Industry City Rezone Delay Will Give Time For Questions, CB Says

SUNSET PARK, BROOKLYN — The estimated three months of extra time to review Industry City's rezoning proposal will be filled with meetings to answer both local officials' and the public's questions about the plans, community board members promised this week.

Community Board 7 held the first in a series of meetings set up to discuss Industry City's vision for reshaping its 16-building complex before owners officially re-submit the plans they first brought to the city in March. Industry City reluctantly agreed to postpone that first application after elected officials and the Community Board made it clear they weren't ready to start the clock on the Uniform Land Use Review process the rezoning must go through to be approved.

On Monday, members started the first of three meetings they told Industry City leaders they would need before reconsidering the proposal.

The forums, along with Community Board 7 committee meetings, will let officials and the public flesh out their questions before a final vote, likely in November.

"I hope it's clear that we intend to create as much space for this dialogue as possible," Chair Cesar Zuniga said."If you have questions...if we can't answer this tonight we'll do our best to find an answer for you and respond."

The first meeting included a presentation by the board's Land Use Chair John Fontillas, who went over the five Town Hall meetings the board held to discuss the rezoning last year.

The Industry City proposal includes adding more than 1 million square feet of development to the complex.

It would change zoning designations at the property to make way for 900,000 square feet of food and retail space, 600,000 square feet for classrooms and educational facilities, and a pair of hotels with more than 400 rooms. The owners have said the rezone will bring 15,000 new jobs to the area.

Fontillas said one of the biggest questions during meetings before the application was first officially submitted surrounded displacement of Sunset Park's current residents, many of whom have said they worry the rezoning could cause rents to go up even more in the changing neighborhood.

A New York University study last month showed that about one third of residents in Sunset Park are already paying 50 percent or more of their salary in rent. The study also revealed that the neighborhood is experiencing overcrowding, largely due to an influx of new residents. Almost 40 percent of its residents have moved to Sunset Park in the last nine years.

"In the core portion of Sunset Park...all of these blocks have people that are severely rent burdened that are just trying to hold on in the place that they live," Fontilla said.

Just a few days before Community Board 7's meeting, some of those business owners and residents worried about being forced from the neighborhood brought a petition to Council Member Carlos Menchaca's office asking that he stop the rezoning altogether.

In its previous meetings, the community board also discussed the benefits of the rezoning, Fontilla said, the largest of which was the opportunity for a diverse range of jobs for its residents. One of the board's main goals will be ensuring that the 15,000 jobs Industry City promises to bring to the neighborhood will be long-term careers, rather than service jobs.

The top two most popular jobs in Sunset Park are restaurant workers or chefs, which include 17 percent of residents, and retail workers, which make up 9 percent.

Andrew Kimball, Industry City's chief operating officer, told the crowd Monday that the rezoning aims to preserve the manufacturing jobs that have been decreasing throughout the city. Sunset Park's unemployment rate as of 2014 for manufacturing jobs is 11 percent, compared to its 5.3 percent overall unemployment.

The hotels, retail space and educational uses allowed under the rezoning will give enough return on Industry City's investment that it can keep creating manufacturing jobs, which otherwise have the lowest return for the company.

"One of the things we're most excited about and most proud about is that there's more manufacturing in Industry City today than there has been in 40 years," Kimball said. "How do we work within that context to preserve a broad range of uses, including manufacturing."

Community board members said they will have Kimball answer more questions brought up Monday about salaries, benefits and other job details during another meeting.

The next forum on the rezoning will be held July 17 and will include a presentation by an expert planner about the details of the application. The board will then host a manufacturing-focused meeting on August 14 and a meeting led by Menchaca on September 9. In the meantime, each of the board's committees will use their regularly scheduled meetings to discuss the rezoning's specifics, members said.