At the first public meeting after the $3.5 billion plan was approved by a task force in September, community members from Red Hook, Cobble Hill and the Columbia Street Waterfront District said they want the city to conduct a broader environmental impact study, among other things.
Dozens of residents from Red Hook, Cobble Hill and the Columbia Street Waterfront District on Tuesday said they want the city to take a deep dive into the environmental impact of a controversial $3.5 billion plan to build thousands of new apartments and a new marine terminal on the Brooklyn waterfront.
In the first of at least three public meetings hosted by the city Economic Development Corporation, residents noted their frustration over Brooklyn Marine Terminal Vision Plan that was approved in September. The plan allows developers to build 6,000 new apartments, of which 40% would be affordable housing, and would transform the 122-acre waterfront area in the Columbia Street Waterfront District.
“Our build year is 2038,” said Jonathan Keller, a former city planning official who now works for AKRF, a consulting firm working on the city project. By then, there will also be a 60-acre modern and sustainable port, new commercial space, a new community facility and a 400-room hotel, Keller told the crowd.
Many residents, who spent months largely opposing the plan, remained skeptical about how deep the city would review the potential impact of this large development on the community. Over the spring and summer, similar public meetings with residents resulted in push back and concern from city officials, delaying the plan’s ultimate approval at least five times due to a lack of consensus on the project.
“You know, there’s nothing affordable in my district anymore,” Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon told BK Reader shortly before Tuesday’s meeting.
“The fundamental challenges here are the site itself, the fact that it’s got a very shallow flood zone… [that’s] an extraordinarily big expense to put in there, when we have, in fact, water and sewer [issues] into Red Hook that is already quite vulnerable,” she said.
Simon was among the few politicians to vote against the project and said she is planning on speaking at the final public meeting scheduled in December.
Karen Blondel, president of the residents association at the Red Hook West Houses, said she wanted to hear more about the socioeconomic and environmental impact the project would have on the people who live in the public housing development. Photo: Andrew Karpan for BK Reader
Residents appeared mostly unsure about the prospect of new apartment towers.
“This means building a wall of 30- and 40-story high rises along a seven-block stretch of Columbia Street, while tripling the existing population,” said James Morgan, a Columbia Waterfront resident and active adversary of the plan.
Morgan said he wanted environmental impact studies of the plan to “be expanded to at least 3rd Avenue to the west and Tillery Street to the north.”
Sharon Gordon, another Columbia Waterfront resident, also pushed for the borders of the impact study to be broadened.
“The 400-feet perimeter around the project site, which the draft scope of work states is the study area, is far too small to take into account the impacts of this project,” she said.
Gordon brought up another common complaint: that the project would likely happen at the same time as the nearby cantelever portion of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway is overhauled.
“Traffic is a crucial point of study, and it must include repairing the BQE,” Gordon said. “Since there is no subway in the [Brooklyn Marine Terminal] area, cars are the primary mode of transport now, and one can sit on the B61 bus for a long time and only move a few blocks.”
Karen Blondel, president of the residents association at the Red Hook West Houses, a nearby public housing complex, said the plan lacks social cohesion.
“This room is pretty much Cobble Hill [people] and people who live outside of the Red Hook Houses… I want to know what the socioeconomic impact is [going to be] on neighbourhoods like Red Hook Houses when we’re not as organized as some of our affluent neighbors,” she said.
Blondel also wanted to see strong air quality monitoring, mandatory use of electric vehicles, robust noise and particular matter mitigation.
“We must talk about environmental justice. Red Hook has experienced decades of environmental burden,” she added.
Red Hook resident Owen Foote felt that the city had not engaged the community: “I haven’t heard anyone in the room say tonight that this is actually good for Red Hook, Brooklyn.”
A second, virtual, public meeting is scheduled Oct. 30 and a final, in person, public meeting is set Dec. 1, to take place at the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary & St. Stephen Roman Catholic Church.
The EDC did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
Owen Foote, a Red Hook resident, says the community wasn’t involved enough in the project. Photo: Andrew Karpan for BK Reader