A vacant lot at 643 Midwood Street in East Flatbush is back in play for new housing, with permits filed for a four-story residential building holding 16 apartments. The lot sits between Albany Avenue and Troy Avenue, just steps from the Sterling Street subway station served by the 2 and 5 trains, and it has sat empty since an earlier, larger plan for the same site never got off the ground.
According to New York YIMBY, the new application comes from Spencer Developers Inc., with Oleg Ruditser listed as architect of record. The proposed structure would rise 55 feet and include a cellar, one enclosed parking space, and a concrete-based frame, yielding 14,133 square feet of residential space with an average unit size of 883 square feet. Given that unit scope, the outlet's reporting indicates the 16 residences are likely to be marketed as rentals, though no estimated completion date has been announced and demolition permits are expected to be unnecessary since the lot is already vacant.
A Smaller Do-Over of a 2020 Plan That Never Got Built
This isn't the first time someone has tried to build on this parcel. Back in September 2020, permits were filed for a considerably larger four-story building on the same site — 21 units spanning 15,493 square feet — under applicant Mark Jankovits, but as New York YIMBY's historical filings show, that structure was never completed. The gap between the two proposals, filed six years apart on the same lot, highlights the smaller scale of the new plan.
The architect of record on the new filing, Oleg Ruditser, has his own paper trail with city regulators. The NYC Department of Buildings issued an enforcement action bulletin in May 2020 detailing disciplinary actions against Ruditser, a professional engineer, citing major code non-compliance issues including improper filings for changes in use and occupancy, inadequate egress, missing sprinkler systems, and inaccurate Certificate of Harassment indications on prior project filings. That same bulletin is a matter of public record on the city's own site.
Developer's History Includes a Fight Over a Historic Manhattan Site
Spencer Developers Inc. and its principal, Michael Petrokansky, have also drawn scrutiny before. In August, Spencer Developers’ Michael Petrokansky filed permits to raze 857 Riverside Drive in Manhattan, a 19th-century property with ties to the Underground Railroad, in order to construct a 13-story residential tower — a plan that prompted public opposition and pushback from elected officials, according to 6sqft. Community activists and municipal leaders had campaigned to preserve the building's abolitionist history.
Ruditser's design portfolio, meanwhile, extends well beyond Brooklyn. In November 2022, he filed Department of Buildings applications for a six-story residential building at 2274 Morris Avenue in the Fordham Heights section of the Bronx, according to the Norwood News. That Bronx project was designed with compact rental units near subway transit, a similar transit-oriented approach to the East Flatbush filing.
Zoning Shift and Rent Pressures Frame the Filing
The timing of the 643 Midwood Street filing follows a major citywide zoning overhaul. On December 5, 2024, the New York City Council approved the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity zoning text amendment, intended to enable roughly 80,000 new housing units over 15 years by making specific floor area ratio changes and establishing three parking zones: eliminating requirements in Zone 1, reducing them in Zone 2, and retaining them in Zone 3, per Nixon Peabody LLP. It marked the most comprehensive update to the city's zoning resolution since 1961.
Citywide residential permit filings rose from an average of 686 per quarter in 2025 to 793 in Q1 2026. Whatever rents the 16 East Flatbush units eventually command will land in a neighborhood where, as of August 2026, the median one-bedroom apartment already rents for $2,674 per month and two-bedroom units average $2,999, according to ApartmentAdvisor.
Those figures offer a comparison for renters using public assistance. Under 2026 HUD and NYCHA Payment Standards, maximum rent caps for Housing Choice Vouchers in Brooklyn are set at $2,604 for studio apartments, $2,734 for one-bedroom units, and $2,997 for two-bedroom units, according to VoucherMatch. Whether the 16 planned units at 643 Midwood Street will be marketed at top-of-market rates or within those voucher limits remains an open question.
That question carries weight given the broader affordability strain across the city. East Flatbush is served by the 2 and 5 subway lines at Sterling Street.
A 23-unit East Flatbush proposal near the 2 and 5 trains was covered by Hoodline in August. No estimated completion date has been announced for the new project, and it remains unclear whether the units will ultimately be priced for the open market or for voucher-holding tenants.
