Build on Bruckner Blvd.: A crucial rezoning is up for a City Council vote today
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Last week, Councilwoman Marjorie Velázquez was in Errol Louis’ hot seat on NY1. He asked her why she’s dead set against a modest rezoning of a corner of Bruckner Blvd. in her district, delivering a few hundred apartments to a swath of the Bronx that produced a pitiful 58 units of affordable housing from 2014-21. Among the 349 apartments will be 168 with rent protections, including 99 set aside for seniors and 22 for veterans, along with a new grocery store and community facilities.
A puzzled Louis tried to understand why she’s against the production of permanent housing for New Yorkers in her backyard. She incoherently insisted that her responsibility “is making sure that I am taking care of my community, that I am not displacing people.”
He asked: How does building brand new housing where there is currently no housing displace anyone?
She replied: “So when we’re talking about building in my district, and if you’re bringing in folks working from Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, and you’re not giving my folks — right, my district has the highest number of folks in the building trades and carpenters and you’re not involving them....Then you’re setting my folks back, but the pride that comes in for building there and you look at it and you say, ‘I built that. I’m living there. I have the opportunity to live there.’
“How we’re displacing is when you build the supermarket, if you’re not actually delivering and having food that’s culturally appropriate for the district, right?...It’s a heavy Latino district, right? If you’re not meeting that, if you’re overpricing stuff, then that’s a form of displacement because my folks cannot afford it anymore. And now you’re pushing other our folks to go out to other places to get what they should have all along.”
It’s word salad unfit for any supermarket. The Council committee votes today. Councilmembers: Don’t defer to your colleague. Vote your conscience. Help make New York more affordable. Approve the Bruckner rezoning.
