Justice Emily Goodman declined to issue a preliminary injunction to block the city's Broadway Triangle rezoning at a Manhattan Supreme Court hearing March 11. Instead, a stay on the rezoning issued last December was continued, meaning supporters and foes alike will have to wait longer for a final decision on the controversial redevelopment project.
Hours before the hearing, members of the Broadway Triangle Community Coalition (BTCC), a coalition of business suing to block the rezoning, rallied on the steps of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan chanting, “Fair housing creation and not discrimination!”
The City Council approved a rezoning of the 30-acre Broadway Triangle site in Williamsburg three months ago, clearing the way for a city plan to build 1,900 apartments there (about half will be set aside at below market rates).
But BTCC- which has an alternative plan for nearly 5,000 apartments, with a 75 percent affordable housing component- quickly sued to stop the rezoning on the grounds it discriminated against the Hasidic, Latino and African-American communities in neighboring Williamsburg, Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant.
At the rally Marty Needelman, an attorney for BTCC, said the group chose to move the legal proceedings from Brooklyn to Manhattan; Councilwoman Diana Reyna, a vocal opponent of the project, said the move would ensure politics don't “dominate development for a community that has fought far too long for fair housing.”
Gino Maldonado, the cofounder of human rights organization El Puente, said the city's plan to grab the last large piece of open space in Williamsburg ignores the housing needs of surrounding low-income communities.
“They’re doing it by doing low-rises, by doing very little housing and by creating a situation where there’s conflict, and we don’t need this kind of conflict,” said Maldonado. What residents need more than anything, he said, is affordable housing, and lots of it. “We need fair housing, especially at this time,” he said.
A decision on the rezoning is not expected for the next few weeks, if not longer.


It's Queens Magazine

