Brooklyn residents, community leaders and elected officials will continue exploring options for the Brooklyn Marine Terminal project, after a vote on the city's $80 million proposal was postponed once again on Thursday.
After postponing the vote for the fifth time, the leadership of the BMT Task Force, which include Representative Dan Goldman (Chair), state Senator Andrew Gounardes (Vice Chair) and Council Member Alexa Avilés (Vice Chair), said they will give task force members more time to scrutinize the plan before setting another date for a vote.
"The Task Force leadership has unanimously decided to postpone the vote," a statement from the officials read. "It has always been our goal to achieve broad consensus on a BMT redevelopment plan, and after extensive discussions with members of the Task Force who remain opposed to the current plan, they have indicated that they believe that further refinement and community engagement could achieve that broader consensus. We have agreed to postpone Task Force discussions in order to give sufficient time to consult further with the various neighboring communities in order to develop a set of bottom line items that must be adequately addressed in order to reach a viable path forward. The schedule for the Task Force moving forward has not been set but we expect to have an update on our progress soon."
There were at least 10 members of the task force who publicly said they did not like the plan as it stands. This includes Avilés; Eddie Bautista, executive director of NYC Environmental Justice Alliance; Ben Fuller-Googins, executive director of the Carroll Gardens Association; Hank Guttman, Brooklyn Navy Yard Board Chair; Council Member Shahana Hanif; Assemblymember Marcela Mitaynes; Susan Povich, principal officer of Red Hook Business Alliance; Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso; Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon; and Jim Tampakis, founder of Brooklyn Marine Spares International.
"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," the above mentioned individuals said in a statement. "The absence of transportation and sewer studies to assess the proposal's impacts and the lack of data to support the feasibility of the project is alarming. The proposal does not fulfill the salient goal of transforming the BMT into “a harbor of the future” with manufacturing jobs and robust maritime opportunities. We believe in a future of a working waterfront that centers people, sustainability and justice."
The project to transform the 122-acre waterfront area in the Columbia Street Waterfront District currently calls for building about 6,000 apartment units, 40% of which would be affordable housing.
In an interview with WNYC ahead of the scheduled vote on Thursday, Reynoso, who has previously been vocal about his opposition for the project as it stands, said the Economic Development Corporation's original plan to revamp the crumbling port quickly became a housing-focused project, leaving out Brooklyn's commercial sector that thought they would would have a larger role to play.
Reynoso also said "some task force members are getting side deals that are not necessarily a part of a port-only project," without providing further detail.
"What I think we need to do is take a step back, refocus and start talking about a port-first project that would have housing in it, should it support the sustainability and the construction of a port operation. And it doesn't seem like EDC is open to that, or they've allowed too many hands to come into the pile," Reynoso told WNYC.
The Brooklyn Marine Terminal project is a generational opportunity to replace decades of disinvestment with a brighter, more abundant future for Brooklyn and New York City, said EDC spokesperson Jeff Holmes. The delayed vote will allow for "additional time for meaningful community engagement and conversations to happen with those members and the public who had previously voiced their opposition," he added.
