‘East New York is not for sale’
Community Land Trust movement sees hope in Racial Justice Commission
Members of the East New York Community Land Trust hold a banner at the city’s Racial Justice Commission meeting. Photo by Ben Brachfeld
COURIER LIFE, NOVEMBER 12-18, 2021 29
BY BEN BRACHFELD
The city’s Racial Justice
Commission held its fi nal public
input meeting for Brooklynites
at the Brooklyn Museum
Monday night, but the
affair quickly became a lesson
in organizing strength as
speaker after speaker called
on the commission to propose
banning the controversial
tax lien sale, and to prioritize
community land trusts in the
city’s dispensation of public
land.
As the commission — empaneled
earlier this year to
identify areas of city law
perpetuating structural racism
and recommend charter
revisions to correct them —
inches closer to proposing
fi nal charter amendments
for the November 2022 ballot,
members of the East New
York Community Land Trust
(ENY CLT) one-by-one approached
the commissioners
and gave versions of the same
speech, calling the transfer
of vacant public land to private
developers and the sale
of distressed property tax
debt to investors a prominent
example of institutional
racism being baked into the
city’s laws.
“As it stands, long-term
Black residents of East New
York and Brownsville are being
systematically displaced
due to speculative investment
by for-profi t developers with
no ties to the community, and
most do not give back to our
community in a meaningful
way,” said Izoria Fields, a
lifelong East New Yorker and
ENY CLT’s vice president, in
testimony to the Commission.
“We implore you to lead the
way in adjusting the Charter
to prioritize transferring public
land to community land
trusts and fi ght to revamp
the tax lien sale process in a
manner which helps protects
us and our neighbors.”
The commission has been
holding public input sessions
for months to hear from New
Yorkers on how racism infl
ects everyday life, and specifi
cally how city law and
institutions can propagate
it. Last month, it released a
preliminary report identifying
six broad areas of inequity
encompassing the
topics brought up by residents:
access to quality public
services, distribution of
resources across neighborhoods,
professional advancement
and wealth-building,
marginalization and overcriminalization,
representation
in decision-making, and
enforcement and accountability
for government and other
entities.
Commissioners have said
that they want the ballot proposals
to be as broad as possible
to eliminate structural
racism as much as can be
done by revising the charter.
The commission is now
holding a fi nal set of hearings
ahead of releasing its proposals
next month, along with
a possible preamble to the
charter to establish guiding
values of anti-racism for the
city to abide by.
Monday’s meeting was
sparsely attended, except for
those with ENY CLT, who said
they organized to show up as
a unit to drive home just how
positive an impact they feel
the commission could have
by putting their priorities on
the ballot.
“We believe East New York
is not for sale. And we envision
a healthy and sustaining
community where our people
come before profi t,” said
ENY CLT secretary Deborah
Ack. “Planning and development
in East New York and
Brownsville should be led by
us for us, the longtime Black
and brown residents of East
New York and Brownsville.”
The group contends that
both the public land transfer
program and the tax lien sale
put New Yorkers of color at a
disproportionately high risk
of displacement. Since 1996,
the city has farmed out debt
collection on unpaid property
taxes to the private sector,
selling homeowners’ tax
lien debt to a trust run by the
Bank of New York Mellon to
collect the debt, and can foreclose
on properties that don’t
pay up. Relatedly, the transfer
program allows the city to
transfer publicly-owned lots
to for-profi t developers at little
to no cost, often for $1.
These transfers mean the
arrival of new management,
which often can mean higher
rents and subsequent displacement.
Oftentimes, a distressed
property owner will
sell to pay off the debt, but
that still leaves their tenants
at risk of eviction under new
management.
These programs disproportionately
impact communities
of color: a 2018 map by
the nonprofi t 596 Acres shows
that $1 lot transfers are heavily
concentrated in Black and
Latino areas of the city, including
Central Brooklyn,
Southeast Queens, the South
Bronx, and Upper Manhattan.
“We realize what happened
in Bed-Stuy, we know
what happened in Bushwick,”
said the land trust’s
president, Albert Scott, referencing
gentrifi cation in
those neighborhoods. “It has
been demonstrated by giving
it to the for-profi ts, they have
been pushing us out. Time
and time again.”
The community land trust
model would have the public
lots be managed and maintained
by a consortium of local
residents developing the
property as affordable homes
rather than a speculative asset,
advocates say, arguing
that that would allow the
properties to remain permanently
affordable and prevent
gentrifi cation in low-income
areas like East New York and
Brownsville. For the tax lien
sale, ENY CLT says the job of
debt collection should be returned
to the public sector.
The next tax lien sale is
scheduled for Dec. 17, after
having been delayed several
times during the pandemic.
Several commissioners
maintained that they were
impressed by the group’s organizing
strategy, and that
they now have a lot to consider
before proposing fi nal
ballot measures.
“I thought they were very
effective at reinforcing the
points of concern and what
they see as doable solutions,”
said Jennifer Jones Austin,
the commission’s chair, in an
interview with Brooklyn Paper.
“And they gave us something
to work with.”