B’klyn pols battle ‘jobs zone’ project
Top Brooklyn lawmakers Tuesday urged the City Council and Mayor de Blasio to scuttle the massive jobs-producing Industry City rezoning project in Sunset Park — despite the Big Apple having more than 600,000 unemployed residents amid the COVID-19-driven recession.
The Democratic opposition is reminiscent of lefty resistance that blocked Amazon from opening a headquarters in Queens last year over complaints that the city and state offered the e-commerce giant up to $3 billion in subsidies in exchange for creating tens of thousands of jobs.
The letter to the council and mayor was signed by 10 stalwarts of the Brooklyn Democratic establishment — including Reps. Hakeem Jeffries and Yvette Clarke, joining Rep. Nydia Velazquez, who represents Sunset Park, and Jerrold Nadler, who were early opponents of the project.
Other signatories include state Sens. Julia Salazar and Zellnor Myrie and Assembly members Jo Anne Simon, Robert C. Carroll, Diana Richardson and Latrice Walker.
De Blasio has not publicly stated his position on the project, which supporters said would generate at least 15,000 jobs to help the city recover from the recession, which has put more than 600,000 residents out of work.
The rezoning must get the OK from the City Council. But the Industry City rezoning application is opposed by Councilman Carlos Menchaca and a coalition of local activists who claim the redevelopment will spur gentrification and not benefit local residents. The project is also a political hot potato for Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who is eying a run for mayor.
The lawmakers made it clear they side with the opponents.
“What the Sunset Park community has made clear is rezoning such a large portion of the waterfront for a single private actor is not in the best interests of the residents,” the pols said in the letter.
“Last March, a number of us wrote to the City Planning Commission raising concerns about such a large private-rezoning application that would further exacerbate real-estate pressures, displacement, rising rents and forever shift the nature of the waterfront away from one of the few remaining manufacturing hubs to commercial tourism and service economy,” the letter reads.
“This would undermine Brooklyn’s industrial position, and it would supercharge the displacement and gentrification that is undermining Sunset Park’s affordability and blue-collar job base.”
The lawmakers claimed Industry City could expand jobs without the massive rezoning.
Velazquez welcomed other Brooklyn elected officials joining the campaign against the project.
“Despite any lofty, unenforceable promises, the Industry City rezoning application isn’t about job creation. It is about a developer’s profit,” Velazquez said in a prepared statement.
“The community has raised its voice in opposition, and the City Council needs to listen to local concerns and reject this proposal.”
The Industry City project is unique in a lot of ways.
Currently, about half of the 5.3 million square feet in the sprawling, 16-building waterfront industrial complex is either vacant or used for warehouse and storage space.
The fight centers around Industry City’s request that the council and de Blasio sign off on changing the zoning over the area so they can use the empty space for other purposes — including for additional film and photo studios, offices and retail and classrooms.