Developer, residents of Ditmas Park gearing up for fight over planned apartment building

A site at 480 Stratford Road in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, where a seven-story apartment building is slated to rise, has become the focus of a zoning fight between Community Board 14 and the developer, Brooklyn Ink reported.

The developer, called 10 Stratford Associates, has agreed to buy the plot from Jay Loeffler, who had blueprints drafted for the apartment building before running into financial problems during the recession.

As part of a 2009 Flatbush rezoning, Ditmas Park went from a R6, which allowed multifamily dwellings to be built, to an R3X, which only allows single-family homes. The new developer, 10 Stratford, is invoking what are known as “common law vested rights,” or the right to build according to previous zoning regulations, in a bid to continue construction on the multi-family structure. The Victorian home at 480 Stratford Road has already been demolished and the foundation for the apartment building has been laid.

Community Board 14 voted unanimously to take the matter to the Board of Standards and Appeals on Nov. 14.

The building would rise on a block consisting almost entirely of single-family Victorian homes, Brooklyn Ink said. [Brooklyn Ink]