Affordable housing, community services coming to East New York megachurch's campus

Officials say an East New York redevelopment project that broke ground on Tuesday will ultimately bring more than 2,000 affordable housing units to the Christian Cultural Center’s campus — as well as a community space with child care, senior services and a performing arts center.

In the first phase of the Innovative Urban Village’s construction, developers will build a 385-unit affordable housing development in the Brooklyn neighborhood with commercial space for a grocery store, officials said. All of the units will be classified as affordable for households earning between 30% and 80% of the area median income. Officials said 94 units will be set aside for households that qualify for on-site support services including case management, legal services and nutritional support — including formerly homeless New Yorkers.

At the groundbreaking Tuesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul said the project's $270 million first phase will help fight the housing affordability crisis while also helping to improve the neighborhood’s livability.

“I believe to my core that every human being deserves dignity, a safe, secure roof over their heads,” she said. “I so look forward to handing a set of keys to the first occupant of this extraordinary project, because you can see in their eyes, until that moment, they didn't know if they were worthy of this.”

The multiphase project, which the Rev. Alfonso R. Bernard of the Christian Cultural Center described as decades in the making, is a partnership between the megachurch, developer The Gotham Organization and contractor Monadnock Development. Officials say it will eventually include 2,000 affordable homes across 10 buildings. New streets will be added into the neighborhood grid to make the area more walkable, in addition to three acres of publicly accessible open space, officials said.

“Innovative urban village is more than an affordable housing development. It is a modern call to collective responsibility,” he said at the groundbreaking. “It's more than offering promises or programs. It's taking action to lift the burden off of the shoulders of those crushed by inequity and neglect.”

He described it as government “not ruling from a distance, but governing with compassion” in partnership with houses of worship and the private sector “investing in people, creating jobs with dignity, supporting education innovation and opportunity.”

City Councilmember Chris Banks said the redevelopment project is a “transformative investment” for the district.

“This is how we build and sustain neighborhoods for generations and how we begin to build Black and brown generational wealth in real, tangible ways,” he said.

The Innovative Urban Village will be funded through several streams, including a state tax credit program, state and city housing programs, and from the Urban Investment Group at Goldman Sachs Alternatives.