Without Industry City, Sunset
Park needs affordable housing
to stop displacement
An aerial view of ndustry City and surrounding Sunset Park. Industry City
COURIER LIFE, NOV. 13-19, 2020 23
OP-ED
BY NELSON SANTANA
No matter what side you land on in
the Industry City rezoning, the debate
over the plan’s merits made clear that
our Sunset Park community is in dire
need of new housing — especially affordable
units.
I have watched the evolution of the
neighborhood with both pride and concern
for my entire life. My family established
its roots in Sunset Park with
my parents immigrating to the United
States in the 1970s. After living in Red
Hook for some time, I am back in the
Sunset Park community with my own
growing family.
Of course, I am not surprised that the
developers of Industry City recognized
the potential that exists to create a new
economic opportunity. To be clear, I am
not a huge fan of the proposed Industry
City rezoning. There was a real threat of
displacement that could have impacted
my family and my neighbors — a threat
that existed because there is not nearly
enough housing in this community for
those of us who have watched it grow
and change over the years.
Long before the Industry City rezoning
was even a possibility, our neighborhood
already faced gentrifi cation and
displacement. Not because of any new
development, but because of a lack of it
— there has been a remarkable lack of
creating much-needed housing in the
community. This is a salient point that
seems to have gotten lost in the back and
forth.
A recent report by Fifth Avenue
Committee highlighted that our
neighborhood’s population has grown
steadily in recent years. Between 2010
and 2018, Community Board 7, which encompasses
Sunset Park, grew by nearly
18,000 residents. Meanwhile, the creation
of new housing here has not kept
pace. Only 1,000 new housing units have
come online since 2014, and the community
overall has actually experienced a
net loss in units.
In the best of times, the government
might be seen as a potential benefactor
to step in and deliver funds to help address
this critical need for housing.
But these are not the best of times.
Reeling from the effects of the pandemic,
our government at the state and local
level are completely broke. And with
the dysfunction in Washington at an alltime
high, it is clear we have to look beyond
the public sector for help.
There is a glaringly obvious solution,
which I know some of my neighbors fi nd
controversial–even sacrilege. We need
private development to create more affordable
housing.
We need to build, build, build more
housing.
Right now, there is already a viable
project waiting in the wings that could
start to help. The Community Board
is holding their offi cial public meeting
Thursday night on a proposal to turn a
current Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot into
new housing for the neighborhood.
Nobody is getting displaced by this
project. It is not being built over former
residences or on top of an industrial site.
In fact, the site at 737 4th Ave. sits on top
of an R train stop — exactly where you
should build housing — and would bring
140 new units of housing to the community,
with 35 of them being permanently
affordable.
Most important, this much-needed
housing can be delivered without any
public funds. The private developer is
footing the bill. All they need to move
forward is for the City Council to approve
a rezoning of the block where the
site is located, which happens to sit directly
across the street from lots that
have the zoning required for what they
are seeking to build.
This is exactly the type of project we
need to help keep my neighbors from
getting displaced. And while we do not
need the government to open their pocketbooks
to fund it, we do need our elected
offi cials to open their eyes to the fact that
the problem of displacement is not going
away without some sort of action.
To date, I have not heard of a single
tangible proposal from our elected offi
cials to address the housing crisis in
Sunset Park. I have heard a lot of no, and
very little yes.
Now, we need to use all the tools
available to us to build affordable housing,
and that includes working with the
private sector to create real immediateterm
solutions, before all my neighbors
are driven out and the neighborhood becomes
unrecognizable to those of us that
grew up here.
Nelson Santana is a Sunset Park resident.