Industry City Shocks Community With New Rezoning Application

SUNSET PARK, BROOKLYN — A transformation of the city's largest industrial complex may be dead on arrival — again.

Industry City, the 16-building complex in Sunset Park, outraged neighbors and its local council member on Friday by submitting its rezoning proposal for the second time, starting the clock on a seven-month review process for the 35-acre transformation.

The submission flouted the pleas of Council Member Carlos Menchaca, who had asked that the private developers hold off on sending in the application until they signed onto an agreement with neighbors.

The agreement, Menchaca has said, would make Industry City legally bound to a list of conditions the developers said last month they would take on. Friday's application, which was certified by the City Planning Commission Monday, doesn't yet include these conditions.

Menchaca said he is prepared to vote no when the proposal reaches the City Council floor.

“I am outraged that they would choose to move forward less than one week after a community coalition, comprised of our neighbors, made a commitment to explore the feasibility of a community benefits agreement," Menchaca said Friday. "The developer’s decision reflects an unwillingness to continue following the Sunset Park community’s lead and I find that troubling."

This is the third time Industry City and Menchaca have butted heads about the timing of the rezoning, which would bring more than 1 million square feet of new development to the neighborhood's waterfront.

The developers first submitted the proposal in March and then reluctantly postponed it six months at Menchaca's request.

They then wanted to send in the application in September, just days after Menchaca outlined his conditions, arguing that the changes could be made during the review process. The developers ultimately again agreed to hold off.

But Menchaca argues that the few extra weeks they waited was not enough.

His conditions, which he announced at a fraught September public meeting, include not allowing two planned hotels, limiting the 900,000 square feet of new retail and requiring city investments in affordable housing and a new technical high school.

The neighborhood needed more time to put these conditions into a legally-binding agreement and to work with the Mayor's Office to get affordable housing and school commitments from the city, Menchaca argued Monday.

"To their credit, Industry City initially agreed to this vision," he said. "However, their decision to seek certification today is a departure from that vision to truly partner with the Sunset Park community."

Friday's application doesn't yet include the changes Menchaca asked for in his conditions. An Industry City representative said that, because of the way the process works, the changes need to be made during the review of the application.

The developers expect the community benefits agreement, and those changes, to be finalized before the proposal reaches City Council, the representative said.

“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 stay close to home,” Industry City CEO
Andrew Kimball said in a statement.

Neighbors, who are part of a group that has protested the rezoning, contended that Menchaca should vote against the proposal even if an agreement on these changes is ultimately reached. The group, Protect Sunset Park, scheduled a protest about the application for Monday evening.

"This is a bad faith start to a process that is inherently flawed and has kept Sunset Park tenants and small business owners in a state of constant anxiety and distress," the group said. "We share Council Member Menchaca’s outrage and believe that now is the time for him to commit to veto the rezoning application initiated by Industry City’s owners regardless of whatever community benefit agreements Industry City may offer.

"Industry City’s owners have shown that they clearly can’t be trusted and don’t share our community’s values nor our best interests," they continued.

Industry City's application proposes changing zoning rules to make way for 900,000 square feet of new food and retail space, 600,000 square feet of classrooms and educational facilities and a pair of hotels with more than 400 rooms.

It has gotten substantial push-back from the largely working class, immigrant neighborhood, who have argued that they will exacerbate gentrification already rampant in Sunset Park.

Representatives for the complex did not respond to a request for comment Monday.

Friday's application comes after years of discussing a rezoning plan for the industrial complex, which Jamestown, Belvedere Capital, and Angelo, Gordon & Co. bought in 2013.