Editorial: Elephants in the room

Over the past year, Red Hook has seen its share of controversial land-use proposals. Some of these notable controversies include: BASIS International School, a private primary school; Spacworks’ proposal to utilize half of the Red Hook Library for studio space; Urban House Recovery, an upscale detox facility; and a multitude of issues involving Valentino and Coffey Parks.

Now, Red Hook is addressing the infamous case of bloated bathrooms in Valentino Park near Ferris Street.

However, one should not lose sight of the two elephants in the room that have not been addressed by residents or our local politicians. These elephants are the 400,000 square feet next to IKEA, the former Revere Sugar Factory, purchased by Thor Equities in 2006; and Est4te’s continuing purchase of land alongside the Erie Basin, including 160 Imlay Street and the Snapple building close to the Cruise Terminal.

Est4te just purchased a large parking lot across from Snapple that had been owned by the Haddad Film Truck company. Haddad rents trucks to movie companies that film in the NY area. Many of these trucks are large semi tractor-trailers, used to haul extensive equipment to shoots. Those trucks have recently relocated to the Thor Equity property, and the large semis are now a familiar sight traveling on Beard Street. They are parked at night on the unpaved and undeveloped property.

Parking lots were an issue that arose when BASIS went seeking a variance to build their school next to the Red Hook Community Farm. Many in the community felt that the school was preferable to truck and bus parking, which contributes to pollution and increased traffic. Now, because of Est4te’s development plans, a much larger truck staging area exists a few blocks away from the BASIS site.

A common theme running through Red Hook’s irritation with BASIS, Parks and Urban House was lack of community involvement as plans were made.This outcry led to community meetings, many of them headed by our freshman Councilmember Carlos Menchaca. Mechaca described the most recent community gathering concerning Valentino Pier Park, stating: “The meeting proved that there is the possibility to have a respectful and productive community dialogue around an emotional issue, and that there is a real commitment to have a concurrent community process alongside the process that is legally mandated in relation to all Parks projects.”

Thor Equities has turned their property into an oversized parking lot. Est4te is purchasing large tracts of our industrial space in pursuit of their own vision of a Red Hook future.
It is about time for our community to be brought into the planning processes of these elephants