Hate v. Housing

Word is that City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito read Councilman Antonio Reynoso (D-Brooklyn) the riot act nine months ago for publicly encouraging thuggish protests in colleague Steve Levin’s district. But he’s still quietly supporting the same antiSemitic crowd.

At issue is a proposed rezoning and housing development in Williamsburg, which Reynoso adamantly opposes. He’s no longer tweeting out his support for efforts to disrupt public meetings on the topic, but he sat quietly by as his allies waxed vile at a City Planning Commission hearing.

Among the hate speech in the air was, “Jews are spreading through the community like a cancer.” (Critics claim the project will discriminate against black and Latino fami- lies because the developer will focus on large apartments to serve Hasidic families.)

Organizing the disruptions is a group calling itself Churches United for Fair Housing — whose members have yet to disavow the anti-Semitic rhetoric.

Councilman Levin has called out that hate while encouraging dialogue to resolve legitimate concerns. But dialogue is the last thing Reynoso and his rabble-rousers desire.

And they’re gaining: After protesters shut down a hearing this month, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams came out against the rezoning unless the developer adds more units for smaller families.

This campaign of near-rioting, theatrical arrests and raw hate may doom yet another part of the mayor’s affordable-housing plans.