An auto-heavy stretch of East Flatbush could one day trade mufflers for mid-rise towers, if a new rezoning bid from Bawabeh Holdings makes it through City Hall. The company has filed paperwork to transform a long-industrial run of East 98th Street and Rockaway Parkway into a nine-building complex of roughly 1.2 million square feet with nearly 1,000 apartments. Even at this early stage, neighbors and local officials are already zeroing in on affordability and displacement as the plan enters the city’s formal land use review.
The Uniform Land Use Review Procedure application seeks permission for 972 apartments spread across nine buildings, according to Commercial Observer. The structures are shown rising about 14 to 15 stories and would need a zoning change to allow residential uses on what are now industrial and automotive parcels. The filing, submitted through an entity tied to the Bawabeh family, appears in the city’s online zoning portal.
Under New York City's Mandatory Inclusionary Housing rules, between 194 and 292 units in the project would have to be permanently affordable, The Real Deal reported. The developer’s own proposal currently sets aside 84 apartments permanently affordable to households at about 60 percent of area median income, a level Councilmember Chi Ossé has publicly pushed to make deeper. The Real Deal also noted that representatives for the developer could not be reached for immediate comment.
Design and site plans
IMC Architecture, the project’s architect, has posted a description and renderings for an “East 98th Street” plan on its website that show mid-rise mixed-use blocks with ground-floor retail lining the corridor. The images sketch out how nine buildings might be massed on the site and how the streetscape could evolve, but they do not yet drill down to unit layouts or final finishes. Those details are expected to be refined during environmental review and a round of public hearings.
Rezoning, size and schedule
City filings compiled by PincusCo show the proposal covers 31 lots, totaling about 164,382 square feet of land. The application seeks to shift zoning from C8-2, which primarily allows industrial and automotive uses, to C4-4 and C4-4D districts that permit residential development. In all, the program is pegged at roughly 1.2 million gross square feet, including about 923,347 square feet of housing, 136,112 square feet of retail and approximately 103,472 square feet of community facility space, along with an estimated 114 accessory parking spaces. The filing appears in two versions, one for the 972-unit scheme and another for a smaller 786-unit variant, and the developer is projecting two 45-month construction phases with full buildout around 2035.
What’s next
The rezoning request now moves into New York City’s public review pipeline, where community boards, borough and citywide agencies and elected officials will all get a say. As Commercial Observer notes, developers are still lining up to file ULURP applications, even after 2025 reforms changed how parts of the review process work.
The Bawabeh family has been linked to other sizable Brooklyn projects, including a reported 300-unit plan at 1720 Atlantic Avenue, The Real Deal reported. Those additional proposals are helping fuel local calls for deeper affordability commitments and clearer community benefits as this East Flatbush rezoning moves forward.
