East New York church seeks to build about 800 affordable units on long-owned property

The St. Paul Community Baptist Church of East New York, Brooklyn, filed a uniform land use review process (ULURP) application yesterday with the New York City Department of City Planning, seeking to build an approximately 800,000-square-foot project with approximately 800 affordable residential units, named Baobab Village, on a site now occupied by the church and related buildings. The project has an address of 859 Hendrix Street.
The application, 2024K0215, was filed December 23, 2025. The application starts a long public review process. The church bought the property in 1979 from Congregation B’nai Israel.

According to the application, “The applicant, St. Paul Community Baptist Church, seeks a Zoning Map Amendment from R5, R5/C1-2 to R7A, R8A, R8A/C2-4, R8X, R8X/C2-4 with a Zoning Text Amendment to Appendix F to map MIH (Mandatory Inclusionary Housing), to facilitate a new 100% income-restricted mixed-use development, between 6-17 stories, with, 715,318 zsf (765 dwelling units) including 648,562 zsf of residential floor area, 54,256 zsf of community facility floor area, and 12,500 zsf of commercial floor area, at 859 Hendrix Street in East New York, Community District.”

The application was submitted by Arshad Bacchus, director of the nonprofit housing development organization, Nehemiah HDFC.

Another portion of the application, describes the project as slightly larger. It is not unusual for different portions of an application to have different development totals when the application is first submitted. “The Proposed Actions would facilitate the redevelopment of Projected Development Sites 1 and 2 with a mixed-use project known as Baobab Village (the “Proposed Project”) comprising a new state of the art church and 100% affordable housing, in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn Community District 5 (CD 5). The Proposed Project would include a total of 889,850 gross square feet (gsf), comprising 759,749 gsf of residential use (826 dwelling units [DUs]), 25,500 gsf of community facility space, 12,500 gsf of local retail space, and 92,101 gsf of below-grade parking (185 parking spaces).”

The property

The property in East New York has 9,095 square feet of built space and 16,000 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 25,000 square feet according to a PincusCo analysis of city data. The parcel has frontage of 260 feet and is 100 feet deep with a total lot size of 20,000 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is R5 which allows for up to 1.25 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $2.7 million.

Development

Over the past five years, there has been no NYC Department of Buildings new building, demolition, or alteration permit application valued at more than $20,000 filed for this parcel.

Violations and lawsuits

According to city public data, the property has received $2,000 in OATH penalties in the last year.

There were no lawsuits or bankruptcies filed against the property for the past 24 months.

The neighborhood

In East New York, The bulk, or 40 percent of the 44.6 million square feet of commercial built space are elevator buildings, with industrial buildings next occupying 21 percent of the space. In sales, East New York has near average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $391.9 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 18th highest in Brooklyn. For development, East New York has near average amount of major developments among other neighborhoods and is the 2nd highest in Brooklyn. It had 5 million square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 11 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There was one pre-foreclosure suit filed among other development buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

There are no active new building construction projects on this tax block.

The surrounding

This is the first commercial real estate event of interest identified within the 400-foot radius of 873 Hendrix Street in the past 24 months.

Direct link to the property’s ACRIS page and link to DOB NOW portal.