Stop The Industry City Rezoning
Join South Brooklyn DSA as we mobilize to stop luxury real estate developers' Industry City mega-gentrification project on the Sunset Park waterfront.
What is Industry City & What is Happening?
Industry City is a cluster of industrial warehouses comprising 6 million square feet of space on the Sunset Park waterfront, purchased in 2013 by capital real estate development firms Belvedere Capital, Angelo Gordon, and Jamestown. Since that purchase and the subsequent redevelopment of the area into boutique offices, retail, and food, real estate speculation in the Industry City area has spiked and the existing, working class, majority-POC population of Sunset Park faces imminent housing, business, and cultural displacement. Speculation provokes rent hikes, tenant harassment, the dismantling of networks of small businesses that low-income and immigrant residents rely on, loss of light manufacturing. The Inevitable end result is significant displacement of working-class POC residents and ultimately the loss of yet another working-class neighborhood.
Industry City’s owners have applied to the New York City Council to change existing NYC zoning laws to allow IC to develop over a million square feet of the waterfront into big box and luxury retail, hotels, and luxury offices. Sunset Park’s community, NYC Council member, US Representative, and incoming state assembly person and state senator have all said no to this rezoning, but Industry City’s lobbyists are pursuing a full court press to jam this rezoning change through the NY City Council by mid September. The Sunset Park community has been active in creating and promoting alternate visions for the waterfront over several years, but have been ignored by Industry City’s owners, the pro-developer NYC land use committee, and the city’s ULURP process.
This re-zoning is an existential threat to the Sunset Park community, waterfront and to working class communities across New York City. If this rezoning is approved it will send a clear message, city-wide, that New York City government values the profits of developers more than the needs and wishes of working class communities.
A Socialist Vision For Land Use & Development
As socialists, we envision an approach to development and land use that centers the needs and priorities of communities and workers.
Stop Displacement and Gentrification
We need to urgently disrupt and dismantle the web of policies, agency bureaucracies, and predatory real estate speculation that promotes displacement and gentrification and prioritizes developer profits over community needs.
Undo Racist Inequities in Land Use
We stand opposed to racist disparities in the distribution of municipal resources and seek to redress the legacies and present realities of environmental racism, racist exclusion and predatory inclusion inherent in NYC’s land use practices.
Facilitate a Just Transition to Sustainability and Resilience
We need to rapidly transform the city’s land use regime to support a just transition off of fossil fuels and to build resilient communities.
Socialize Private Land and Housing
We aim to bring as much important private property as possible under social, community ownership and control. We want to unshackle the development of affordable housing from private development, and to demand direct public investment in social housing.
Dismantle the Growth Machine
We demand a shift of City land use and economic strategy away from speculative property development, to unshackle the City’s fiscal health from perpetual real estate fluctuations; remove real estate and developer interests from planning and land use bureaucracies; and cut off the flow of public resources to private development.
Empower the Multi-racial Working Class to Steer Planning
We seek to empower the multi-racial working-class to meaningfully steer the City’s planning processes through just, reparative comprehensive planning at the city level and at the neighborhood level, including community- and worker-led planning.
Increase Land Uses that Expand Working-Class Power
We demand that the City expand the proportion of land dedicated to sustainable and non-polluting manufacturing land uses, public health care infrastructure, and other economic activities that promote an empowered, prosperous and well-organized multi-racial working class.
Get Involved
Volunteer
Join South Brooklyn DSA as we mobilize to stop luxury real estate developers' mega-gentrification project at Industry City. Sign up for phonebanks or to get involved in texting, flyering, petitioning, direct action, or working on communications, social media, and press.
Call & Email
We have a chance to stop the rezoning but IC’s lobbyists and the council speaker are pushing hard to rush the process and to pressure members to vote yes against the wishes of our community and councilperson. It is urgent that we take action NOW to tell our council members to vote no on the rezoning.
Direct Action
We will be sponsoring and participating in direct actions across the city, in collaboration with our coalition members, to protest the IC rezoning and others.
Can you join us at an upcoming event?