Majority Whip Kamillah Hanks framed the morning's biggest vote not as one building but as a fight to keep young Staten Islanders from getting pushed out. Her pitch for the 3759 Hamilton Avenue rezoning in St. George leaned on a word the council rarely hears in affordable-housing debates: ownership. The project would bring roughly 369 apartments to the north shore, about 111 of them permanently affordable, plus 7,000 square feet of community facility space and a $100,000 local investment spread over four years. Hanks said places like Bayonne and Hoboken were cleaning Staten Island's clock on development, and she wanted workforce home ownership, not just rentals, so families could build equity and stay. The subcommittee approved it 8-0, flipping R6 to R7-3 with a C2-4 overlay and mapping a mandatory inclusionary housing area.
The same vote cleared two sidewalk cafes. Sabrosura, a Castle Hill Avenue staple in Council Member Farias's Bronx district since 2010, got its 18 tables and 60 chairs; Farias and Council Member Sanchez both spoke of growing up eating there. Chicchetti, a Venetian wine bar that opened on Howard Avenue in Ocean Hill this March, got its three tables and six chairs, with owner Emanuele de Biase describing nightly jazz, a clothing drive, and a mahjong tournament in a space he keeps open free of charge for block associations every afternoon.
The afternoon turned to three rezonings that were only heard, not voted. At 9201 Fourth Avenue in Bay Ridge, an 11-story building with 97 units (24 affordable under MIH option one) drew support from Council Member Kayla Santos Soto, who nonetheless said she wants a broader community-led plan for the surrounding C8 triangle before more applications pile up. Community Board 10 backed it 24-2, and both the borough president and City Planning approved it. At 46 Nelson Street in Red Hook, an applicant team led by Ariel Akkad pitched an eight-story, 85-foot mixed-use building of about 104 units with 26 affordable, rezoning a 1961-era M1-1 block that never produced much. Council Member Alexa Aviles pressed hard on filling the ground-floor commercial space with what Red Hook actually lacks: a laundromat, a pharmacy, affordable food, urgent care.
All three hearings closed and laid over, leaving the real decisions for a later session.