Brooklyn, NY – Today, eight members of the Brooklyn Marine Terminal (BMT) Task Force released the following statement in response to the passage of the Economic Development Corporation’s (EDC’s) BMT vision plan:

“We participated in the BMT Task Force in good faith, hoping that our engagement would shape a forward-thinking and equitable vision for our waterfront. Our goal from the beginning had been to get to a “yes,” and we remained committed to that outcome. Unfortunately, to-date, many of our concerns with the EDC’s proposal for the site have gone unaddressed.

The EDC’s current plan lacks meaningful solutions to serious issues—transportation impacts, water and sewer and infrastructure capacity, disruption to existing businesses, and the perils of building in a flood zone. The absence of pre-EIS transportation and sewer studies to assess the proposal's impacts and the lack of data to support the feasibility of the project is alarming. The proposal does not fulfill the salient goal of transforming the BMT into “a harbor of the future” (Mayor Adams, Governor Hochul, NYCEDC, and Port Authority Announce Plan to Transform Brooklyn Marine Terminal With Investment in 122-Acre Brooklyn Waterfront, Support Future Growth of Howland Hook Marine Terminal - NYC Mayor's Office) with manufacturing jobs and robust maritime opportunities. We believe in a future of a working waterfront that centers people, sustainability, and justice.

There are other fundamental flaws like the absence of a financial plan, the refusal of EDC to explore any proposals other than the one they put forward, and the lack of focus on the blue highways. This was intended to be a plan based on Task Force consensus with community input; however, it has been marred by a lack of transparency, backroom deals, heavy-handedness, and artificial deadlines. A revised plan emerged last Thursday without any conversation or review. Task force members were instructed that there would be no more changes to the plan and no community review; this flies in the face of a democratic process.

We don’t have to waste our public resources and public land on haphazard and inequitable plans. Our communities deserve better – and we will keep fighting until they get it.”

Signed,
Council Member Alexa Avilés
Carly Baker-Rice, Executive Director, Red Hook Business Alliance
Eddie Bautista, Executive Director, NYC-Environmental Justice Alliance
Ben Fuller-Googins, Executive Director, Carroll Gardens Association
Hank Guttman
Assemblymember Marcela Mitaynes
Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon
Jim Tampakis, Founder, Brooklyn Marine Spares International