Industry City Moves Forward With Massive Rezoning Plan: 'They Want It Their Way Or The Highway'

The owners of Industry City, a sprawling retail and manufacturing hub on the Sunset Park waterfront, have decided to move forward on a controversial rezoning, despite skepticism from a local councilmember and fervent opposition from neighborhood activists.

The long-delayed rezoning application, certified by the City Planning Commission on Monday, will kick off a highly contentious land use process that is expected to take seven months. Twice delayed already, the rezoning seeks to develop more than 1 million square feet on the 35-acre, 16-building property, potentially adding new hotels, retail, and office space to an area once known for heavy manufacturing.

On Monday, Councilmember Carlos Menchaca, who represents Sunset Park, said in a statement he found it “troubling” that Industry City was taking the next step without a so-called “community benefits agreement” in place.

“I will oppose this rezoning, through an official vote on the floor of the City Council, if we cannot execute a proposal that protects and uplifts our most vulnerable neighbors in Sunset Park,” Menchaca said.

For activists in Sunset Park, the largely immigrant neighborhood where Industry City is located, the possibility of a private rezoning on a scale rarely seen in New York City has fueled fears that gentrification could lead to a widescale displacement of the area’s working class residents. The land covered in the rezoning is more on the scale of a neighborhood—recent rezonings of Inwood or Astoria's Hallets Point are of a comparable or slightly larger size - than a typical private applicant, who will usually seek changes of a far smaller degree.

“The actions by Industry City demonstrate that they don’t want to work with this community,” said Rodrigo Camarena, an organizer with Protect Sunset Park, the neighborhood coalition opposing the rezoning. “They want it their way or the highway.”

While Menchaca echoed the language of the activists in his statements, progressives in his district have been wary of the Democrat’s true intentions. Menchaca called a town hall in September to present his counter-proposal to Industry City’s vision but left the stage early after he was interrupted by protesters.

The activists want Menchaca to shoot down the rezoning altogether and stop negotiating with Industry City. The councilman, who is term-limited and has been a rumored candidate for Brooklyn Borough President, has been unwilling to do that.

At the heart of the clash are the promises Industry City is offering up—potentially thousands of jobs, which the de Blasio administration desperately needs to hit the mayor’s lofty job targets—against what could be another economic development project that sends real estate speculators swarming across a what is still a working and middle-class Latino and Asian-American neighborhood.

Industry City, led by a trio of real estate heavyweights—Jamestown, Belvedere Capital, and Angelo Gordon & Co.—insists it has already undertook “the most extensive community process ever implemented in New York City,” according to their CEO, Andrew Kimball.

“During the review process, and for many years to come, we will continue to work with community leaders to ensure that the benefits of this effort stays close to home,” he said.

Kimball agreed to Menchaca’s chief demand that Industry City enter into a community benefits agreement, signed between the developers and yet-to-be-determined community organizations and members, to ensure a set number of concrete benefits are delivered for Sunset Park. Public entities, like elected officials and community boards, cannot legally enter into CBA’s in New York.

In September, Menchaca called for a CBA to certify a legally-binding guarantee for a “a nonprofit manufacturing hub, a vocational school, help for local businesses, roof space for solar panels, and funds for tenant organizing.” No CBA is in place, however, as the rezoning process formally begins.

It’s also unclear what difference such an agreement would make.

CBAs have a fraught history in New York City planning. More than a decade ago, the developers of what was then known as Atlantic Yards in downtown Brooklyn signed a CBA with community groups to guarantee a series of benefits, including a certain number of construction jobs and apprentice programs, affordable housing units, and loans for small businesses.

As documented by the journalist Norman Oder, who covered Atlantic Yards extensively, promises from the CBA largely did not materialize. A majority of the groups that signed the 2005 agreement were no longer active a decade later, and there was no independent enforcement of the terms.

Vicki Been, then an NYU professor and now a deputy mayor in the de Blasio administration, noted in a 2010 paper on CBAs that only eight organizations signed the Atlantic Yards CBA while more than 50 lined up in opposition, calling into question the legitimacy of such an agreement and whether it could adequately represent the interests of the surrounding neighborhoods.

More ominously for Menchaca’s aims at Industry City, Been argued no serious oversight or safeguards were put into place to ensure goals in the agreement were ever met.

“There is no mechanism,” Been wrote, “for ensuring that those who claim to speak for the community actually do so; no guaranteed forum through which the community can express its views about the substance of the CBA or the wisdom of entering into a CBA; and no formal means by which the community can hold negotiators accountable for the success or failure of a CBA.”

Unlike Atlantic Yards—now the site of the Barclays Center—which marshaled strong support from Bill de Blasio, then a local city councilmember, former Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, and several prominent community groups, Industry City’s rezoning lacks the same high profile and vocal backing. With local organizations like UPROSE, once a Menchaca ally, already mobilizing against the rezoning, lining up signatories may be harder, though not impossible.

Menchaca appointed a working group to study the Industry City rezoning and make recommendations. An email obtained by Gothamist notes an “ad hoc” steering committee for a community benefits coalition, which includes the Sunset Park Business Improvement District, the Southwest Brooklyn Industrial Development Corporation, and Cesar Zuniga, the chair of Community Board 7 and a rumored City Council candidate.

At a community board meeting Monday night, opponents of the rezoning pressed Zuniga specifically on how he could join the CBA coalition before the community board casts a vote during the land use review process. Zuniga insisted he was only representing himself, not the community board.

In his statement, Menchaca professed faith that a CBA, along with concessions from City Hall to help tenants facing displacement, could win over the rezoning’s many critics.

“I believe with sufficient time, the coalition exploring the feasibility of a CBA can satisfy any and all questions regarding its implementation,” Menchaca said. “I believe the Mayor’s Office can make the necessary commitments to invest in the types of programs and infrastructure we need. I believe that Industry City can craft a rezoning proposal that benefits the Sunset Park community.”