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BROOKLYN WEEKLY, NOV. 25, 2018
HOTEL
CATS
provides temporary shelter
for kitties up for adoption,
along with hosting pet-education
workshops and educating
locals about how to
properly care for domestic
— and wild — critters in
the area.
This summer, for instance,
the spot’s all-volunteer
staff papered Brooklyn
NOT VERY SCENIC: The lot between Foster Avenue and Farragut
Road is bordered by the busy thoroughfare Kings Highway, a
freight train track, and is surrounded by auto repair shops and
scrap yards. Photo by Kevin Duggan
Bridge Park with signs
begging neighbors to stop
feeding the meadow’s feral
cats, because the random
acts of kindness made it
harder for the rescuers to
recover the animals and
get them spayed, neutered,
and adopted.
And moving the cafe,
which currently offers
only pre-packaged food
and drinks because it does
not have space for an actual
barista to whip up
lattes, may allow the facility
to better live up to
its name if operators sign
a lease on the new space
they’re eyeing, which
boasts a kitchen, according
to Levin.
“We do want to offer
a little more in the way
of beverages, there’s a lot
more potential for growth,”
she said. “But when we
open, it won’t be anything
more advanced than what
we have now.”
maane Williams (D–Flatbush)
and Assemblywoman
Helene Weinstein (D–Flatbush)
came together on
Nov. 10 to blast the out-oftown
developer for erecting
the hotel on land between
Foster Avenue and Farragut
Road, a historically
industrial area where visitors
seldom want to spend
the night, according to Williams.
“This is not an area that
needs hotels, this is not a
destination spot for tourists,”
he said.
The lodge’s lot is bordered
by the busy Kings
Highway and a freight-train
track, and surrounded
by auto-repair shops and
scrap yards, with few amenities
and subway and bus
stations nearby.
In August, Department
of Buildings bigwigs approved
Queens-based developer
Sandhu Builders’s
plans to construct the
three-story hotel on the
property, which is owned
by Long Island–based fi rm
Kings Hwy NY LLC, records
show.
But any building that
goes up there should benefi
t locals — not visitors
— according to a neighborhood
leader, who said the
developer should scrap the
project and instead erect a
commercial facility such as
a grocery store that would
improve residents’ everyday
lives.
“We want something
here that will benefi t the
community on both sides,”
said Roy McKenzie, who
runs neighborhood-improvement
group the E.
59th Street United Block
Association.
Weinstein echoed McKenzie’s
criticism, saying
no constituent has
requested an inn in the
neighborhood in her decades
representing it in
Albany, and that offi cials
should fi rst prioritize
other projects, including
the development of more
so-called affordable housing
in the area.
“In my 30-plus years of
representing this community,
not a soul has come
to me to say, ‘We need a
hotel,’ ” she said. “This is
not an asset that our community
has asked for, or
needs.”
And critics expressed
concerns that the out-ofthe
way location of the socalled
“transient hotel”
could bring undesirable activity
to the neighborhood,
with Williams noting some
residents’ concerns that it
could turn into a hot-sheet
hotel for bad actors looking
to get up to no good.
The East Flatbush residents
aren’t the only Brooklynites
up in arms over new
lodges going up in neighborhoods
where locals say
they don’t belong.
Civic gurus on Community
Board 7 established
a committee to address
the city’s habit of turning
newly built Sunset Park
hotels into homeless shelters,
a trend Mayor DeBlasio
promised to phase out
by 2023, two years after his
second term wraps.
And Mill Basinites in
2015 rallied against an inn
rising there , which they
feared would also become a
hot-sheet hotbed.
But that hotel, like the
Kings Highway project,
was built as of right, meaning
there was little opponents
could legally do to
stop it.
Still, McKenzie said he
has no plans to stop protesting
the East Flatbush inn.
“We are going to picket,
we are going to talk, we are
going to do what is necessary
to stop it,” he said.
The property owner
could not be reached, and
reps for the developer did
not return a request for
comment by press time.
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