Here's Where District 35 Council Candidates Stand On Your Issues

CROWN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — In February, four months before the June 22 City Council primary elections, Patch asked Brooklynites in the 35th City Council District which neighborhood issues mattered to them.

More than 50 neighbors filled out the survey, shedding light on what residents are looking for in the seven candidates vying to replace term-limited Council Member Laurie Cumbo, who serves as the council's majority leader.

(Keep up with New York City and local elections by subscribing to Prospect Heights/Crown Heights Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

Among the takeaways: urban quality of life (public transit, street safety, bike lanes, parks) emerged as a key issue, with nearly 34 percent of respondents naming it as their most important topic. Close behind were housing and homelessness, which got 24 percent of the vote.

The open-ended section of the survey showed that voters were also curious about candidates' positions on several local rezoning proposals and a renovation at Fort Greene Park, which is under revision after a lawsuit from neighbors.

Now, with about two weeks remaining until the election, we asked all District 35 candidates to respond to questions based on the survey results.

Four out of the seven candidates provided responses to Patch's questions. Their answers, edited slightly for brevity, are found below:

1. What is your position on the city’s plan to renovate Fort Greene Park?

• Curtis Harris: "Our Green spaces should be protected at all costs. Our Fort Greene neighbors have been engaged in a lawsuit to stop the plan to renovate Fort Greene park removing a number of trees for a pedestrian plaza. I stand with the community in rejecting this plan to renovate until the community agrees it should be done. Only then will I agree to this planned renovation of Fort Greene Park."

• Michael Hollingsworth: "...I oppose the $10.5 million Parks Department proposed redesign of the park because it calls for paving over thousands of square feet of green space and removing dozens of mature shade trees. We need to make our parks—including Fort Greene Park—more green and more accessible for all New Yorkers. At a time when the climate crisis is intensifying and impacting the health of our communities, we need more rain gardens and more street trees to reduce water and air pollution and extreme heat. We need to expand the Department of Environmental Protection’s Green Infrastructure program and its maintenance workforce under NYC Parks. And as we look to improve our public green spaces—which are critical for physical health, mental wellbeing, and the reduction of carbon emissions—we need to prioritize Black and brown communities."

• Deirdre Levy: "I believe that the city’s plan should reflect the community needs. There needs to be ADA accessibility, but I don’t think that the landscape of the trees needs to be compromised. We need to ensure that the green spaces are preserved."

• Regina Kinsey: "Fort Greene Park is a historic gem. The proposed renovations appear to be more of a transformation of our treasured landmark. A renovation would preserve the character and landscape of the park to keep its historic identity. I have to be on the side of the many residents who love their park and recognize the significance of maintaining it's natural splendor. The amount of trees slated to be cut down to make way for a grand entry and walkway is counterproductive to the park's ecosystem. Residents all across the city are crying out for more green spaces, and Fort Greene Park can serve as an example of appreciation. Moving forward with the so-called renovation is contrary to the city's own argument of a climate emergency and it strays away from the current local electeds commitment to sustainability. We must also take into account the health benefits provided to residents with asthma and other respiratory illnesses that live in close proximity to the park. It's fiscally irresponsible to pour money into fixing something that's not broken. Preserve our landmark!"

2. What is your position on development projects that require rezonings? What do you see as the main issues surrounding housing and development and what needs to be done to address these issues?

• Curtis Harris: "Development projects that require rezoning must have community input from the very beginning. The community is usually the last to know for developers over the last eight years have been given unconditional access to build with very little community input. The ULURP process must be revised instead of the top down system that exists, to a bottom up approach with maximum community input. The main issue surrounding housing and development is its unaffordability. Developers promise affordable housing but only provide gentrification...I will make housing affordable for everyone by fighting for universal rent control. I plan to put the people first by focusing on increasing access to real low income affordable housing, requiring developers to provide more affordable units, and protecting renters from being priced out of neighborhoods they helped build."

• Michael Hollingsworth: "There’s a reason every Black and brown neighborhood pushes back against rezonings: Too often, they benefit developers—not us. These projects displace our communities and I’m running to stop that—to take the power to shape our neighborhoods away from real estate and to give it to the people who actually live and work in them. We can do that by placing a moratorium on all City- and developer-initiated rezonings, with exceptions for justice-centered, community-produced plans. We can do that by ending the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), which gives communities zero leverage against developers. And we can do that by finally creating a comprehensive, citywide planning process that’s exclusively designed to serve the public interest."

• Deirdre Levy: "Rezonings need to be community led as well. We should have sustainable development that will allow residents to stay in our communities."

• Regina Kinsey: "Our district has been ravaged with rezonings, upzonings and densification, at this point everyone is being impacted in one way or another, that's the realization of it. My intention is to bring balance and stability back to the district. District 35 is not Midtown Manhattan, yet it's on a fast tract to resembling it. I think it's time to place a moratorium on certain controversial development projects and go back to the drawing board. Too often the legitimate studies that's required are bypassed. Extensive feasibility, health, racial, and environmental impact studies must be enforced, in addition to more transparency and community input. The main issues surrounding housing is that residents from all walks of life share the same sentiment about the lack of affordability. The failed housing policies of the current administration have made it almost impossible for most to continue to live in the district. My mission is to revisit and revise those failed policies in an effort to stabilize the district."

3. What do you see as the main issues facing public transit and street safety in the neighborhood? What will your plan be to address these issues?

• Curtis Harris: "The main issue facing public transit is the homelessness situation in our subways and public safety in our streets. Without public safety we can never build back better the City we deserve and long for. People must have confidence that the homeless who are residing in our subways and streets are having their health, emotional, and psychological needs met. The public must have a sense of safety from gun violence as well as crime. I am not a proponent of defunding the police per se but believe we must and can re-imagine policing in the City of NY. There must be transparency and accountability for their actions and behavior. We witnessed and have documentation of last summer's NYPD abuse and violence. However, we should be willing to work with people who truly want to help us live in a safe City."

• Michael Hollingsworth: "We need to reclaim our public space. We need more space to sit, play, ride, travel, protest, express ourselves, and enjoy the outdoors. To make this vision a reality, we need to make our streets safer and more fun by implementing more open streets, shared spaces, community spaces, neighborhood greenways, and midblock playgrounds across the city. We also need to make transportation accessible to people with disabilities, older people, children, and other groups that are too often overlooked in the design process. Finally, we need to support low-carbon transportation that prioritizes poor and working-class Black and brown communities by, for instance, expanding bus service and protected bike lanes."

• Deirdre Levy: "We should invest in public transit to ensure that residents are safe. Street safety needs to be addressed by community members, community groups and by working with local precincts."

More To Read:

• Brooklyn District 35 City Council Race: Where Things Stand

This story has been updated to include Regina Kinsey's answers to the first two questions, which were sent in after the story was published.