Amy Breedlove, Cobble Hill Association president, is stepping down after two terms
Amy Breedlove will be stepping down as president of the Cobble Hill Association after four years of leading the neighborhood group through some of its most tumultuous moments. She has reached the end of two consecutive terms, hitting term limits.
Breedlove has lived in Cobble Hill with her wife Sabine and 8-year-old son for 14 years, aside from a two-year stint with the Coors Brewing Company’s supply chain re-engineering team in Colorado and her time studying for her MBA in Paris, France. She currently works as a business strategist for Urban Quotient.
“We lived in Brooklyn Heights, Carroll Gardens and Downtown Brooklyn before finally finding our home in this neighborhood,” Breedlove told the Brooklyn Eagle. She added, “At different points, we did a couple of long-term stays with a friend on Clinton Street across from Cobble Hill Park, loved the neighborhood and always looked for an apartment here; we were lucky enough to find one on Henry Street.”
Breedlove took the helm of the CHA in 2016, when the Cobble Hill neighborhood was fighting the demolition and redevelopment of the former Long Island College Hospital. Since then, Fortis Property Group succeeded in replacing the LICH complex with what the developer calls “Brooklyn’s newest neighborhood,” with luxury apartments priced well into the millions and another skyscraper on the way.
While the hospital was lost, CHA achieved some victories for the neighborhood. Breedlove says she is proud of her work putting together the LICH Construction Period Task Force, something her background in architecture and design prepared her for. The Task Force persuaded NYU Langone to use less disruptive methods to install piles at their new site at 70 Atlantic Avenue.
It also fostered the return of former hospital-only parking to the community as street parking. Additionally, The Task Force addressed the longer-term issues of traffic and pedestrian movement during construction, which will continue for at least seven more years.
In 2018, Breedlove was named by state Sen. Brian Kavanagh as one of the State Senate’s “Women of Distinction.”
Another major controversy that unfolded during Breedlove’s tenure was the massive Brooklyn-Queens Expressway reconstruction plan. CHA under Breedlove joined a coalition with other community organizations and worked “to get the city, Department of Transportation and the Mayor’s Expert Panel to see that fixing the triple cantilever in isolation would not provide an equitable solution,” she said.
Breedlove says her dream is to unite the area between the BQE’s Hamilton Avenue and the Atlantic Avenue exits, which includes the waterfront and Greenway, the BQE “trench” and Van Voorhees Park. This stretch is bisected by some of the deadliest on- and off-ramps in the state.
“This will be decades of work, but those who know me know I’m persistent. So, I plan to keep working on this and engaging the partners and stakeholders who also care about the same things,” she said.
Another issue Breedlove worked on was the Borough Based Jail System and the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) for the new jail facility on Atlantic Avenue.
“The process started with great contention and with little community engagement,” she said. “The city finally brought together a cross-section of stakeholders and advocates to work towards a more inclusive design and better solution.” She added, “This was not just a land-use issue — it was entwined with questions of social justice and equity.”
The CHA was scheduled to elect a new board in May but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the nomination process. While the civic organization’s bylaws don’t permit a third consecutive term as president, the current board has continued on, while working toward holding the election this fall.
“It has been a pleasure to serve this community,” Breedlove said. “I stepped forward at a time of great uncertainty centered on the development of LICH and I step down at a time of great cultural, economic and environmental uncertainty.”
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