About

Adam E. Zeidel

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

Adam Zeidel is a New York-based real estate developer and attorney whose practice sits at the intersection of urban policy, zoning law, and design-forward affordable housing. As founder and principal of Coconut Properties LLC, he has built a reputation for identifying and unlocking development opportunities overlooked by the market — combining a lawyer's command of the zoning resolution with a developer's willingness to study maps, make cold calls, and pursue sites that don't yet exist on anyone else's radar.

His approach starts with policy. Where most developers look for sites that already have development potential, Zeidel looks for policy shifts and legal interpretations that create potential where none previously existed. At 37 Hillside Avenue in Inwood, Manhattan, he recognized that the Zoning for Quality and Affordability provision's parking waiver — combined with senior affordable housing's programmatic compatibility with a church replacement — unlocked a site that had defeated two prior development teams. The result was a $115 million, 164-unit Passive House, all-electric affordable senior housing development completed in 2023, winner of The American Architecture Award and Interior Design magazine's Building of the Year award, and the recipient of an HPD Commissioner's commendation as a model for what affordable housing can achieve. The project also created a new home for the Rocky Mount Baptist Church and pioneered a model for unlocking faith-based sites for affordable housing — one that is increasingly replicable across New York City.

At 2031 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, he identified an opportunity that required an even more original insight. Studying the BSA's recent extension of the Cornell doctrine to 100% affordable nonprofit housing, Zeidel understood that this legal precedent had created a new class of previously undevelopable sites. He went looking for one. Through systematic research and cold calls, he found a former school bus depot in Bushwick — an M1-1 manufacturing zone, bisected by an 80-foot freight rail tunnel — that was simultaneously a strong Cornell doctrine candidate and eligible for a classical zoning variance due to the tunnel's unique physical constraints. No residential development of any kind was possible on the site as of right. By engineering the variance application, he unlocked a site appraised at $27 million after entitlement, against a $19 million acquisition price — $8 million in public value created through legal and policy creativity, reinvested directly into affordability and sustainability.

The resulting project, now in pre-development with a 2027 groundbreaking, is 379 units of 100% deeply affordable housing designed by Studio Gang, with a Passive House envelope, geothermal heating and cooling, mass timber structure, and hard costs projected materially below comparable high-performance HPD projects. The building is intentionally designed as a replicable model: demonstrating that climate-forward, design-ambitious affordable housing can be delivered within standard HPD underwriting while substantially reducing long-term operating and capital risk for nonprofit owners. Brooklyn Community Board 4 voted unanimously in support. Councilmember Sandy Nurse endorsed it as a model for decarbonization through affordable housing policy.

Zeidel's legal practice, conducted through Tuttle Yick LLP where he is a partner, is not separate from his development work — it is the instrument through which his development insight gets executed. His representation of clients before the Board of Standards and Appeals, the Department of Buildings, the Landmarks Preservation Commission, and the City Council informs his ability to see opportunities in the zoning resolution that others miss, and to execute on them with a precision that purely operational developers cannot match.

Before founding Coconut Properties, Zeidel led acquisitions at Gotham Organization, one of New York City's prominent mixed-income developers, where he sourced and negotiated projects totaling up to five million square feet through creative zoning and land use strategies. He holds a JD and a Master's in Urban Planning from New York University and a BA in Public Policy from Brown University.

In addition to his development work, Adam serves as a development consultant to mission-driven organizations including UJA-Federation of New York, Enterprise Community Partners, and Union Baptist Church, advising on affordable housing strategy, site identification, and project execution.

Across his practice, Zeidel is driven by a conviction that affordable housing need not choose between financial discipline, environmental ambition, and superior design — and that the most powerful demonstration of that conviction is a building that makes people ask: why wasn't this always here?