Industry City withdraws rezoning app
Sunset Park complex pulls plan amid local, political pushback
BY ROSE ADAMS
Industry City leaders
pulled the rezoning application
for the sprawling Sunset
Park complex on Tuesday
after a host of Brooklyn lawmakers
announced their opposition
to the plan.
“Sadly, in the context of
one in fi ve New Yorkers losing
their jobs and the City’s fi scal
crisis spiraling out of control,
the leadership needed to approve
this development failed
to emerge. Therefore, we have
decided to withdraw our application
and proceed with as-ofright
leasing options,” Industry
City CEO Andrew Kimball
said in a statement.
The withdrawal, fi rst reported
by Politico, comes only
weeks before the City Council
was set to vote on the application.
If approved, the rezoning
would have paved the way for
a $1 billion renovation of the
35-acre campus that would
add big box retail, academic
space, and other uses to the
waterfront complex.
Industry City’s owners —
a partnership between Jamestown
Properties, Angelo Gordon,
and Belvedere Capital
— fi rst considered scrapping
the rezoning application in
July when local Councilman
Carlos Menchaca vowed to
vote the scheme down.
But the application’s approval
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from the City Planning
Commission — as well as the
vocal support of three Council
members — seemed to reassure
the owners, who plowed
ahead with the approval process.
The city’s land use procedure,
known as ULURP, was
set to end by mid-November
with a Council vote.
Through Industry City representatives
did not say why
the owners pulled the application,
a Sept. 22 letter against
the rezoning by four Brooklyn
Congress members and
six state representatives may
have sounded the death knell
for the scheme.
In the letter, the lawmakers
argued that the rezoning
may cause the displacement of
the area’s working class community,
Industry City CEO Andrew Kimball, announced that he is withdrawing the rezoning application for the complex.
File photo by Sara Hylton
and urged the city to
work on a public plan for the
district instead.
“Rather than cede leadership
to a private developer
forging ahead with their application,
the City should take
the initiative to reassess the
economic environment, its
manufacturing needs (particularly
with the new mandates
in recently passed climate
acts), the needs of the local
community for jobs, and the
future of the Southwest Brooklyn
Industrial Business Zone,”
wrote the local leaders.
Kimball blamed the rezoning’s
failure on politics, and
implicitly blasted local offi -
cials for prioritizing their political
motives over benefi ts to
the community.
“Over and over, we have
heard from key decision makers
that while the substance of
the project is strong, the politics
of the moment do not allow
them to support any private
development project,” he
said in a statement. “Even the
historic nature of our commitments
– which signifi cantly
elevated the bar for future
development projects – and a
seven-year record of creating
jobs and opportunity weren’t
enough to overcome purely political
consideration.”
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