The Brooklyn Marine Terminal Task force on Monday approved an ambitious $3.5 billion Brooklyn Marine Terminal vision plan, a project that will usher in thousands of new homes, a new port and businesses to the Red Hook waterfront.
In a private meeting, the task force voted 17-8 in support of the plan, after rescheduling the vote at least five times due to a lack of consensus on the project.
“The proposal we’ve crafted is a compromise that has become stronger with each iteration, and that reflects the many good ideas and difficult decisions,” state Senator Andrew Gounardes, the task force’s vice chair, said in a statement after the vote.
U.S. Representative Dan Goldman, the chair of the task force and frequent cheerleader of the project, said the promise of 6,000 apartments, of which 40% would be marked as affordable housing, would transform the 122-acre waterfront area in the Columbia Street Waterfront District.
“For the first time in two generations, the Brooklyn Marine Terminal is on track to once again become a vital and vibrant economic, maritime, environmental, and community asset,” Goldman said in a statement. “For decades, the port and surrounding area was allowed to fall into disrepair, and every attempt to revitalize it failed.”
The eight task force members who opposed the project included Assemblymembers Jo Anne Simon and Marcela Mitaynes, as well as Council Member Alexa Avilés.
“The EDC’s current plan lacks meaningful solutions to serious issues—transportation impacts, water and sewer and infrastructure capacity, disruption to existing businesses, and the perils of building in a flood zone,” read a statement from the eight task force members who voted against the plan.
About sixty people gathered outside Brooklyn Borough Hall on Friday to urge the task force to vote against the plan. Signs decried the deal as a “grift” backed by developers aligned with Mayor Eric Adams.
“We had the ‘no’ votes, we had them five times and they waited five times,” said John Leyva, a longtime tenant activist and opponent of the plan. “And the minute they got the votes, they flipped them with little trinkets and now we have to rush to a vote, how convenient."
Amendments to the plan that won over City Council Member Shahana Hanif and Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, two elected who had often voiced their opposition to the plan, included increased funding for affordable housing and a commitment for the city to seek and share information on how port operators and maritime businesses might use the marine terminal, according to The City. A vote was necessary by the end of the month to secure city and federal funding.
Leyva was especially disappointed in Reynoso, who said he changed his mind during an appearance on WNYC on Friday.
“Shame on him,” Leyva said about Reynoso. “Thousands of Hispanics like him were displaced from Williamsburg and he wants to keep doing the same thing.”
Reynoso said the "fight" for a better plan is not over.
"There are many decisions we will need to make, reports we will need to scrutinize, and details we will need to comb through," he said in a statement after the vote. "A port-first plan can solve for many of the concerns raised throughout this process. It can activate our Blue Highways – keeping trucks off the streets and our air clean – while creating well-paying jobs that will allow working-class New Yorkers to stay in our beloved city."
Scott Welch, who runs an investment firm and lives along Columbia Street, arrived to the protest with a sign that read “YIMBY (When It’s Designed Thoughtfully)." (YIMBY refers to ‘Yes In My Back Yard.’)
“We recognize the need for more housing stock and more supply and to drastically build everywhere, but we need to do it thoughtfully,” he told BK Reader.
Welsh said the approval of the project, despite multiple public meetings, still felt rushed.
“We haven’t heard of any kind of plan to introduce sufficient greenspace or deal with the traffic or adding 20,000 people to the neighborhood without increasing ways for commuters to get to Manhattan,” he said. “We’re going to make this the largest construction site in the city at the same time we’re expected to fix the [Brooklyn-Queens Expressway] with no coordination whatsoever.”
Kirsi Leminen, a Zohran Mamdani supporter who runs social media for a candy company, said what the city deems as affordable housing isn’t actually affordable.
“The idea of luxury developers kneeing their way into our public land using the ruse for affordable housing makes me nauseous and frankly makes me sick,” she said. “My husband is a furniture maker and his studio is in Red Hook, he will be directly impacted and he has a lot of artist friends, and they will be directly impacted too.”
The plan, which now heads into an environmental review phase, was praised by Mayor Eric Adams.
"For years, naysayers have told us that the days of big ideas and bold initiatives were over, but New York City is proving them wrong," Adams said in a statement. "We’re turning our waterfront into a ‘Harbor of the Future’ and unlocking opportunity for generations to come."
