We love building more housing in New York City, but the city Economic Development Corp. is dead wrong to push a plan to put homes on the site of the only working container port on this side of the Hudson River. The Brooklyn Marine Terminal, 122 acres and seven piers that runs from Atlantic Ave. south to Red Hook opposite of Governors Island, should be used for maritime, not residential, purposes.
The EDC decision must be reversed.
We think that housing is critical and new houses and apartments should be erected in every corner of every borough, but there are close to 200,000 acres in the city and BMT’s tiny sliver of land on the Brooklyn shore should be revitalized for seaborne commerce, not plowed under.
We can build housing most everywhere, but there is only one place for a working port.
Under the EDC scheme, which was narrowly approved by a special 28-member committee on Monday, the future BMT would be reduced to less than half its current acreage. The BMT was left derelict by the Port Authority for decades and last year was swapped to the control of City Hall in exchange for the Howland Hook Marine Terminal on Staten Island.
The BMT should not be shriveled down to a boutique port, too small to be efficient, while most of its property is lost forever as working docks. The city wants to boost the use of the Blue Highway to move goods by water. Slashing the BMT achieves the opposite.
The dopey EDC redevelopment project needed a two-thirds vote of the 28 members. The vote was set for April 11 and then EDC canceled that vote because it would have failed.
Then the vote was set for June 18 and then EDC canceled that vote because it would have failed.
Then the vote was set for June 27 and then EDC canceled that vote because it would have failed.
Then the vote was set for July 17 and then EDC canceled that vote because it would have failed.
Then the vote was set for July 24 and then EDC canceled that vote because it would have failed.
On Monday, on try No. 6 (who gets six attempts?) it squeaked through by a single vote, 17-8, with three absent. The missing three were Assemblyman Charles Fall of Staten Island, who correctly sat out all of the proceedings since the Brooklyn part of his district includes only a houseboat with four people.
Also not voting were U.S. Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, so the 28 was really 25. Therefore the absolute minimum for the required two-thirds assent was 17, which is all that EDC managed to round up by the sixth round.
In opposition were members of the Assembly and City Council and a former city commissioner of the Department of Transportation, who all know better. Rep. Jerry Nadler didn’t have a vote, but he does have the correct vision of the waterfront. He has been right for years about the need for a working waterfront. He should be heeded.
If the polls are accurate, there is a likelihood that the mayoral-run EDC will have different leadership on Jan. 1 and that new leadership needs to scrap this BMT mess and preserve and maintain the working waterfront and not destroy it forever.
