with an original style. All apartments have new kitchen appliances and bathroom fixtures for your maximum comfort.

There are even floor layouts on the website, complete with kitchens (not a usual hotel amenity), but lacking beds (a more common hotel amenity).

(The fact that people are moving in when the project doesn’t have a CO for either transient hotel use or residential use is a separate, probably more enforceable, issue.)

The City’s IBZ program was supposed to stop this kind of stuff and help maintain industry in our manufacturing zones. It was one of the promises of the 2005 zoning. Who would have though that leaving a small island of manufacturing at the Bushwick Inlet would lead to hotels, bowling alleys, night clubs and other non-industrial, non-job-generating uses. Hard to fathom.