In Sunset Park, Proposed Waterfront Street Car Meets Most Vocal Rejection Yet

SUNSET PARK, BROOKLYN — At a two-and-a-half hour Community Board 7 meeting in Sunset Park on Monday, local residents aligned with community activist organization UPROSE in visceral and unequivocal opposition to the proposed Brooklyn Queens Connector (BQX), a 16-mile light rail train from Astoria to Sunset Park that they dubbed the "Gentrification Express."

The meeting, held by CB 7's transportation committee, was led by Adam Giambrone, a light-rail advocate who is directing the BQX project for Mayor Bill de Blasio.

In November, Giambrone updated Community Board 6 on the project, which is being studied jointly by the city's Economic Development Corporation (EDC) and the Department of Transportation (DOT). The agencies are due to put out a feasibility report on the proposal in the first quarter of 2017.

At that previous gathering, he was met with general skepticism and a few supporters, but nothing like the wall of opposition in Sunset Park, where for months, UPROSE and other residents have raised questions about whether the project would benefit locals or merely developers eager to redefine the community's waterfront property.

UPROSE, which is generally supportive of public transit projects, hadn't previously taken a public position on the train, but on Monday, it packed the room with protesters holding anti-displacement signs and donning pins reading "No BQX."

Organizer Ana Orosco said the change was due to persistent and unanswered concerns over the project's financing mechanism, commonly called "value capture" or "tax increment financing." Under the system, the city pays for a project with bonds, which are later covered with a cut of the new tax revenue the project is expected to generate.

In Sunset Park, that means a "self-fulfilling prophesy of gentrification," Orozco said, adding that the city's numerous public meetings on the BQX have left little room "to talk about transportation in a way that doesn't drive up property values," spurring and speeding the displacement of working and low-income locals in the process.

Marcela Mitaynes outside the CB 7 meeting

Monday's meeting took place a day after the New York Daily News dropped a story linking the BQX to $245,000 in contributions that seven major real estate developers made to de Blasio's defunct Campaign for One New York. After the developers made the contributions, the News argued, de Blasio backed the train, which would connect and benefit their waterfront properties.

The mayor's office challenged the article's thesis on Monday, but the story was just more fuel on an already-simmering Sunset Park fire.

"This is being proposed within the context of a community that has been neglected," said Cesar Zuniga, who chairs CB 7's transportation committee. "This is another project that feels like it's just being imposed upon our community."

CB 7 chair Daniel Murphy, who thanked Giambrone for attending the meeting, still said that "it's just so obvious" that the project is designed to benefit developers, adding that "the BQX came out of almost nowhere." (Neither Zuniga nor Murphy, however, said they were officially against the proposal.)

More specifically, before de Blasio unveiled the proposal in February, the latest incarnation of the idea was pitched by the non-profit Friends of the Brooklyn Queens Connector, the board of which includes Two Trees Management, a donor included in the Daily News article.

In its defense, the Friends group passed out a list of 200 CB 7 residents whom it said had signed a petition backing the project, as well as the result of a July poll of 100 people in Council District 38 (comprising Red Hook and Sunset Park) showing the idea was supported by 79 percent of respondents.

Even so, Sunset Park Councilman Carlos Menchaca, who attended the meeting, said to Giambrone that, "This community did not ask for this train."

Menchaca has been highly critical of the city's community engagement on the project — he wants public meetings held in multiple languages, for example — and repeated Monday that community concerns over displacement are warranted. And he said the city must provide detailed information on how the BQX would impact Sunset Park's residents, economy and housing stock.

However, he declined to take a stance on the proposal, even when asked directly to do so by a meeting attendee.

"I have a lot of concerns right now," he said to Patch afterward. "I'm going to give [the city] a chance to answer those questions. This is how I do what I do. I'm a thoughtful council member and I want to hear from everybody."

Such moderation was not present in the comments of UPROSE head Elizabeth Yeampierre, who unleashed a diatribe against a proposal she called nothing short of "immoral."

"We are not going to allow it," she said to applause, before moving on to one of the critiques most repeatedly voiced to Giambrone: that while the city says it cares about public feedback, officials have no interest in incorporating criticism of the BQX into their plans.

"People work two or three jobs," Yeampierre said. "They come home tired. This is not Park Slope where the nanny can take care [of the children] so they can come to the meeting. The nanny lives here in Sunset Park. So when you take the time of people who are struggling, and you ignore the input that they've given, you are stealing from them. What you're doing is community management. You're trying to manage expectations."

Maria Roca outside the CB 7 meeting

For their part, Giambrone and EDC staffer Emma Pfohman, who also attended the meeting, said the city has held 30 meetings along the BQX's proposed corridor, as well as recording commentary from numerous community groups and hundreds of residents.

But that, they said, is not enough. Between nine and 11 large community meetings are already in the works for next year, Giambrone said. While past meetings have featured translators, the staffer said the city will work with Menchaca to set up meetings conducted in multiple languages. He also said the city is exploring telephone town halls that could reach 15,000 or 20,000 people at a time, as well as additional internet-based engagement.

Rather than ignoring public input, Pfohman said public comments are being diligently recorded, and will be included in the feasibility report the EDC and DOT issue next year.

Giambrone assured those present that he would communicate to city staffers that "this meeting has been very strongly against the current proposal." He said the city's report will address possible transit alternatives, and said that while he's been tasked with evaluating the entire Sunset Park to Astoria corridor, it's possible the report could recommend changing the route's length (for example, by eliminating Sunset Park).

Whether the city moves forward with the BQX won't come down to the train's technical feasibility, he continued, as engineers could always find a way around such obstacles. Rather, what matters is whether city residents want it.

"I know that street cars have worked in major cities around the world to support vibrant communities," Giambrone said after the meeting. "However, at this point, we are looking at how this works for New York City, and specifically the communities of the waterfront. At the end of the day, this is a street car project designed by and for New York."

Pictured at top: Elizabeth Yeampierre, left, and community opponents of the BQX on Monday. Photos by John V. Santore.