March 13–19, 2020 Brooklyn Paper • www.BrooklynPaper.com • (718) 260-2500 5
Beep approves Industry City rezoning plan
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By Rose Adams
Brooklyn Paper
Borough President Eric Adams
announced his support
of the controversial Industry
City rezoning on Monday —
but only if the developers first
adhere to a list of recommendations.
“These recommendations
represent a holistic, comprehensive
vision for the future
of Industry City, to both address
the needs of long-time
Brooklynites and revitalize
this long-neglected area by
promoting the growth of goodpaying
jobs in maker industries
for local residents,” Adams
said in a statement.
The owners of Industry
City, a 35-acre manufacturing
hub on the Sunset Park waterfront,
are looking to change
the complex’s zoning to allow
for a 12-year, $1 billion redevelopment
that would add big
box retail, academic spaces,
and hotels to the campus.
The rezoning push has
fiercely divided the largely
immigrant, working-class
Borough President Eric
Adams
GOWANUS...
tail strip along Smith Street,
an extension of Luquer Street,
and could bring some 2,000
new residents to the area bordering
Carroll Gardens, one
of the most expensive neighborhoods
in the city.
Locals have been critical of
the plans from the get-go, saying
the city shouldn’t encourage
new residents to live and
pupils to go to school on top of
the heavily-polluted site.
“You look at the contaminated
items that were on this
site — nobody should be living
there,” said Linda Mariano
of the environmentalist
group Friends and Residents
of Greater Gowanus.
The city shelved the old
rezoning proposal when the
Environmental Protection
Agency designated the canal a
Superfund Site in 2010, but relaunched
it in 2018 and folded
it into the neighborhood-wide
Gowanus rezoning, because
the site is still zoned for manufacturing.
Keeping the park portion in
public hands will also make
it easier for the feds during
their impending cleanup, according
to Lander, when they
plan to use the site to transfer
the viscous contaminated sediment
nicknamed “black mayonnaise”
between barges, beginning
this September.
The site used to house a Citizen
Gas Works plant which
was decommissioned in the
1960s, before the city seized
the site in 1975 via condemnation.
The gas company later became
part of what is now National
Grid, which started a
two-year cleanup of the site
last July under the supervision
of the state’s Department
of Environmental Conservation.
HPD and the developers
would be responsible for
any additional remediation,
according to Marvilli.
Continued from page 1
Together, the rezoning application
consists of four articles
— of which Adams
approved three and disapproved
one:
• A zoning map amendment
to change the land’s zoning
designation (approved).
• A zoning text amendment
to expand the accepted uses
for land (approved).
• A special permit to allow
Industry City to build according
to the rules laid out in the
zoning text (disapproved).
• The de-mapping of 40th
Street to transfer the roadway
to Industry City’s control (approved).
However, Adams’ approval
of the zoning map amendment
and his disapproval of a special
permit came with a list of
conditions that the developers
must adhere to as a predicate
to his finalized recommendation.
Like the local community
board, the Beep’s biggest demands
were that the builders
restrict trucking terminals and
warehouses, scrap plans for
hotels on the site, and reduce
the amount of retail space.
Adams also called on the
city to explore the possibility
of opening a STEAM education
center or technical high
school within Industry City
and provide funding for affordable
housing and tenant
advocacy groups, in addition
to other conditions.
Following the recommendation,
Kimball lauded Adams’
vote, dubbing it a win for
the rezoning application.
“Borough President Eric
Adams recognized the merits
of this plan that builds for
the future of Industry City,
particularly its innovative approaches
to creating career
pathways through academic
training and programs that
will create greater and more
equitable economic opportunity
for thousands of New
Yorkers,” he said.
The plan, said Kimball,
would provide the area with
massive economic windfall.
“As the plan moves forward
in the public review process,
we will continue working
with community leaders as
we make the case for the plan
to create 20,000 jobs, attract
$1 billion in private investment,
and provide meaningful
educational and training
resources for all New York
City residents,” he said.
Activists, meanwhile,
slammed Adams’ approval
of the project — claiming
his conditions were not nearly
enough to justify such development.
“Instead of standing to
protect Sunset Park, Brooklyn
Borough President Eric
Adams is siding with Industry
City’s landlords to replace
our manufacturing waterfront
with a large luxury retail
mall,” said Michael Medina,
a Sunset Park resident
who works with the grassroots
group Protect Sunset
Park. “We need our elected
officials to prioritize a public
waterfront plan. Not another
corporate rezoning.”
The City Planning Commission
will issue its recommendations
for the rezoning
before it moves to the City
Council.
Sunset Park Councilman
Carlos Menchaca, who wields
outsize power over the application’s
passage, has indicated
that he is “prepared to vote
no” on the plan, since the application
will likely land in
City Hall before his set of demands
are met.
neighborhood — with supporters
arguing that the development
would bring desperately
needed jobs, and critics
charging that the glitzy new
space will drive up rents and
displace locals.
Industry City executive Andrew
Kimball officially submitted
the rezoning application
last October, kicking off
the seven-month land use review
process that allows various
community stakeholders
to weigh in before the application
heads to the City Council
for a final vote.
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