Sunset Park residents took to the streets on Saturday to rally for a second time against Industry City’s plans to rezone — this time, interrupting a “wine and artisanal food” festival.
Grassroots nonprofit UPROSE, which previously protested the rezoning proposal in March and also organized this weekend’s rally, alleges that Industry City’s plan to expand the waterfront’s usable space would displace Sunset Park residents.
The back-and-forth debate over the proposed BQX streetcar, a mass transit improvement that wouldn’t be developed by the MTA, reminds me somewhat of the Roosevelt Island Tram, which was likewise developed without the aid of the metro area’s transit authority.
Sunset Park’s Industry City plans to diverge from its status as a manufacturing hub and thrust itself into a place of international appeal with a prominent rezoning plan that some local residents and community groups say could drastically alter the character of the waterfront neighborhood.
Marcela Mityanes, a resident of the Sunset Park neighborhood in south Brooklyn, can't leave her apartment without seeing signs of rapid change. The deli on the corner is closing; a coffee shop is opening next door. Luxury mega-developments are rising over full blocks. Even the Key Food is selling different products. Passing a building undergoing gut-renovation, Mityanes, a tenant organizer with the local group Neighbors Helping Neighbors, can't help but wonder about who was living there before and where they went. She's heard increasing complaints of tenant harassment, rent hikes, and evictions throughout the working-class, predominately Latino and Asian neighborhood. "I feel like it's been sporadic and spaced out. But now it just seems like it's happening on every other block," she says.
In the past week, the New York Post and New York Daily News published editorials criticizing New York City Council Member Carlos Menchaca’s March 6 request to delay the certification of a consortium of major real estate investors and developers’ application for a special permit to build two hotels and rezone Industry City for retail, office, and academic uses. The accusatory language in both newspaper editorials exhibits a deep contempt for the necessary public review of private development proposals. read more.
On Wednesday, March 28, the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) announced that it is attempting to bring a community rooftop solar garden to the Brooklyn Army Terminal (BAT) in hopes of bringing both affordable and sustainable energy to the Sunset Park neighborhood. Read more.
On a clear day, looking out over the sloshing blue-gray swell of Gowanus Bay from Sunset Park’s waterfront, you can see the Manhattan skyline. Pivot slightly and you’ll find eight nearly identical warehouses, erected between Second Avenue and the Gowanus Expressway. Weave through the alleyways between them to sit in sterile parks under the illumination of crisscrossed Christmas lights, or trek inside to drink at a sake brewery or drop $500 on a Charlie Hat from Teressa Foglia. Outside, semi-trucks rumble over potholes, and the awnings of bodegas fade in the sun. Read more.
World leaders and scientists alike have agreed that the biggest threat currently facing humanity is climate change. Although the United States withdrew from the Paris Agreement in June of 2017, the American people have remained committed to doing their part to mitigate risks and build towards a more sustainable low-carbon future. Read more.
That was the message of a protest outside of Industry City on Friday, March 15 as non-profit UPROSE led the charge against a rezoning proposal which would expand the waterfront’s usable space while also building up in terms of hotels and retail. Read more.
The ninth annual conference on New Directions in Environmental Law took place at Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies on March 2. Organizers of the gathering maintain that climate change is the greatest threat to social justice, human rights and progress around the world. Conference participants explored existing challenges and legal and policy solutions to the crisis, placing climate justice at the center of the discussion. Read more.
Sunset Park City Council member Carlos Menchaca is threatening to kill Industry City’s plans to rezone the massive complex unless the landlord delays the process. Read more
Industry City is continuing its efforts to expand. Read more
A rezoning of Industry City is poised to transform one of Brooklyn’s last industrial strongholds into a mecca of hotels, shops, and educational spaces. Read more
A rezoning of Industry City that could allow the waterfront complex in Brooklyn to expand and add new uses, such as classroom space, hotel rooms and retail stores, is about to begin. Read more
Most of the Natural Resources Committee’s witnesses after the governors were environmental and social activists, who spoke of how climate change would hit poor and minority communities the hardest. Read More
The power of the new Congress, filled with energetic and idealistic lawmakers with fresh ideas, will be on full display this week as a proposal, known as the Green New Deal, gets a formal introduction today in the House and Senate along with two congressional hearings to put climate on center stage after a long lull in the congressional agenda. Read more
The scene at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park this past week was harrowing: prisoners — many of whom have yet to be convicted of a crime — relentlessly banged their fists against jail windows, some of them waving lights inside their pitch-black cells. The jail, which houses more than 1,600 inmates, had been without heat for days, just as the city’s temperatures had plummeted to single digits amid a polar-vortex event. Read more
In 2016, Curbed New York described a “tidal wave” of wealth washing over the waterfront neighborhood of Sunset Park in Brooklyn. After decades of abandonment, developers had swooped into the community with plans to transform the area into the latest edition of gentrification news. But groups like Uprose, Brooklyn’s oldest Latino community-based organization, stepped in to fight for equitable solutions that would not only keep long-time residents in the community, but bring their voices into the decision-making process. Read more
For the first time in more than eight years, members of the House Committee on Natural Resources came together to formally discuss the impacts of climate change on Wednesday. Read more
Es muy emocionante estar aquí, en este espacio de la Facultad de Estudios Generales del Recinto de Río Piedras de la UPR, con este grupo poderoso de mujeres guerreras, y tanta gente dispuesta a escucharnos. Cuando desde PAReS (Profesores Autoconvocados en Resistencia Solidaria) nos planteamos invitar a Naomi Klein a Puerto Rico para generar más discusión a nivel local y global sobre los peligros de la doctrina del shock y las amenazas que el capitalismo del desastre representa para Puerto Rico, estábamos a dos semanas del paso del huracán María. Read More