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-of-right
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
COURIER L 4 IFE, SEPT. 25-OCT. 1, 2020
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
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, 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
Protesters rallied against the rezoning on Sept. 15, one week before the
developers pulled the application. Photo by Paul Frangipane
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.”
Scratch that!
Industry City withdraws rezoning
application after political pressure
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