A small-time Brooklyn developer says green thumbs and schoolchildren can keep their community garden — if they can come up with the lettuce.
Steve Billings of TYC Realty says the sales price of the corner plot on Rogers Avenue in Crown Heights is $500,000 to $1 million, even though he snatched it up last November for only $10, according to property records.
As of July 1, the property had $8,580 in unpaid tax liens, said a spokeswoman with the city Department of Finance.
The site was an abandoned hardware store for years until 2006, when neighbors finally got the city’s blessing to demolish it and create a green space.
City officials and residents had been unable to reach the property’s 78-year-old owner, Dudley McLachlan, but property records show TYC Realty likely tracked down his daughter Colette, who signed the deed as a witness.
When community gardeners offered $15,000 for the 1,710-square-foot plot, Billings demanded $500,000, said Demetrice Mills, an activist with the Brooklyn Queens Land Trust who has tried negotiating with the developer. Mills told The Post when he last spoke to Billings, he was told the asking price was increasing to $1 million and that gardeners would have to vacate by September.
“This developer is attempting to get $1 million from taxpayers, volunteers and nonprofit donations for something [he] paid nothing for,” fumed volunteer Emily-Bell Dinan. “Despicable!”
In June, Billings blocked the garden with a construction fence. The developer, which has acquired four other Brooklyn properties on the cheap in recent years, did not respond to calls and e-mails from The Post.