A proposed development in Brooklyn reignites a long-running dispute between Williamsburg's Hasidic Jewish community and the black and Hispanic communities over housing. Borough reporter Jeanine Ramirez has the story.
In their fight against a massive residential development in Williamsburg, dozens of residents disrupted a City Planning Commission hearing Wednesday, staged a sit-in and got arrested.
The struggle is over plans to build within the Broadway Triangle — the area where Williamsburg, Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant meet. A developer wants to build 1,200 apartments on land once owned by the drug giant Pfizer. Vague on details, the complex may include large five-and six-bedroom units — which favor the Hasidic Jewish community in Williamsburg, where large families are common. And that has the local black and Hispanic communities up in arms claiming the plan perpetuates segregation and accelerates displacement.
"The displacement of my people is a serious, a serious issue in my community and so as long as that continues to happen, any process that the city of New York engages in that does that to the residents of the 34th district, I'm going to oppose," said City Councilman Antonio Reynoso.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams has joined in opposing the developer's request for a zoning change, saying the project has no assurance of diversity. And the developer won't commit to building smaller apartments.
"We think the community needs a range of units and as we move forward and our financing is put in place we will know what those are," Adams said.
The community board did approve the plan — which includes cleaning up the contaminated, long neglected site. City Councilman Steve Levin also is backing the project, located in his district. He told the commission the tense history of Williamsburg's Hasidim and the surrounding communities of color competing for space is not relevant.
"Like all other private applications it deserves to be weighed by this commission by its own merit and not just a chapter in a long saga," Levin said.
A saga that continues to be contentious.
The City Planning Commission is expected to come back with its decision in September.