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. … [more]

Some Ditmas Park residents consider 90-year-old Mary Kay Gallagher the mayor of the Brooklyn micro-neighborhood bordered by Prospect Park, Avenue H, Coney Island Avenue and Ocean Avenue. Gallagher, who began selling real estate in the area 40 years ago under her eponymous firm, Mary Kay Gallagher Real Estate, has no plans to retire despite her age and a recent double-knee replacement surgery. Admirers credit her with preserving the historic neighborhood’s single-family homes and warding off the invasion of apartment buildings that swallowed many other Brooklyn neighborhoods. Others say she pushed minority buyers away from the most sought-after homes. Gallagher said she’s not a racist; she’s just always wanted to find owners who care about their properties and can afford to maintain them. “I live here. I care who moves in, because what happens to these houses matters to me,” she told the New York Times. In 2007, her company made more than $1 million. “Corcoran and those other ones who come over here from Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope are a thorn in my side, but I still have the best houses,” Gallagher said. “Most people who want to buy or sell a house in this neighborhood know enough to come see me. I am a resource. No one knows this neighborhood like I do.” [NYT]

A group of residents from two Brooklyn neighborhoods, Ditmas Park West and Beverly Square West, are crying foul against the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, claiming that the agency has favored the establishment of historic districts in brownstone-heavy areas and snubed those neighborhoods with Victorian-style homes. The kerfuffle is gaining traction with Borough President Marty Markowitz, who said in a letter last week that the commission needs to be cautious in its landmarking. “It is not appropriate public policy to place [Victorian Flatbush] on hold while purely Brownstone Brooklyn is pursued,” Markowitz said. “There must be an equitable balance.”

Trout restaurant

Three restaurants started by Brooklyn’s most prolific restaurateur, Jim Mamary, and one of his partners, Richard Krause, were abruptly closed last week with no warning to employees. And another of their Brooklyn eateries, the troubled seafood spot Trout, is unlikely to reopen after it shuttered early this fall due to slow business.

Employees at Fly Fish in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens and Bueno in Boerum Hill said they were stunned to hear at staff meetings Dec. 1 that the shift would be their last.

Bueno, a European bistro that Krause opened three months ago at the intersection of Smith and Pacific Streets, is part of a complex that also included Trout, Since 1963, also closed last week, and Pacifico. Pacifico, a Mexican cantina that Mamary no longer owns a stake in, will remain open.

“They said they needed to pull in $17,000 by week’s end and they were only pulling in $13,000,” said an employee at Bueno, who requested anonymity. “Now I’m back to square one, looking for a job on the holidays.”… [more]