UPROSE, Brooklyn’s oldest Latinx community-based organization, has a radically different idea for Sunset Park, one that merges climate justice with industrial development. UPROSE focuses on designating Sunset Park’s waterfront as a “Green Resilient Industrial District” (GRID) offering an alternative rezoning plan with four main goals: preserving the industrial character of Sunset Park’s waterfront, retaining and creating well-paid working class jobs, supporting green industrial innovation, and promoting climate resiliency and a just transition through a circular industrial economy. Under the GRID plan, UPROSE seeks to take back the industrial waterfront—which is currently the largest employer in Sunset Park—and develop it to be more sustainable, while using the transition to environmental sustainability to promote job growth. For example, plans already exist to construct a 385 kilowatt community solar cooperative system on the roof of the Brooklyn Army Terminal, which would provide many job opportunities to residents in the construction of the project.
Only the GRID plan truly adapts the waterfront to the 21st-century risks of climate change; there is no language in the Industry City rezoning plan about climate change resiliency, mitigation or adaptation techniques. Only the GRID plan offers opportunities for those who actually live in Sunset Park to benefit from the transition to green energy and sustainability practices. Only the GRID plan offers a future for Sunset Park that allows the residents who currently live there to stay.