When the city’s opposition to #rezoning Industry City halted the plan's implementation in 2020, it was certainly not misled… because the developers were not being upfront about their plans. We should have found a way to stop the developers from moving forward.
People who wanted the rezoning insisted that it was the right action because it would allow developers to add more spaces for business, retail and academic centers. They even claimed that the project would fix New York’s record levels of unemployment by creating 20,000 jobs at some unspecified point in the future. However, they have yet to make good on this assertion. Industry City has too many shortcomings that will only hurt Sunset Park in the long run, and it will not turn out to be a good thing for our local residents.
The magnitude of the Industry rezoning plan mobilized and united a diverse coalition of city residents and activists. There were already grassroots groups that opposed the rezoning because they wanted to protect Sunset Park’s waterfront. These groups understood the danger. Transforming the historical waterfront into a destination for big-box retail, corporate tenants, and luxury hotels increases property values, which sounds good on the surface, until you realize that it also raises rents. Sunset Park used to have a very large population of immigrants and members of the working class. Now that they are being priced out of the homes they are renting, where are they supposed to go?
The Sunset waterfront was one of New York's most important historical landmarks, a vital part of our heritage that served as a melting pot for many different cultures and industries. Such a resource should never have been interfered with.
If changes had to be made to the area, why did the leaders not get behind the Green Resilient Improvement District (GRID) proposal made by Uprose, a Sunset Park community-based organization? Their plan would have been a much better alternative to Industry City. It was centered around green energy and aesthetically appealing landscaping. It would have created a waterfront that would bring a more sustainable, resilient, and dynamic future.
It seems that we are instead going along a similar path of industrial rezoning as what happened in Williamsburg. Between 2002 and 2013, industries were replaced by nightlife venues, and median gross rents skyrocketed in the neighborhood. According to Luis Henriquez, a Director of Litigation who represents tenants, "we have spoken about gentrification in East New York as a future thing, but it's something we are seeing now as housing lawyers." That was back in 2016. How much more prevalent will this effect be now?
Industry City has already started to cause skyrocketing property values, and they will inevitably continue to rise. When the Industry City developers halted rezoning, they had a chance to save the city. Regrettably, they changed their minds, and this amounts to nothing but negative implications for the affected areas' residents.
