On Nov. 9, Broadway Triangle Community Coalition gave a press conference outside Department of City Planning, before heading into the hearing to testify and protest the rezoning the Rabsky-Pfizer lots.
“Brooklyn’s Broadway Triangle lies at the intersection of three segregated communities: predominantly Latino Williamsburg, heavily Hasidic South Williamsburg and largely African-American Bedford-Stuyvesant. Yet instead of bridging these divides, a proposed residential development on the site of the old Pfizer pharmaceutical plant, at the heart of the neighborhood, would only deepen entrenched housing discrimination while fostering massive displacement,” stated an opinion piece published in the New York Daily News on Wednesday, November 9, 2016 and authored by Mateja Lucic (Brooklyn Legal Services Corp. A), Adam Myers (Brooklyn Legal Services Corp. A), and Juan Ramos (Churches United for Fair Housing), members of the Broadway Triangle Community Coalition.
On Nov. 9, BTCC gave a press conference outside Department of City Planning, before heading into the hearing to testify and protest the rezoning the Rabsky-Pfizer lots. The rezoning raises concerns about planned segregated and discriminatory housing by the developer. Juan Ramos, UNO representative, Barbara Schliff (Los Sures), Cesar Rodriguez (CUFFH), David Dobosz (St. Nicks Alliance Board Member), Rev. Jason Taber (St. John’s Lutheran Church), Shekar Krishnan (Brooklyn Legal Services Corp. A), and CM Antonio Reynoso were among the speakers at the press conference.
The coalition sees the city’s rezoning here as having the potential to be a detriment of real affordable housing and possibly will continue segregation of the community. “We insist upon being heard by those in power, and will continue to march, chant and protest in the streets and public halls until the city and Rabsky Group engage with our communities’ needs meaningfully,” from Myers, Ramos, and Lucic’s Daily News Op-Ed. They had previously shutdown a public zoning hearing in September.
