Brooklyn Marine Terminal workshop draws hundreds to Red Hook
Concerns: Preserving maritime use, traffic, equity and short timeline
A crowd looks over a planning map in Red Hook on Saturday, Sept. 28 for the first in-person planning workshop on the Brooklyn Marine Terminal. Photo: Mary Frost, Brooklyn Eagle
RED HOOK — Despite a downpour, hundreds of Brooklyn residents streamed into the Miccio Center in Red Hook on Saturday for the first in-person planning workshop on the sweeping redevelopment of the Brooklyn Marine Terminal.
A land swap with the Port Authority of NY/NJ has consolidated the city’s control over a 122-acre maritime site which runs along the Columbia Waterfront District and Red Hook between Atlantic Avenue and Wolcott Street. The NYC Economic Development Corp. envisions transforming the site into a modern maritime port and mixed-use community site.
Community input on a very tight timeline
Under a Task Force chaired by Rep. Dan Goldman with Vice-Chairs Councilmember Alexa Aviles and state Sen. Andrew Gounardes, EDC is seeking community input on a very tight, three-month timeline. Interest is high: An online information session on Aug. 12, managed by urban design firm WXY Studio and hosted by EDC, drew more than 430 participants.
In September, EDC announced its 28-member task force for the project, and Goldman, who led a coalition to advocate for the BMT, announced a $164 million Mega Grant from the U.S. DOT for the project.
“This is the start of what we anticipate will be a very thorough and comprehensive community engagement process to reimagine what the Marine Terminal can be and what it can do not only for a working waterfront but for all the adjoining communities,” Gounardes told the Brooklyn Eagle on Saturday. “But we can’t reach that vision without hearing from the community first, and so this is the first workshop of several where we will be able to solicit feedback, ideas, comments and questions as the newly appointed Task Force gets to work coming up with a master plan for this community asset.”
Throughout Saturday’s three-hour workshop managed by design firm WXY, attendees milled about viewing mounted posters displaying images of the facility, speaking to EDC representatives and sticking comments written on Post-it Notes onto giant maps.
There was a lot to take in: BMT is home to the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal at Pier 12, the Red Hook Container Terminal at Pier 10, Piers 7-12 (several currently in disrepair) and NYC Ferry’s Atlantic Basin stop, along with private tenants.
Gounardes said he felt the workshop format was a good start. “I think when we are talking about imagining the potential of a site like this, you have to be able to look at a map and look at pictures, you have to be able to trace your finger over them to see where things work and don’t work, and where they connect with or not connect,” he said.
Timeline too short, though
“There’s really a lot of interest around this property and a lot of anxiety as well,” Aviles told the Eagle. “I think what is being offered in this room today is like a ‘sneak peek’ at the property.”
Through the workshop, “You can get a sense of the state of the piers, a sense of some of the vision we are contending with in terms of the Blue Highway, wanting to get trucks off the road and using our waterways,” she said. “This whole process should be grounded on a modern port, and making sure we maintain the focus on port use and be very careful about pushing in other uses that could be detrimental.”
The short timeline “is untenable,” she said. “This is a huge project and it’s also complex … BMT is the only [marine freight] entry point for the entire borough of Brooklyn — for all of New York City in fact, with the exception of Staten Island. So this is a really critical property, and that timeline really is truly aggressive. I think it’s important to get this right and not speed through.”
However, she added, “I think if we connect with the milestones that we need to meet, then we can do that and still honor the time that it needs to do the best thought-out process that we can.”
Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon said she felt it was “a good first workshop,” based on the buzz happening at the tables and poster stands. However, “I think they were many fewer people here from Red Hook, as far as I know, and they are very, very affected by this.”
“Three months is not long enough,” Simon agreed. “In my experience, no matter what people say, it will end up taking more time because it takes longer to do these things. It takes time for the people to write the EIS and to do the studies.”
Don’t leave out Columbia Street residents
“Everyone has a stake, and today’s session is really laying the foundation to get people a little comfortable with what’s behind the fences,” said Councilmember Shahana Hanif.
“I’m excited by the opportunity that it provides the community for maritime use and better interconnectedness for maritime businesses. So I look forward to that, but I want to make sure that our neighbors, and especially those along Columbia Street, are not left out. And not just within the process but in the impacts that they’ll have to deal with it as construction is taking place.”
Red Hook’s voices
“Red Hook and the surrounding communities are strong enough to be heard if we use our social infrastructure,” said Karen Blondel, president of the Red Hook Houses West Resident Association. “I am an optimist. I think that we can take these situations and challenges and there’s so many things we can do that will be of benefit — but how do we offset the inequities?” Blondel said she is also concerned about the noise and the disruption the project will bring.
Blondel wants the Red Hook community to have access to the actual EDC data regarding the jobs the city says the project will provide. “They talk about youth jobs in this right? …. I’m trying to figure out, number one, can we get our own data instead of everybody else’s data, and can we be heard when it comes to the types of jobs?”
“Just looking around the room, I think it’s really lacking in diversity in terms of participants,” said community organizer Milan Powell. “There’s a lot of public housing communities in this area … but it doesn’t seem like they’re well represented here.” He also said he thought organizers need to “make sure that they are talking in a way that is accessible as well. I can look around at the folks in this room and I’m just like, are the messages going to be for everyone?”
It’s not just trucks, it’s traffic
The Cobble Hill Association’s Amy Breedlove is spearheading the group’s Waterfront and Infrastructure Committee, and is also on the BMT Taskforce and local advisory group.
“I was really pleased to see the turnout today, and happy to see people interacting and putting their comments down,” she said.
“I do have some issues with some of the areas they asked for input on, specifically one being they asked about truck traffic, when it’s really [all] traffic is our issue. I understand that the EDC wants this to be a working maritime waterfront and is thinking about trucks and delivery, but also they are looking at a lot of jobs, so people come in cars. We’re also talking about cruise ships that get larger and larger with thousands and thousands of passengers who come in and out in cars.”
She added, “And we have a real opportunity here to bring in the BQE and issues with the trench and the overflow of traffic, which has really affected Columbia Street and Hicks Street very disproportionately.”
“We’re looking at a very fast timeline. We’re looking at three months!” she said.
Put the housing in Sunset Park
“We’d really love to see this neighborhood maintain its maritime past even with upgrades and modernization and electrified,” said Michelle Tampakis, who owned a bakery in Red Hook for many years. “We’re really opposed to having the waterfront be used for housing of any kind. There’s plenty of space for affordable housing in Sunset Park … I feel like Red Hook should be concentrating on jobs.”
“Basically, my objective is getting diesel trucks off of the streets, bringing the freight by water into the Brooklyn Marine Terminal, have it broken down in sorting facilities, and then having it go out again via water,” said Michelle’s husband Jim Tampakis of Red Hook’s Tamco Mechanical. “We can electrify all of these boats — Norfolk Tug and Barge does this already.”
Tampakis envisions putting solar panels on roofs, and perhaps developing a food court, running ferry service to Pier 11 and adding shuttle buses, among other amenities.
“I think that no one is talking about our parking issue,” said Frank Galeano of Galeano Real Estate in the Columbia Waterfront District. “It’s a very serious issue, lately been made worse by the Police Department, Fire Department and Sanitation Department taking up spaces.” He added, “I think they should build parking into this project. We do have cars and we need to park them.
Shift to Blue Highway
The most important thing to Brooklyn Heights Association board member Cindy McLaughlin is “100% transit accessibility,” she told the Eagle. Her number two priority is using the transformation “as an opportunity to shift cargo to the Blue Highway instead of adding more trucks on the BQE [Brooklyn-Queens Expressway],” she said. Eventually she hopes the project will “reduce and then sunset the highway.”
Another priority is making sure that the project aligns with New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, McLaughlin said. “CLCPA requires that all the government agencies align with the city’s and state’s carbon net zero targets. This could be a fairly carbon-intensive project, so we want to make sure that we are more than reducing carbon dioxide, making sure this aligns with our constitutional right to clean air, and making sure that it aligns with climate budgeting.” New York City’s climate budgeting policy “essentially means that every dollar spent by the city on infrastructure has to do double duty as a climate mitigator,” she said.
“The other thing I would love for them to start to look at the excess capacity on our ferries as a cargo option. We’re running ferries every 15 to 30 minutes. Let’s do more of that, and add cargo when there’s not a lot of ridership,” she said.
The next drop-in workshop takes place on Oct. 7 from 6 – 7 p.m. at Sacred Hearts & St. Stephen’s Parish. (Register at eventbrite.) See EDC website for more details.
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