Officials behind the ongoing $3.5 billion Brooklyn Marine Terminal project opened its meeting to the general public, the first of which occurred on Thursday at Brooklyn Borough Hall.
The board of the Brooklyn Marine Terminal Development Corporation, which now manages the project, is the latest governing body to deliberate over the plans that will add thousands of new homes to the Columbia Street Waterfront District. It took the place of the earlier Brooklyn Marine Terminal Task Force, which largely met in private sessions, and voted last year to approve the project, after much debate.
The meeting was largely a presentation on the number of contractors potentially selected to redevelop the port.
“What’s reasonable today might be different in terms of what is feasible in 15 or 20 years,” said board chairperson Michelle de la Uz, who runs the non-profit developer Fifth Avenue Committee. “This is 122-acres and it will be happening in a phased manner.”
As many elected officials decided to send in representatives, among the board members who were there was Hank Gutman, who briefly served as Commissioner of the Department of Transportation during the DeBlasio administration, who said that his priority would be diverting jobs into the area.
“How do we make sure they hire locally? We make it part of the contract. When Wegmans came to the Navy Yard… all of their employment had to be through the Navy Yard’s employment office and we then set up recruiting in NYCHA buildings.”
The project currently includes building a 60-acre all-electric port, adding about 6,000 apartments, open space, manufacturing and community spaces, among other things.
For Dave Lutz, among a handful of local activists who showed up to watch, the public meeting wasn’t enough.
“I want first the right to speak, I have a voice and I’m told that I’m not allowed to speak at the meeting,” Lutz told BK Reader, while handing out print-outs distributed by the group BMT Neighbors Alliance, which has generally been opposed to much of the development plans.
“These guys come in here with forty-story skyscrapers and they want to put a wall against the waterfront, so that you can’t see the water,” said Lutz. “I don’t want 16,000 additional people in a neighbourhood with no public transportation.”
During the meeting, Lutz and other members of the Alliance put on masks that were affixed with large, candy-red Xs, as part of what the group called a “silent demonstration.”
But there were other tensions in the room between various community groups that want a say in how the development proceeds.
Karen Blondel, president of the Red Hook West Resident Association, said she was not happy with being "intimidated" by volunteers from the Columbia Waterfront Neighborhood Association, that allegedly likened her to President Donald Trump as she sees opportunity for the NYCHA housing complex to join the Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (PACT) program, which would fund overdue renovations by bringing in private management.
"I want that to stop," she said of the alleged intimidation. "What you don’t want is for us to get into this divisiveness where you guys think that you can just come into the development and retaliate against us for standing up for the needs of our community.”
Meanwhile Lutz said his group believes the public should be able to speak at future meetings.
“While the agency is now promoting the meetings as ‘open and transparent,’ community members say the reality tells a different story,” read a statement from an Alliance press release.
