Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) launched a public engagement process on May 7 to redevelop a City-owned site in Bedford-Stuyvesant into a mixed-use complex featuring 100 percent affordable housing and expanded social services.
The project, called Fulton-Howard West, centers on the Bedford-Stuyvesant Multi-Service Center (MSC) at 1958 Fulton Street — a former P.S. 28 school building described in the press release as being in significant disrepair — and adjacent vacant City-owned land. The 2020 Bedford-Stuyvesant Housing Plan had previously identified the site as a potential location for affordable housing development. This spring and summer, HPD and the Human Resources Administration (HRA) will hold community workshops and street-level outreach to gather resident input, which will then shape a future Request for Proposals to develop the site.
“New York City is facing a dire housing crisis, and we are using every tool available to build the affordable homes New Yorkers need,” Mayor Mamdani said in the announcement. “Fulton-Howard West shows what’s possible when we treat public land as a public good. This project will help longtime Bed-Stuy residents stay in their neighborhood while creating new space for the organizations and services that communities rely on every day.”
According to the Mayor’s press release, the completed development will deliver hundreds of affordable homes along with new community amenities and modernized space for the organizations currently operating out of the MSC. Those organizations currently provide homelessness prevention services, education, arts and social justice programming, and mentorship programs. The City has committed to keeping those services running until construction begins and to relocating the organizations into newly built space within the finished development, according to Department of Social Services (DSS) First Deputy Commissioner Saratu Ghartey.
“We will be working closely with all stakeholders at the MSC on a smooth transition and look forward to facilitating these critical services within this new, high-quality site,” Ghartey said.
HPD Commissioner Dina Levy framed the project as a community-driven investment: “This building will not only be in Bed-Stuy, it will be for Bed-Stuy. Starting today, we’ll be in the neighborhood at workshops and on the streets, engaging the community on what they want to see here.”
The administration says the project advances its Land Inventory Fast Track (LIFT) executive order, which Mayor Mamdani signed on his first day in office. LIFT charges a task force with identifying City-owned sites suitable for housing, while a companion order established the Streamlining Procedures to Expedite Equitable Development (SPEED) task force, focused on cutting delays in housing production by reforming approval, financing, and lease-up processes. The administration has also proposed what it calls the City’s first-ever Expedited Land Use Review Procedure (ELURP), which it claims would shorten approval timelines for affordable housing projects. Together, the administration estimates those initiatives could reduce the predevelopment timeline for affordable housing by more than two years — though those figures are the administration’s own projections and have not been independently assessed.
Fulton-Howard West is the first public site engagement initiative launched under the Mamdani administration. Specific dates and locations for the community engagement workshops had not been announced as of the press release’s publication; residents interested in participating can contact HPD for updates.
Featured image: NYC Mayor's Office
