Community Organizing Led by Love
For
years, it had become known that Brooklyn Community Board 9 (CB 9) meetings could
become contentious. Some board members and residents were dissatisfied with how
the district manager Pearl Miles carried out her responsibilities. The struggle
for control of the community board and the community itself came to a boiling
point when an environmental assessment statement for the rezoning of Empire
Boulevard was submitted to the community district office, December 2013 by 529
Empire Realty Corporation (prepared by Philip Habib and Associates and
Sandstone Environmental Associates). A number of high rise residential
buildings were being constructed on Flatbush Avenue. The future buildings would
cast long shadows and would be priced for upper income households; however be
considered affordable. Affordability is based on the area median income.
Rather, than the AMI being based on the five boroughs, the AMI includes the
five boroughs, Long Island and the lower five counties of upstate New York.
Community
members had been opposed to the high rise construction on Flatbush Avenue. This
latest rezoning request suggested that Prospect-Lefferts Garden and Prospect
Park would experience higher population density, changes in architecture, and
changes in who lived in the area. Rather than acquiesce to the plan, the people
of the community banded together to fight against Empire Boulevard’s rezoning.
One group, Movement to Protect the People (MTOPP) would emerge as a people’s
movement that city government would concede to. One tactic employed was taping
CB 9 committee and general meetings. The group also made an alliance with Tom
Angotti, then, Chair of Hunter College’s Urban Planning Department. The
following is a Q & A with Alicia Boyd one of MTOPP’s key leaders.
1) Who
coined the name Movement to Protect the People and from what ought the people be protected?
A small group of us coined it. We began the
fight to stop the rezoning of the community. We came together to create the
name. We realized that it was going to take a movement to protect this
community and by doing so we would be protecting the people, not just the
physical land.
2) What
event ignited your community preservation fire? It was the first out of
scale development that was going up along the perimeter of Prospect Park. We
wanted to stop this as-of-right development that had almost 100% funding from
the State and Federal governments. But we were very late in the game and almost
all of the deals had been done by the time we even knew about it. I had wanted
to protect Prospect Park from the visual intrusion and I knew that other
developments would be coming.
However, during that fight I found out that a
serious rezoning was being planned to change my actual backyard into a tall 20-
or 30-story building along Empire Blvd. I knew this type of development would
be detrimental not only to my home and my neighbors’ but that we would lose the
people through a massive amount of displacement. I couldn’t image living in my
community, without black people around me, so I promised to protect the
residents in this community, both tenants and homeowners.
3) What
does it take to activate residents to do something about the displacement
taking place in their communities? It takes a lot of effort and energy. It
takes educating people, showing them that they have power to do something. And that organizing and resisting can make a
difference. Too often people say, “Oh, there is nothing you can do,” but we
have shown that it is not true. We are powerful; we just have to use that power
in a focused and concentrated way!
4) What is your assessment of MTOPP's
preservation efforts? What tactics
does MTOPP use? We have been
quite successful at preserving the community. We have stopped a major rezoning
process from happening--where all of our avenues were being planned to have
seriously tall skyscrapers and we have been able to protect the public assets
such as the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and Prospect Park from development. Since
we began our fight, there has not been another major development executed.
We
have several strategies that we employ. Education, research, calling out our
local politicians, organizing people, attending and getting involved in the
local community boards where rezoning requests are submitted, uncovering
corruption at the local community board, filing lawsuits to stop illegal
behavior, filing Freedom of Information Act requests to find out what is being
planned behind closed doors, and working with other organizations and groups that
are fighting gentrification and displacement.
5) Who
do you point to as your mentor? Is there a school or institute that you
enrolled in to learn housing rights, community preservation? No I don’t
have a mentor. All of my work has been done as a hand-on-activist. I have been
very grateful to the information and knowledge that I have received from a lot
of sources, such as Professor Angotti who has schooled me in rezoning laws,
former Councilman Charles Barron who told me how to make local politicians accountable
to the public, and of course, my fellow activists in the field--learning from
their successes and failures.
6) Will
you please name the organizations that have joined with MTOPP? Below is a list of organizations that MTOPP
has worked with from time to time, on different projects both in Brooklyn and citywide:
BAN (Brooklyn Anti-gentrification Network), The Sullivan-Stoddard-Ludlum Block
Association, FLAC (Flower Lovers Against Corruption), 320 Sterling St Tenant
Association, 300 Sterling St Tenant Association, B&W Sterling St Block
Association, Washington Avenue Tenant Association, 901 Washington Avenue Tenant
Association, Defend Public Libraries, Chinatown Working Group, and more.
7) What
is/are the current issues that MTOPP is dealing with? We just won a battle
with a developer who wanted to rezone three blocks of a height-restricted zone
along the perimeter of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. The developers have
promised to come back when they can get the support of the local politicians. In
other words: when it is not an election year. So, we need to stay on top of
this issue and prepare for when they do come back.
We need to address the issue during an
election year, when it comes to our local councilperson Laurie Cumbo because
she is clearly a pro developer and is only considering not doing the Brooklyn
Botanic Garden deal because of her desire to get re-elected. She has stated she
is not a career politician and so we are concerned that if she is re-elected,
she will use the last two years in office to line her pocket with donations to
her MOCADA museum at the expense of the people.
We also have four lawsuits pending in the courts
that need to be answered! We continue to face illegal behavior by the Community
Board to help this community become rezoned and so we continue to focus on
uncovering the corruption that still exists at Community Board 9 and fight in
the courts for a more democratic process, where a community board acts like an
advocate of the community and not a rubber stamp of developers and politicians
who are in bed with them.
8) MTOPP
has the 12 Demands on a website. Have
these demands been sent to any organization or government official? If yes, who
received it and what is his response? Those demands actually come from BAN of
which I am one of the main organizers. Yes, it has been sent to elected
officials and in fact several of the demands have been met and thus, we are
constantly updating it to reflect what we still need to do.
For the most part, the elected officials
simply ignored the demands and a few agreed with some of them. For example, We
met Assemblyman Brian Barnwell (AD 30) just a few weeks ago about our demand to
make the Area Median Income (AMI) that is used for the “affordable” category to
be based upon the local AMI, using the zip codes and not the federal government’s
AMI which continues to be discriminatory to us. Assemblyman Barnwell wants to
propose a bill in Albany to use the AMI of the local area.
9) As
the saying goes, "No woman is an island." Who do you count as your
collaborators? My neighbors, my friends, even my enemies have been
instrumental. In fact, some of my enemies have become my friends as the fight
has gotten to other areas of the community and onto their backyards. I count the
people in my community, the people who thank me and give money to us, the
people who do our research; and who cheer us on. We have a lot of people, a lot
of allies, and we continue to be thankful to all of them, because without them
this would not be a movement! Most importantly is the members of my group, who
have stayed strong and committed to this movement from day one!
10)
If you have a statement that you want to
express, please do so now: One of the most important things is to believe
that we are powerful and that we can affect change. That power isn’t about
money; it is about the belief that each and everyone one of us can make a
difference. That there are forces that we can’t see but are helping, supporting,
and directing our actions and that wrongs will be righted. This is the force of
love and by using this energy; we can continue to protect the 200,000 people
who live in our community!
Labels: architecture, community activism, neighborhood preservation, no shadows, organizing, zoning changes
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