ODA’s New (and bigger) Plan for 420 Kent

Eliot Spitzer is revealing his ODA-designed plans for the former Kedem Winery site on the Southside waterfront. The property was rezoned in 2006, and the as-of-right development more or less conforms to the rest of the Williamsburg-Greenpoint waterfront zoning – a 5.0 FAR, 20% affordable at 80% AMI, publicly-accessible waterfront esplanade. The only real difference is the height, which at 18 and 24 stories is closer to the Schaefer Landing precedent than what was allowed further north (35 to 40 stories).

But according to the Times, Spitzer’s plans call for 856 units of housing, which is almost double what was predicted in the 2006 rezoning documents (450 units back then), and he is now showing three towers instead of two. At first I assumed that the project had shifted unit sizes – pretty dramatically. Looking at BIS, though, I can only find two New Building permits, totaling 470 units in two buildings (16 and 18 stories).

The Old Plan

As recently as last summer, Spitzer was showing renderings (below) that matched the 2006 rezoning (that architecture was by Pasanella Klein Stolzman & Berg). So where did this third tower and extra 400 units come from?