FRIDAY MORNING UPDATE:

As Kimball sees the writing on the wall about today’s vote – an email was just sent out to all the Task Force members announcing a two or three week delay, into the middle of July likely interrupting Dan Goldman’s vacation. My guess is that Eric Adams leaned into Governor Hochul to try and find more funding from the State to build 40 story luxury condos. Adams evidently thinks he still has a chance win re-election in November and needs housing numbers to use in his campaign.

Yes, I know the primaries were the other day, but this week has two elections for those in the Columbia Waterfront District and Red Hook. Tomorrow afternoon the EDC (NYC Economic Development Corporation headed by Andrew Kimball) anointed Brooklyn Marine Terminal Task Force has probably come to the end of the line as they vote the EDC BMT plan up or down.

This is the plan that began last year with a press conference featuring the mayor and the governor proclaiming a spectacular deal with the Port Authority by swapping the Port Authority’s maritime 122 acres on our shoreline for the City’s thriving port in Staten Island, Howland Hook. They came to the community explaining their plans for a “Port of the Future.” (I say that thinking of Ralph Kramden’s Chef of the future.

Really, it shouldn’t be that hard to upgrade the Red Hook Containerport. All that needs to happen is to give the facility a normal long-term lease, much like the 49 year lease that EDC normally demands when they themself lease properties. With a long-term lease, a business obtains financing which they use to invest in the long term health of the company.

But as Sal Catucci, who owned the container terminal from 1992 to 2011 told me recently, the Port Authority was always trying to get rid of the facility, just as they got rid of the piers in Brooklyn Heights. But Jerry Nadler and Nydia Velazquez, both advocates for a working waterfront here, did their best to keep the port, although it stayed crippled because of Port Authority neglect. The last three leases were for 10, 5 and 5 years respectively.

However, instead of simply giving the container terminal a normal 30 or 40 year lease, EDC came in with a much bigger plan – a Task Force composed of local stakeholders to create a plan for the whole property, including the present Waterfront Commission and Port Authority buildings, Manhattan Beer, Sim Concrete Recycling and the entire Cruise Terminal.

Great! I thought. I naively took them at their word, a community plan. I was so inspired that I put my own thoughts on what I thought we could use in my August 2024 column. I guess I thought I was being helpful, but as you will see the EDC always had their own plan set in stone, starting way before their public process. The last thing I expected were 30-40 story hi-rise luxury towers.

Here is a piece of what I wrote back in August:

1 – Modernize the container terminal.
The piers, cranes and associated cargo handling equipment need to be repaired and maintained in order to support a busy and profitable containerport. Necessary land must be devoted to the shipping activities.

2 – NO public/private partnerships
Our government hates to raise taxes to provide needed services. What they do instead is partner with for-profit companies. We believe government can be a positive force in our lives, and should be capable at doing many these . Taking profits out of housing and arenas would lower end costs for the public. Since the State is heavily involved, if there is any housing let them bring us some new Mitchell Lama type housing which is all rent regulated, and make it permanent.

3 – Create a logical truck route
There should be a dedicated road, perhaps built above the ground, to allow incoming and outgoing tractor trailers doing business with the terminal. Using the water for shipping in and out should be the first option, however.

4 – A stadium
In the past Red Hook has benefitted from an international auto race. We believe that a 1000 – 3000 seat stadium could become an attractive sports and cultural venue that would enhance the area. Of course, consideration for transportation must be part of the plan, including ferry, bicycle and bus service.

5 – A museum
Our part of Brooklyn has an illustrious past. An appropriate use could include a museum that includes exhibits on shipping, ship building, the underground railroad and the ILA labor unions.

6 – NO toxic industrial use
We are talking about things like the recycling plant that we write about on this issue’s cover.

Last week at a City Council BMT oversight hearing, our newly re-elected council member Alexa Aviles, who is also a co-chair on the Task Force, led an unsuspecting Kimball on a path to the real truth with some very astute questioning.

Kimball had spent the morning touting the “tremendous community engagement process” that EDC and their consultants had just completed. Lots of community meetings and workshops and neighborhood groups – all things that look good on paper. In reality they have treated the public basically the same way they have treated their own Task Force – telling us what they will do rather than asking what they should do.

Aviles asked Kimball what the value was of Howland Hook. He looked surprised and I think he said a couple hundred million. Then she asked about the value of the BMT.  I believe he said it had a negative value because of all the repairs that needed to be made.

“So you traded a money making facility for a money losing one. Great deal for the Port Authority. But YOU work for the City.

Kimball sputtered that it will eventually be seen as a tremendous deal because of the land use change allowing for the luxury hi-rises.  Basically what he was admitting was speculating with public money. That the deal hinged on a land use change – from industrial to residential. Using the State process to transfer the rezoning approval from the local council member to NY State was his way to (hopefully for him) ensure the deal.

This is an admission that the neighborhoods never had any say in the land use of the properties. That any input the community would have would be minor.

Unfortunately for the EDC, they really haven’t fooled anybody – not even many of the members of the Task Force, which at this writing (8 pm the night before the vote), seems destined to vote the current project down.

What EDC has been doing lately is trying to seal the deal by offering what some call trinkets but I call bribes to all the recalcitrant Task Force members unwilling to go along. What the bribes have been and who has and who hasn’t accepted, and also why Kimball has been hell-bent on pushing this process will all be subjects of future Star-Revue coverage.

But for now, what I have to say, in advance of the vote, is that I think for once the community has won.

We will fight for and get a better plan.