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Plan to change piers torpedoed – Community doesn’t want condos or cruise lines, they want jobs, city official states

By Gary Buiso

Emboldened by recent comments attributed to the new boss of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, local officials said this week the city plans to drastically alter Red Hook’s waterfront is all but sunk. “For years, the city has been trying to shut down the container port and turn it into a candy store for developers,” Councilmember Michael Nelson, chair of the Council’s Committee on Waterfronts, said in a statement. “We held hearings and spoke to residents, industry, a panel of experts throughout the community, and the consensus is overwhelming: We need real ports, not condos and cruise lines.” “Now it looks like we’re almost there,” Nelson predicted, vowing to stridently oppose the city’s plan. The future of Piers 7-12, was to be chartered by the city’s Economic Development Corporation, which is heading the plan it felt could transform the waterfront into a tourist friendly, job-generating attraction. If the City Council and mayor approve of the project this summer, the city said it plans to acquire the 1.1 mile, 120-acre site from the Port Authority, the property’s landlord. The controversial project includes an array of amenities, including a brewery, restaurants, retail stores, a hotel, offices, another passenger cruise ship terminal, and artist studios. The container port, American Stevedoring, occupies Piers 7-10, and faces eviction once its lease expires in March. Last week Anthony Shorris, the newly-named executive director of the Port Authority, told the New York Observer blog, The Real Estate, that the agency is, “having conversations and [is] doing a lot of looking at what should happen at each of the piers.” “The thing that is most important is to make sure that they remain active, job generating, supporting the economic growth of the city and the port. That is a complicated set of decisions that we are in discussions that I am just catching up on,” Shorris said. Nelson, Rep. Nydia Velazquez, Rep. Jerrold Nadler and Councilmember David Yassky applauded Shorris’ comments. “Tony Shorris’s comments clearly underscore the Spitzer administration’s commitment to a Port Authority driven by thoughtful transportation policy rather than politics,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler. “The Red Hook port is critical to the economic vitality and security of the city and the region,” he added. “Unfortunately the city has been bent on crippling the only remaining port facility on the eastern side of the Hudson River,” Nadler continued. “As a longstanding supporter of the shipping industry here, I am proud to see the Spitzer administration taking leadership by looking into this issue,” he said. The governor’s office recently told this paper that the “Brooklyn waterfront is now a vital economic engine and in order to ensure that it remains so, all factors must be carefully considered.” Contacted Wednesday, Steve Coleman, a Port Authority spokesperson told this paper that the Port Authority would only say to “stick to what the executive director said.” Janel Patterson, a spokesperson at the EDC, had this to say: “Brooklyn’s working waterfront is too important for this type of PR nonsense.” “EDC’s plans—which are very much on track—are to reactivate the piers, retain every longshoreman job that’s there today, and create additional jobs through the introduction of new maritime-dependant, job-intensive uses. Period,” Patterson said.