BMT Advisory Task Force (ATF) Meeting Friday, July 31, 12:30–2:30 pm
The EDC scheduled this meeting for a summer Friday in July. It will be devoted to a topic of immense importance to the Columbia Street Waterfront – Transportation.
CSWA, along with several of our electeds and a number of BMT Development Corporation (BMTDC) directors, pressed EDC to reschedule this meeting to September. We argued that having a meeting on a subject of such great interest to the public and ATF members alike in prime vacation time didn’t make sense.
EDC has chosen to hold the meeting this Friday anyway. They did agree to one of our requests. They made a draft version of Friday’s presentation available yesterday on the BMT/EDC site, rather than releasing it to the public the day before the meeting. You can find it here. If you have time to review, take particular note of slide 13 (especially the footnote) and slides 23-32, Transit Priorities.
A few contextual items to keep in mind as you review these slides:
- The NYCEDC Brooklyn Marine Terminal Vision Plan calls for “a maximum of approximately 6,000 units of housing”, 3,800 of which will be built in “BMT North”, west of Columbia Street, between Degraw Street and Atlantic Avenue.
- The presentation does not address questions raised at the last BMTDC meeting about the future of the BQE North on-ramp at Atlantic Avenue.
- Also not addressed is the ongoing issue of large trucks driving illegally on Columbia, Hicks, and Henry.
The public may observe the ATF meeting virtually. If you can’t join the Zoom this Friday, and have questions about this topic and presentation, you can email admin@columbiastreetwaterfront.org and we will send your questions to our BMTATF reps, Bryan Woll and Sharon Gordon.
EDC stressed during our discussions that aside from this meeting, there will be other opportunities for ATF members and the public to address transportation and other aspects of the project. EDC said that during the summer they plan to reach out to community stakeholders directly. EDC did meet with our ATF reps and our President this Monday and we had a constructive dialogue. We’ve expressed our willingness to work with the EDC, writing “CSWA is ready to work with you as well. Many of our residents have found past public meetings impractical to attend, difficult to understand, and discouraging to active participation. Our neighbors need to understand the impact of this massive project on them and their families.”
Our board and BMT Committee are reviewing the transportation presentation. We will draft a response following Friday’s meeting.
EDC’s Brooklyn Marine Terminal Virtual Public Info Session Wednesday, August 5, 6:30-8:30 PM
EDC will review the same presentation as the July 14 meeting. CSWA recommended to EDC that this meeting also be rescheduled for September. We noted that even more community members will be on vacation in August than in July. And those that attended the July 14 meeting would not need to hear the same presentation again.
Again, if you are available and wish to attend, you can use this meeting as an opportunity to raise questions and concerns. You can register here.