A controversial vote on the future of the Brooklyn Marine Terminal is set for June 18, as city leaders push forward a sweeping redevelopment plan that includes thousands of new housing units on the Red Hook waterfront. But local residents are pushing back.

NYC looks to European waterfront cities for inspiration

The site, an active shipping terminal, is in urgent need of repair, with officials warning that years of neglect have left parts of it crumbling.

"As the piles deteriorate, the concrete pad on top of them also begins to deteriorate. And so you start to have pieces falling through," said Andrew Kimball, president and CEO of the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC). 

Kimball led a recent tour of the 122-acre site, which is currently responsible for less than 2% of container traffic coming into New York Harbor. City leaders say the terminal has been neglected for decades in favor of more modernized ports in New Jersey.

To fund the $1.5 billion in necessary repairs, NYCEDC is proposing to build 7,700 units of housing. Kimball says it's a mixed-use vision modeled on successful European waterfront cities.

"You go to Oslo and Norway, Malmö, Sweden — so many other European cities have figured out how to do this: port next to greenspace, next to housing, all in one," Kimball said.

In the spring of 2024, the city and state transferred control of the terminal from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to the NYCEDC — a historic and controversial decision that officials said would transform the area into both a modern maritime industrial hub and residential community.

The city says its plan includes meaningful community benefits, including priority access to affordable housing and upgrades to public housing infrastructure.

"This plan is also giving an opportunity for local residents to have first dibs on a couple of hundred units of affordable housing and a $200 billion investment in Red Hook Houses," said Deputy Mayor Adolfo Carrión Jr.

Critics voice concerns about project's pace, neighborhood costs

But not everyone agrees with the direction of the plan. Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, a member of the 28-person Brooklyn Marine Terminal Task Force, argues the site should be used to revive shipping and manufacturing, not build housing.

"This is city-owned site, which is also very rare ... and we're using it to build market-rate housing to pay for the housing that is being built in this site," Reynoso said. "So it's just backwards to me."

Several task force members have voiced concern over the project's pace, noting that a key vote originally set for April was postponed to June after community pushback. Maria Nieto, a member of advocacy group Voices of the Waterfront, said the city's justification for pairing housing with infrastructure upgrades is flawed.

"You don't have to build a skyscraper every time you want to fix the highway," Nieto said. "So that premise alone is false. Not to mention that you can build housing anywhere, but you can only build a port on the water."

Pastor Alfred Adams, who leads the New Brown Memorial Baptist Church in the area, said longtime residents, including many of his congregants living in the nearby NYCHA Red Hook Houses, worry the redevelopment will drive up costs in the neighborhood.

"Taxes are going to rise, the rents are going to rise, and it's going to be unaffordable," Adams said. "Because most of our congregation are on fixed incomes."

If the proposal passes next week's vote, the city will move into an environmental review phase and begin seeking proposals, with construction targeted to begin before the end of the decade.

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