Existing Library and Adjacent Parking Lot to Be Redeveloped Into New State-of-the-Art Library and 100-Percent Affordable Housing
Adams Administration Will Conduct Extensive Digital and In-Person Public Engagement Process Over Coming Months
Project Part of Mayor Adams’ “City of Yes for Families” Plan to Build More Housing and Family-Friendly Neighborhoods
New York City Mayor Eric Adams, New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) Acting Commissioner Ahmed Tigani, and Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) today kicked off the public engagement process to redevelop New Utrecht Library into a state-of-the-art library and build new, 100-percent affordable housing overtop of the new library and on the adjacent city-owned parking lot. The branch — located in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn — requires significant repairs, creating an opportunity to not only bring the library into the 21st century but build new housing as part of the redevelopment. Throughout the public engagement process, the Adams administration will hear what library patrons, community members, and other New Yorkers would like to see from the redevelopment and new affordable housing project. Today’s announcement builds on Mayor Adams’ “City of Yes for Families” plan to build more homes and family-friendly neighborhoods across New York City. First unveiled in his State of the City address earlier this year, City of Yes for Families includes ambitious initiatives to support homeownership, create more affordable homes for inter-generational families, and build more housing alongside schools, playgrounds, grocery stores, accessible transit stations, and libraries.
“Earlier this year, I told New Yorkers that we would make our city the best place to raise a family; projects like New Utrecht are how we get it done. This ambitious project will deliver affordable housing, high-quality services, and a state-of-the-art library, all in one location,” said Mayor Adams. “With our historic ‘City of Yes for Housing’ initiative, we said yes to more housing all across the city, and with ‘City of Yes for Families,’ we are saying yes to keeping families in the five boroughs, year after, generation after generation.”
“Today, with the city’s help, we are taking a step forward for the Bensonhurst community. The Living Library redevelopment project will allow us to reinvigorate the aging New Utrecht Library building and provide the community with a modern branch for the 21st century,” said Linda E. Johnson, president and CEO, Brooklyn Public Library. “I extend my sincere thanks to Mayor Eric Adams, Deputy Mayor Adolfo Carrión, Jr. and Acting Commissioner Ahmed Tigani for advancing this project. We saw the promise of this model in Sunset Park, where New York City’s first library redevelopment to include affordable housing has proven a resounding success. Building on that achievement, we now have the opportunity to deliver a brand-new library for this community while also advancing the city’s goals of expanding affordable housing- a true win for all New Yorkers.”
New Utrecht Library is located at 1743 86th Street in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, next to a New York City Department of Transportation municipal parking lot that will also be part of the project, and around the corner form the 18th Avenue D train station. With this redevelopment, the New Utrecht branch will join the city’s “Living Libraries” program, which focuses on building new libraries and housing together to better support families and address the city’s housing crisis. Mayor Adams has committed to building more Living Libraries as part of his “City of Yes for Families Plan,” with the Adams administration advancing Living Library projects at the Bloomingdale Library in Manhattan, the Grand Concourse Library in the Bronx, and more.
Following today’s announcement, the Adams administration and BPL will lead a robust community engagement process, inviting library patrons and community members to provide feedback and suggestions via the project questionnaire, available online and in print. In addition to the questionnaire, HPD and BPL will lead an in-person community workshop at the library as well as plan local tabling events and meetings with the local community board and stakeholders. Feedback from those surveys and events will be incorporated into a community visioning report and published as part of a request for proposals asking development teams to submit proposed plans for the site. Submissions from developers must be responsive to the community priorities laid out in the community visioning report.
The community visioning process will run throughout the fall of this year, with an in-person community workshop to be announced soon. Project updates and upcoming public tabling events will be shared on the project website and social media. The branch will continue to serve the public until construction begins, and the city and BPL will ensure critical library services are not interrupted during construction.
Since entering office, Mayor Adams has made historic investments to create more affordable housing and ensure more New Yorkers have a place to call home. Earlier this year, Mayor Adams announced that his administration has created, preserved, or planned approximately 426,800 homes for New Yorkers through its work to date. Mayor Adams also announced that, in Fiscal Year 2025, the Adams administration created the most affordable rental units in city history and celebrated back-to-back-to-back record-breaking years for producing permanently-affordable homes for formerly-homeless New Yorkers, placing homeless New Yorkers into housing, and connecting New Yorkers to housing through the city’s housing lottery.
In addition to creating and preserving record amounts of affordable and market-rate housing for New Yorkers, the Adams administration has also passed ambitious plans that will create tens of thousands of new homes as well. Last December, Mayor Adams celebrated the passage of “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity,” the most pro-housing proposal in city history that will build 80,000 new homes over 15 years and invest $5 billion towards critical infrastructure updates and housing.
The Adams administration is also advancing several robust neighborhood plans that, if adopted, would deliver nearly 50,000 homes over the next 15 years to New York neighborhoods. In addition to the Bronx-Metro North Station Area Plan, the Midtown South plan, and the Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan — all of which have been passed by the New York City Council — the Adams administration is also advancing plans in Jamaica and Long Island City in Queens.
In addition to creating more housing opportunities, the Adams administration is actively working to strengthen tenant protections and support homeowners. The “Partners in Preservation” program was expanded citywide in 2024 through a $24 million investment in local organizations to support tenant organizing and combat harassment in rent-regulated housing. The Homeowner Help Desk, a trusted one-stop shop for low-income homeowners to receive financial and legal counseling from local organizations, was also expanded citywide in 2024 with a $13 million funding commitment.
Finally, Mayor Adams and members of his administration successfully advocated for new tools in the 2024 New York state budget that are already helping spur the creation of urgently needed housing. These tools include a new tax incentive for multifamily rental construction, a tax incentive program to encourage office conversions to create more affordable units, lifting the arbitrary “floor-to-area ratio” cap that held back affordable housing production in certain high-demand areas of the city, and the ability to create a pilot program to legalize and make safe basement apartments.
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