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4 COURIER LIFE, OCT. 2-8, 2020
WHAT NOW?
The Industry City rezoning plan is dead.
What’s next for Sunset Park’s waterfront?
For years, Sunset Park
groups have pushed for
a public rezoning of the
neighborhood’s waterfront that
would bring more green energy
jobs to the historically industrial
area, which is mostly
zoned for heavy manufacturing.
The waterfront — which
stretches from Brooklyn Army
Terminal by Bay Ridge to the
Hamilton Asphalt Plant by the
Gowanus Canal — is currently
home to a hodgepodge of factories,
manufacturing and warehousing
spaces on city-owned
land, light industrial plants,
and private developments, such
as Industry City. But advocates
argue that to best utilize the
more than 600 acres of waterfront,
the city should create a
unifi ed plan.
“Instead of talking about
these one-off projects, let’s talk
about how to do this more comprehensively
and in a more systematic
way,” said Sunset Park
community board chairperson,
César Zúñiga, who is running
for Sunset Park’s Council seat
in 2021.
One popular plan by the environmentalist
group Uprose
would transform the waterfront
into environmentally-friendly
manufacturing. The Grid plan,
which has been in the works
for several years, would attract
clean energy manufacturers
and incentivize existing factories
to create environmentallyfriendly
infrastructure — pushing
forward the city’s climate
change goals, one expert said.
“It will realize tens of thousands
of clean energy jobs, and
these jobs are all part of building
and moving our economy
away from an economy dependent
on fossil fuels,” said Uprose’s
Summer Sandoval.
Under the proposal, more
than half of Industry City
would be slated for industrial
uses, with limited retail and offi
ce space used only to support
the complex’s factories.
In order to realize this plan
— which has been created with
extensive community input, according
to Sandoval — the city
would have to rezone the waterfront,
with carve outs and specifi
c uses spelled out in the zoning
text, she said.
This wouldn’t be the fi rst
community-led rezoning effort
in recent history. In 2019,
advocacy groups in Bushwick
pitched their own community
rezoning plan to Mayor Bill de
Blasio in response to the city’s
efforts to rezone the area to create
more housing. The mayor’s
administration shelved both
plans in January.
BY ROSE ADAMS
Now that the owners of
Sunset Park’s Industry City
have killed their proposal
to rezone the massive waterfront
complex, local leaders
say the path is clear for a
new, community-led proposal
for Sunset Park’s industrial
waterfront.
“We effectively removed
the obstacle from our community
development plan
that is connected with real
jobs,” area Councilman Carlos
Menchaca told Brooklyn
Paper. “I’m just excited to get
back into the room to keep
talking.”
If approved, Industry
City’s rezoning would have
spurred a 12-year, $1 billion
renovation of the complex,
adding academic space, big
box retail, and other uses to
the 35-acre campus. Industry
City developers claimed that
the new space would have
created thousands of jobs
— but many politicians and
activists worried that those
jobs would be mostly lowpaying,
and that the infl ux of
high-end retail would drive
up rents.
Industry City chief executive
Andrew Kimball pulled
the application on Sept. 21
following a letter by local offi
cials denouncing the project,
and said that the developers
won’t submit another
rezoning application for the
complex — offi cially ending
the yearslong contentious
fi ght for the campus’ redevelopment.
Now, local advocates say
they have their own vision
for the Sunset Park waterfront,
beyond just Industry
City.
Industry City chief executive Andrew Kimball. File photo
Space for green
manufacturing
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