Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso accused New York City Economic Development Corporation officials of trying to scare task force members into approving an evolving redevelopment plan for the Brooklyn Marine Terminal during a contentious town hall on Wednesday.
Reynoso invited EDC Executive Vice President of Planning Jennifer Sun, Senior Vice President of Government and Community Relations Mikelle Adgate, Senior Vice President of Development and Asset Management David Lowin and Senior Vice President of Real Estate Transactions Matthew Furlong to answer questions about the project, which ranged from traffic issues to accountability frameworks.
The city plans to turn the 122-acre parcel in the Red Hook/Columbia Street Waterfront District into the "Harbor of the Future," with new housing, commercial spaces and shipping docks.
The city will invest $1.7 billion to make upgrades to the piers, allowing the BMT to "compete" with "ports like the Port of Delaware [or] the Port of Philadelphia," Sun said.
The primary concern among some local residents is the city’s plan to sell publicly-owned land to developers to fund the project through new housing construction. EDC has proposed building 7,700 new housing units, 35% of which would be affordable.
Reynoso is one of 28 members on the BMT Terminal Task Force, which has veto power over EDC’s General Project Plan, meaning they can vote to halt the project from moving forward on June 18 should a consensus is not reached.
Reynoso got into a sparring match with Sun when the two discussed the EDC's "all industrial alternative," or when the city is forced to build housing elsewhere.
Sun said this means there could be “a continuation of truck parking [in the BMT], more sanitation parking. The Department of Sanitation [is] coming back to us and asking for more of our BMT site to be made available for sanitation trucks.”
Reynoso hit back, accusing EDC of threatening the task force: “I feel like you guys are doing too much and giving those alternatives of… more trucks, more things to scare us.”
“It's not an empty threat," Sun said. “Because we have a responsibility to build more housing throughout the city. If we can’t at BMT, we would relocate municipal operations to BMT to free up potential housing sites elsewhere so that we can then realize the housing off-site.”
Reynoso said other city-owned sites can be used to park municipal vehicles, like under the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in Williamsburg.
Reynoso went further, telling the officials “go talk to your new friend Donald Trump that the mayor likes so much," so the city can cut a deal for parking spaces at Floyd Bennett Field, a federal property.
“I just don't like this idea that everything is fait accompli, that we've already made decisions that if we don't use this space the way you want to use it, that we're going to get trucks. That's not necessarily true,” Reynoso said.
The sparsely attended meeting at Brooklyn Borough Hall included residents Dave Luiz and John Leyva.
Luiz, who lives a stone's throw away from the site, said the meeting was more “of the same old, same old.”
Luiz, who sat on an advisory council when the city built Brooklyn Bridge Park, said there was a lot more opportunity for the community to speak at those meetings.
“As a result of what was said by the folks outside the committee, they forced changes on the landscape architect… and the greatest park of the 20th century was built,” Luiz said. In contrast, Luiz criticized the BMT task force meetings for being closed to the public.
“What's private? Is this a national security [secret] or something,” Luiz joked.
Leyva, who lives in Cobble Hill, said the city should not turn to the private sector to fund a city infrastructure project.
“If you're going to fix the BQE, you don't have to build a skyscraper,” he said as an example.
