Industry City to present rezoning proposal to City Council despite opposition

Industry City is set to present its proposal for rezoning to the City Council on Tuesday.

News 12 Staff

Sep 15, 2020, 1:00 AM

Updated 1,411 days ago

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Industry City is set to present its proposal for rezoning to the City Council on Tuesday.
While CEO Andrew Kimball offered a glimpse of it on Monday, a group gathered outside City Hall to protest the plan.
Residents were seen holding up signs and delivering petitions in hopes to convince city Council Speaker Corey Johnson not to agree to the plan to rezone Industry City.
“A huge part of the waterfront land that could be used for many other purposes that the community should decide,” said resident Jei Fong.
Industry City executives claim they have spent years getting feedback from the community and making changes to the plan as a result.
They say the goal is to update what they claim is an antiquated law.
"Designed in the 1960s to keep things apart, keep tanneries, chemical plants, noxious uses like asphalt plants away from where people live. But we live in 2020, we don't live in 1960,” said Kimball.
Kimball claims the plan will create 20,000 jobs at a time when unemployment is high. However, residents say they aren’t buying it.
“Industry City itself is an investor and a landlord, they're not going to create any kind of jobs, they're leasing space to other businesses at very high rates, it's not for the community,” a resident tells News 12.
To ensure that, the developer has added a legally binding agreement that wouldn’t allow further expansion until a certain percentage of local workers were hired.
Kimball is expected to testify before City Council on Tuesday, but there won’t be a final decision until a later date.


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