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Black-Owned Businesses Pushed Out of Park Slope by Affordable Housing Plan

 Bisi Ideraabdullah of Imani House and Tabeel Rush of Tabeel Aromatherapy. The two women rent space for their businesses at 76 Fifth Ave. Their landlord, the nonprofit FIfth Avenue Committee, recently told them they need to leave so the building can be renovated.
Bisi Ideraabdullah of Imani House and Tabeel Rush of Tabeel Aromatherapy. The two women rent space for their businesses at 76 Fifth Ave. Their landlord, the nonprofit FIfth Avenue Committee, recently told them they need to leave so the building can be renovated.
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Park Slope Fifth Avenue BID

PARK SLOPE — A local nonprofit that's long advocated for low-income tenants facing displacement is now on the opposite side of the equation, pushing out two small businesses that are among the neighborhood's few black-owned establishments.

Fifth Avenue Committee, the housing and social justice nonprofit founded 40 years ago by Park Slope residents, recently served 30-day eviction notices to two of its commercial tenants, the nonprofit Imani House and Tabeel's Aromatherapy.

They're being asked to leave so FAC can renovate their building at 76 Fifth Ave. The remodeling is part of a neighborhood-wide effort by FAC to renovate 21 buildings it owns and ultimately preserve 146 units of affordable housing for low- and moderate-income families, FAC announced recently.

Known as FAC Renaissance, the $24.3 million project is part of the city's goal to preserve or build 200,000 units of affordable housing. The buildings FAC owns are the single largest source of affordable housing Park Slope and Gowanus, other than NYCHA housing, according to FAC.

When complete, the renovations will result "in the preservation of safe, quality affordable housing for our low and moderate income tenants, most of whom pay less than $650 per month in rent and whose rent will not increase despite the major capital improvements being made to the buildings," FAC said in announcing the project.

Some of the buildings, most of which are more than 100 years old, will require gut renovations, and tenants will have to move out temporarily. They'll be relocated during the renovations and given the chance to return to their apartments, said FAC executive director Michelle de la Uz.

But at 76 Fifth Ave., a gut renovation to fix a too-narrow entrance will merge two ground-floor commercial spaces into one storefront. Tabeel and Imani House will have to leave the building for a year and there won't be enough space for both of them to return. The women who run the two businesses, both on month-to-month leases, say they were caught off guard by FAC's move to push them out.

"I'm kind of baffled," said Tabeel's owner, Tabeel Rush. "No one contacted me until last week when a man walked in and gave me a notice." Rush opened her shop 20 years ago. It sells aromatherapy items such as essential oils as well as jewelry and other gifts made by "women in crisis" whom Rush meets on trips abroad. In the back, she does clients' dreadlocks.

De La Uz said FAC first informed the two businesses of the impending move-out more than two years ago.

Bisi Ideraabdullah, executive director of Imani House, said she was "outraged" by the eviction. Her nonprofit runs after-school programs at Park Slope's P.S./M.S. 282, an adult literacy program, and a health clinic in Liberia, among other services.

"[FAC's] mission is to promote and support women-owned businesses with lower-than-market-rate rents,” Ideraabdullah said. "Evicting us doesn’t match their mission. They’re kicking us to the curb and it’s offensive."

Ideraabdullah said she's hoping to fight the eviction "in the court of public opinion." She and Rush have gathered more than 1,400 signatures on a petition that calls on FAC to let them stay. The petition accuses FAC of trying to squeeze "huge profits" out of the 76 Fifth Ave. retail space because of its proximity to Barclays Center.

De la Uz called that assertion "absolutely false" and said FAC has "no interest whatsoever" in kicking Tabeel and Imani House out of Park Slope.

She noted that Rush had previously declined an offer to extend her lease by seven years and had told FAC she was considering closing her business. De la Uz added that Imani House does important work both in the neighborhood and abroad, which is why FAC gave the nonprofit ample warning about the renovation, she said. 

"This isn't your classic David and Goliath thing where a greedy developer is trying to change the face of the neighborhood," de la Uz said. "This is a situation where we have extremely low-income families who rely on our housing, and it needs to be maintained. We're sorry there's an impact on Imani and Tabeel, but there is an impact, which is why we've been talking about it for more than two years."

FAC's other commercial tenants include small minority-owned businesses such as Bogota Latin Bistro, Eladia's Kids and The Brooklyn Circus. FAC offers rents that are 8 to 83 percent below market rate, de la Uz said. Income from the commercial rents helps FAC offset the cost of providing affordable housing to its residential tenants, who include formerly homeless people, domestic violence victims and many seniors, de la Uz said.

Though FAC's policy is to rent its commercial spaces to small, minority or women-owned businesses, the organization's primary mission is to house low- and moderate-income families, de la Uz noted. Recently FAC has played a key role advocating for "deeply affordable" units at the mixed use development that will replace the Key Food on Fifth Avenue.

"FAC is absolutely an advocate, but we’re also a landlord, and unfortunately being a landlord involves some challenging things," de la Uz said. "But I don't believe we're stepping away from our mission or values in this situation. In fact, we are upholding them. Our primary mission is to our low-income tenants."

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