Cannon Place no place for high-rise, neighbors say

Dozens of residents showed up on Monday to express their distaste over a proposal to build a 93-unit apartment building at 3469 Cannon Place.

After last month’s no-show at Community Board 8’s Land Use Committee meeting, engineers representing Jackson Development Group presented a proposal for the building at 3469 Cannon Place at Monday’s meeting.

The proposal for a 96,000-square-foot mixed-income apartment building on the same 30,000-square-foot site Urban Pathways once planned to build a homeless shelter was met with concerns about traffic safety and congestion, that the building would change the character of the neighborhood and that construction would be costly and dangerous. 

Long Island-based Jackson Development Group plans to construct a building with a mix of affordable and market-rate apartments on a site comprising two lots, one of which Jackson Development has owned for years and another it purchased two weeks ago.

Members of the Fort Independence Park Neighborhood Association came to the meeting with a stack of handouts expressing 10 reasons they oppose the development as well as an engineer’s report addressing the fragility of the retaining wall that supports Cannon Place. 

The study, conducted by Grigg and Davis Engineers, P.C., reports that the amount of rock excavation needed for the development project would result in a “very high” probability of damage to adjacent properties on Cannon.

A representative for MJM Construction, which is working for Jackson Development on the project, said the company would not touch the retaining wall and that concerns about rock blasting were unfounded because the rock would be split instead. 

But residents still contended that building on the site would constitute a misuse of public funds because it is difficult and, thus, expensive, to develop. 

Jackson Development said it is considering 60 percent market-rate and 40 percent affordable apartments, which would make it eligible for financing through municipal bonds.