Elizabeth Yeampierre estimates that her team at UPROSE – the Brooklyn community-based environmental justice organization she oversees – has been advocating for the creation of green jobs along the industrial waterfront of Sunset Park for over two decades.
“I found a flyer the other day at UPROSE that was dated ‘97 or ‘98,” said Yeampierre, who’s served as executive director to the Sunset Park-based organization since 1996.
Ortiz, the assistant speaker, who has represented Assembly District 51 which includes parts of Red Hook, Gowanus, and Sunset Park since 1995, took frequent jabs from his challengers at a Wednesday night Zoom debate sponsored by the Sunset Park advocacy group UPROSE. His opponents — tenant organizer Marcela Mitaynes, urban planner Katherine Walsh, and tenant advocate Genesis Aquino — chided Ortiz for taking corporate, real estate, and police union contributions, as well as for an ethics scandal involving embezzlement of campaign funds by a former staffer.
He cites UPROSE, a Latino community organization that has been protesting Industry City’s rezoning request, in his call for the city to complete the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway, a 26-mile waterfront bike path that is not yet complete in Sunset Park.
To address the displacement concerns of Sunset Park residents and housing advocates, Borough President Adams turned to New York City’s housing bureaucracies and called on the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) to set aside dedicated funding for affordable housing and to increase funding for tenant advocacy and counseling organizations. Many of these groups oppose Industry City’s rezoning application.
Lourdes Perez, the Programs Coordinator at UPROSE, a Brooklyn-based Latino advocacy organization, said she’s also worried about climate impact and climate-disaster readiness in Sunset Park. She pointed to UPROSE’s counter-proposal for Industry City, the Green Resilient Industrial District (GRID), as an acceptable alternative to Industry City’s current plans for expansion.
Industry city’s proposal threatens the working class character, affordability and social cohesion of the Sunset Park community. If Industry City wants to develop in Sunset Park, they must do so in context,” said UPROSE Executive Director Yeampierre. “They must amend their proposal to include the recommendations of the Green Resilient Industrial District (GRID) that are based on existing community based plans, years of engagement, organizing and community planning.”