SEE: Activists Confront De Blasio Over Industry City Rezoning

SUNSET PARK, BROOKLYN — The City Planning Commission has approved Industry City's plan to transform its 35-acre complex, sending the proposal to City Council where it will likely face a history-making battle.

All but one of the 13 commission members voted in favor of the proposal, which aims to change zoning rules to allow more than 1 million square feet of development on the industrial complex.

Like the developers behind the plan, the commission members pointed to the 20,000 jobs Industry City has promised the transformation will bring in its decision, specifically amid the city's economic slump brought on by the coronavirus crisis.

The chair noted how low-income, minority communities are hardest hit during an economic crisis, according to the Real Deal.

“I believe the Industry City proposal can help us stop this cycle of neglect and inequity and help us to right a historical wrong,” she said.

Industry City leaders lauded the decision with much of the same logic.

“By agreeing to update regulations that were put in place decades ago, city government will send a strong message that New York is ready to turn the corner and begin its recovery from the worst crises it has ever faced," CEO Andrew Kimball said in a statement.

But activists and local elected officials who have been fighting against the proposal argue the exact opposite. The rezoning's opponents contend the plan will bring displacement to the largely working class, immigrant community.

Just a day before the vote, activists confronted Mayor Bill de Blasio about the rezoning as he visited Sunset Park about a recent uptick of coronavirus in the neighborhood.

The mayor told activists he wouldn't sign onto a petition they have against the proposal, but said he would look at alternate proposals they have for the waterfront. Those include public sector-led plans put forward by community groups and the local community board.

De Blasio, who has not yet taken a position on the rezoning, has also faced pushback from Sunset Park's council member, Carlos Menchaca, who has asked for city investments in the neighborhood as part of a condition of approving the rezoning.

Menchaca blasted the Planning Commission's decision on Wednesday.

"...Not a single commissioner thought to ask, 'jobs for who?'" said Council Member Carlos Menchaca, who recently came out against the proposal after years of strained negotiations with the developers.

"Scant evidence exists showing that Sunset Park working class families have benefited from the jobs at IC," he continued. "That this displacement will occur is a demonstrable fact. For the CPC to ignore Sunset Park’s main concern, while simultaneously declaring residents will benefit from the rezoning, will be remembered as one of the most tone-deaf remarks during this economic crisis."

Menchaca has vowed to vote against the rezoning, which typically would signal the end of the application, as City Council tradition dictates deferring to the local elected official. But several council members who support the proposal have urged members to buck that tradition.

The proposal approved Wednesday does not yet include several conditions proposed by Menchaca that Industry City has said it will work into the rezoning, including scrapping a pair of hotels it planned to built on the complex.

Industry City has said they plan to make the changes before the proposal reaches City Council.

As it stands now, the proposal will make way for 900,000 square feet of new food and retail space, 600,000 square feet of classrooms and educational facilities and the two hotels with more than 400 rooms.