Mayor Zohran Mamdani and city housing officials this week kicked off a public engagement push that could radically remake a city-owned parcel in Bedford‑Stuyvesant into a mixed-use project with 100% affordable housing and an expanded slate of social services. Branded Fulton‑Howard West, the effort centers on the aging Bedford‑Stuyvesant Multi‑Service Center and neighboring vacant lots on Fulton Street, with officials asking nearby residents to help shape everything from affordability levels to public space and on-site services before the city issues a request for proposals.
In a press release from the NYC Mayor's Office, the mayor and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development said HPD and the Human Resources Administration will run workshops, street outreach and other community events through the spring and summer to inform a future RFP. The administration is touting Fulton‑Howard West as its first public‑site engagement and linking it to the Land Inventory Fast Track (LIFT) and SPEED task forces, which Mamdani created on his first day in office to identify underused city land and accelerate housing production. “Fulton‑Howard West shows what’s possible when we treat public land as a public good,” Mamdani said in the announcement.
What’s on the lot now
The site includes the five‑story Bedford‑Stuyvesant Multi‑Service Center at 1958 Fulton Street, an attached former P.S. 28 school building, an adjacent track and nearby vacant parcels, according to Brooklyn Paper. The outlet notes that nonprofits such as CAMBA’s HomeBase program currently operate out of the complex, and that HPD estimates roughly $60 million in deferred capital repairs are needed. City officials say services will stay open until construction actually begins, and that organizations based there now will be moved into newly built space once the development is complete.
Longer planning history
HPD first flagged the parcel as a development opportunity in its 2020 Bedford‑Stuyvesant Housing Plan, which recommended pairing new affordable homes with community facilities in order to help protect longtime residents, according to HPD. That plan itself grew out of neighborhood workshops and RFP visioning sessions that were meant to keep local priorities front and center in future projects.
Why the city says it’s needed
Neighborhood numbers tell a pretty stark story. Median gross rent in 2023 was about $2,070, and more than a quarter of renter households in Bed‑Stuy are severely rent‑burdened, the NYU Furman Center reports. City officials point to those pressures as a key reason they are steering this public site toward income‑restricted apartments instead of market‑rate development.
How residents can weigh in
HPD says the engagement process will feature online questionnaires, tabling at community events, a public workshop and meetings with the local community board and other neighborhood stakeholders, with all that feedback feeding into the eventual RFP, as reported by Brooklyn Paper. On its neighborhood page, HPD lists a Bed‑Stuy contact and email address that residents can use to track event dates and sign up for updates.
What comes next
The administration has folded Fulton‑Howard West into a broader housing push that includes a Neighborhood Builders Fast Track and a proposed Expedited Land Use Review Procedure, steps the mayor’s office says could cut more than two years off typical predevelopment timelines, according to the NYC Mayor's Office. Once the public engagement phase wraps, HPD expects to release an RFP, and any needed land‑use or disposition actions would then move through community board review and a City Council vote. Neighborhood organizers and service providers are already gearing up to scrutinize the unit mix, income targets and safeguards for existing tenants and nonprofit operations as the technical planning work picks up speed.
