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PUBLIC TESTIMONY

Testimony by Kathryn Glass, Chief Public Affairs Officer of Brooklyn Botanic Garden on 962-972 Franklin Avenue Rezoning

1:02:42

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Kathryn Glass, representing Brooklyn Botanic Garden, expresses appreciation for the City Planning Commission's work but requests further modifications to the proposed rezoning of 962-972 Franklin Avenue. She emphasizes the garden's concern about potential sunlight loss and its reluctance to engage in advocacy beyond its core mission.

BBG requests changing the proposed rezoning from R7D to R8A and reducing the imaginary sloping plane from 15 degrees to 10 degrees to mitigate sunlight loss.
Glass highlights the garden's significant efforts and expenses in opposing the original development proposal since 2019.
She stresses the importance of protecting the garden's ability to grow and display plants, appealing to the legacy of its founders and historical support from city leaders.

Kathryn Glass

1:02:42

Thank you so much.

1:02:43

I'm here on behalf of Brooklyn Botanic garden's president, Adrian Bennett, who unfortunately wasn't able to make it today.

1:02:50

My name is Catherine Glass.

1:02:52

I'm the garden's chief public affairs officer.

1:02:55

First, I'd like to say that BBG is keenly appreciative of the work that the city planning commission has done to foster new development and to protect this vital more than hundred year old city asset.

1:03:07

We thank you and your peers in the pub in public service for your consideration.

1:03:13

The Gardens analysis indicates that while the project has evolved in a positive direction, the R70 zoning class with a 15 degree imaginary plane would still cause significant loss of sunlight to the garden, particularly in the winter when the sun is lowest on the horizon.

1:03:30

For that reason, we respectfully request that the sub committee alter the proposed rezoning from an R 7d to an RDA and that they shave 5 degrees off the imaginary sloping plane, making it 10 degrees rather than 15 degrees.

1:03:45

With me today is my colleague, Rowan Blake, vice president of horticulture, who has prepared testimony on the impacts of these various resoning proposals and what we think would be optimal for the garden and its collections.

1:03:58

Before thanking you for the opportunity to give testimony today, I wanna remind the sub committee that the garden is generally not an advocacy organization.

1:04:07

In other words, we don't seek out opportunities to opine on issues of public housing or or union pensions or affordable housing.

1:04:16

But since this development, became public in 2019, the Garden has been drawn into a campaign to oppose the originally proposed development.

1:04:27

We've tasked staff board and outside experts to help us communicate the existential necessity of sunlight for a living museum of plants, that grow in our front and our back of house collections.

1:04:38

We've expended 100 of 1000 of dollars defending the Gardens' New York City conferred responsibility to grow into and display plants.

1:04:48

We think now that the time has come to return to our role as Botanic garden, regarding the legacy of our visionary founders and the many New York City elected leaders who over the decades have supported and protected this garden, who imagined in more than a century old partnership a place where urban dwellers could lose themselves in a sense of nature and benefit from immersion in the world of plants.

1:05:09

With your help and protection, we will do just that.

1:05:12

Thank you.

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Council Member Abreu questions project funding and expresses hope for continued negotiations

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Testimony by Rowan Blaik, VP of Horticulture at Brooklyn Botanic Garden