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The city’s plan to majorly upgrade the Brooklyn Marine Terminal could be a huge boon to surrounding neighborhoods — unless it’s sabotaged by delusional lefties, who’ve already forced a delay in a key vote that had been set for April 11.
As is, the site is a giant waste of space; the piers that aren’t literally crumbling into the ocean are about to.
The plan would turn the dilapidated port into a bustling area with businesses, open public space, waterfront access, and upgraded, usable piers that actually serve the city’s maritime needs.
It would also mean more housing — 8,000 new units, a quarter of them mandated to have “affordable” rents, in an area that seen just 11 affordable units added in the last 10 years.
But progressives on the Brooklyn Marine Terminal Task Force may derail the project because they oppose building any market-rate units at all.
Back in February, City Councilwoman Alexa Avilés, a card-carrying member of Democratic Socialists of America, told the Star-Revue: “This is public land, and doing luxury development on public land is irresponsible. It’s wrong, particularly when that’s not the housing we need in New York City.”
Actually, the city needs all the housing it can get; a chief reason rents are so absurdly high is that ideologues like Avilés hate new development unless the government is building it.
At a March 25 Committee on Housing and Buildings meeting, she complained, “They’re trying to build majority market-rate housing on public land, which I find an abomination.”
As if the land cost was the only expense involved.
Assemblywoman Marcela Mitaynes, the task force’s other DSA member, has also pushed back on any market-rate housing at the Marine Terminal.
The two can’t block the project all by themselves (they’d need several more of the panel’s 28 members), so they enlisted allies to delay it.
A year into the review, they’ve got mayoral wannabe Brad Lander calling the process “rushed.” Thursday brought a “not now” rally with Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and Jumaane Williams, plus Rep. Jerry Nadler cluelessly calling on the task force “to approve port improvements now and defer housing decisions for later.”
Sorry, Jerry: The market-rate housing pays for everything else.
The same basic scheme has been done before, to great success: Brooklyn Bridge Park has operated under the same self-sustaining structure for years.
Red Hook won’t get the 2,000 new affordable units, or any of the benefits of the Marine Terminal facelift, without the market-rate units, but the progs will throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Yet again, progressives pretend to advocate for New Yorkers while in fact always making their lives worse.