Fed-Up NYCHA Residents & Activists Disrupt Gowanus Rezoning Meeting: 'Before You Rezone, Fix Our Homes'

Brooklyn activists protested conditions at NYCHA during a city planning event on Wednesday night in Carroll Gardens.

Venting their anger over deteriorating conditions in the city’s public housing system, Brooklyn community activists took over a city planning event in Carroll Gardens Wednesday night, demanding that the city resolve problems at the New York City Housing Authority before embarking on a rezoning proposal for Gowanus designed to incentivize development in a long-targeted industrial neighborhood.

“Before you rezone, fix our homes,” the crowd of roughly 30 protesters chanted.

The staged protest, which drew scores of onlookers who had come to learn more about Gowanus rezoning proposal, criticized the city’s failure to intervene on what they say is a humanitarian crisis as well as the agency’s privatization efforts. Last month, more than 150 frustrated residents packed a public hearing on a plan by NYCHA to bring in a private developer to build an infill project on a public housing site. NYCHA officials have said they need to partner with private developers to help finance $32 billion in capital funding.

On Wednesday, protesters noted that while the lack of heat at the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn has drawn a widespread public outcry, conditions at public housing have been intolerable for years.

“Where is the outrage?” read one sign.

The event, held at P.S. 32, was intended by the Department of City Planning to be a convention booth-style discussion of its rezoning proposal. Wedged between Carroll Gardens and Park Slope, Gowanus has been in the midst of a land rush. The median asking price of a home in the area is $1,695,000, up more than 29 percent from last year, according to the most recent report from Streeteasy.

Roughly six years in the making, the city's rezoning plan has the potential to dramatically remake the neighborhood, comprised of mostly low-story residential and industrial buildings, by increasing density and encouraging mixed-use development between 4th Avenue and Smith Street. One of the key goals is to revitalize the area along the canal, where some buildings could rise as high as 22 stories.

Community organizers, which included NYCHA residents, came prepared to upend the proceedings. Armed with a microphone, Karen Blondel, an activist with the Gowanus Neighborhood Coalition for Justice, called out city officials one by one to step up and face the music. “The Gowanus plan is incomplete. City Hall take a seat,” she said.

Blondel, who lives in the public housing complexes in Red Hook, said she had been without heat and electricity for two days this week. “It’s hard to go to work because I’m cold,” she said, adding, “All we’re asking for is basic human rights. We’re not living here for free.”

Due to damage inflicted by Hurricane Sandy, Red Hook has been operating on mobile boilers for 6 years, according to NYCHA.

Cherry Shiber, 80, said that over the last year tenants at her building in NYCHA’s Wyckoff Gardens had gone without heat for several weekends. At one point, she said, they had no running water. “We had to run out and buy bottled water,” she said.

Lately, a problem with the gas pipes have made it impossible for residents to connect new stoves that were purchased for them through the efforts of their City Council representative, she said.

Called upon to take the mic, Brian Honan, the director of NYCHA’s office of intergovermental relations, acknowledged the residents’ complaints, “The way it should work with NYCHA is it should be a landlord that provides services to those that pay rent,” he said. “Unfortunately, we do not have the resources at the time to do that.”

As a sign that Gowanus rezoning proposal will face community opposition as it makes its way through the public approval process, activists accused city planning officials of failing to address all of the concerns and requests made by the community over the years at workshops and meetings with city planning.

“High-rise luxury housing is not what people are looking for,” said Patrick O’Donnell, a Carroll Gardens resident. “We should be getting more than 20 percent affordable housing.”

Under the proposed rezoning, residential developers would be required to adhere to the city’s mandatory inclusionary housing law, which would make between 20 percent to 30 percent of their units as affordable.

Another point of contention was whether the rezoning plan delivers on the city’s prior promise to Gowanus residents to create an “Eco district,” which would prioritize sustainable development and address environmental inequity. City planners responded by saying that sustainability was woven into the plan.

After the event, a spokesman for City Planning issued the following statement to Gothamist: “Passionate debate about the future of a neighborhood is key to developing the best plan possible, including for open space, resiliency, housing and jobs. We will keep working with the community to achieve their goals for a green, affordable, mixed-use Gowanus.”

The next meeting on the Gowanus rezoning plan is scheduled at 6 p.m. on February 28th before the landmarks and land use committee of Community Board 6.