Elaborating criticisms he made at an event last week, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams said an LGBT-welcoming affordable housing project on land owned by the New York City Housing Authority should have a higher proportion of public housing and minority residents from the surrounding neighborhood.

Currently, 54 of the 145 units at Stonewall House in Fort Greene are set aside for existing NYCHA residents, a threshold that Adams said was too low given its location and role as the first project to be completed under the city's NextGen NYCHA initiative, which seeks to build infill developments on public housing complexes as a way to generate revenue and affordable housing.

BFC Partners, a private development company, partnered with NYCHA on the 17-story project that sits on the public housing complex known as the Ingersoll Houses.

"We should pull people from the community," Adams told Gothamist/WNYC in a phone interview on Thursday. "If this was taking place off of NYCHA grounds, it's an entirely different conversation."

He added: "The expectation is not to build two cities within NYCHA."

Adams's criticisms have put him at odds with administration officials who have touted the project as New York City's first entirely affordable LGBT-friendly senior housing complex as well as the largest of its kind in the country.

Under the state's Fair Housing laws, the building cannot exclusively accept people of a certain sexual orientation, but the city has said that it will have an inclusive environment as well as support services and programming for LGBT seniors, a vulnerable community that has historically faced housing discrimination. All of the units are reserved for residents 62 years or older who make 50 percent or less of the area median income, which comes out to $37,350 for a single person and $42,700 for family of two. One quarter of the apartments are designated for those who have been homeless.

According to those involved with the project, 77 percent of all residents moving in to Stonewall House are people of color, with 44 percent being black, 22 percent Hispanic and 11 percent Asian.

Adams, however, contended that given the makeup of NYCHA tenants in Brooklyn and the neighborhood's rapid gentrification, the fraction of minorities should be even higher.

The borough president first drew attention for comments he made about the project during the December 17 opening ceremony for the building.

"This is a significant initiative," Adams said, according to a transcript provided by his office. "But, I have to say that I’m concerned about the diversity. This is in the heart of NYCHA. And I can’t have this community feel as though they’re watching buildings go up and their lives going down. 

“And as I walked into the building, that was where my delay—some of the long-term NYCHA residents that know me, this was my precinct. I watched families wake up to gun shots and not alarm clocks, and they stayed. And they said, ‘Eric, we’ve have this pretty building on NYCHA property and the people that are walking in and celebrating don’t look like us.’ We’ve got to think about this. This is a celebratory moment and I join in the celebration because I know what my senior members of the LGBTQ community have went through. 

“But I think about Frederick Douglass when the conversation was about fighting for the independence of America—he says ‘the arrogance that those want me to fight for independence while I’m still enslaved.’ I can’t celebrate a building that is not going to be inclusive. That is not who I am. Those who know me, they know who I am. And I’m unapologetic about who I am. 

He then added: “So, somehow, we better figure this out. Somehow. Because if you have a body of people over there that feels as though this place here is not for them—we’re going to have incidents in this community that will be disruptive. And I don’t want that to happen. I didn’t put on a vest for 22 years to protect the children and families of this city to watch us be divided.”

The New York Post characterized the remarks as "a bizarre and incendiary rant" in light of the positive comments made by city officials and NYCHA tenants who extolled the new building.

Adams said he was not the only elected officials at the event with reservations, but he declined to identify who the others were.

Michael Adams, the president of SAGE, the nonprofit agency which has been contracted to provide services at the building, acknowledged the borough president's concern, saying, "It makes great sense that would be a concern to the borough president."

But he said he wanted to stress that the building did have a diverse collection of residents.

SAGE does not, however, determine the allocation of the affordable units.

Reached for comment, Jane Meyer, a spokesperson for Mayor Bill de Blasio, defended the project, saying it "deserves celebration on every front."

"Critically, this project will help provide homes for formerly homeless New Yorkers," she added. "These benefits aren’t just for residents though, and the new community center on the ground floor will provide services to senior residents of the entire Ingersoll campus and surrounding community."   

UPDATE: The story has been updated to include a comment from a spokesperson for Mayor Bill de Blasio.