In New York City, local communities are given limited options when it comes to private land use decisions. Developers can always wield the "as-of-right" option and build whatever the zoning will allow them to, be it a luxury residential building in Chinatown, a truck depot in Harlem, or a massive, evil, yet somewhat alluring tower in Downtown Brooklyn.
Where the community ends up having what resembles input is in the "rezoning" process, where a developer asks the City to redesignate land use, allowing them to build something that isn't currently allowed in the area. When that happens, the developer traditionally approaches the community with a Faustian bargain—accept my job-bringing, economy-stimulating plans for your neighborhood, or stand in the way of progress and say no. You wouldn't want to stand in the way of jobs, would you?
That's where we join the action in Kelly Anderson and Jay Arthur Sterrenberg's terrific new documentary "Emergent City," the best New York City-based documentary in a decade, which had its premiere at the Tribeca Festival this week. The action starts in 2013, with developer Jamestown Properties purchasing "Industry City," a not quite post-industrial stretch of the Brooklyn waterfront separated from Sunset Park by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Almost immediately, the developers began referring to the area solely as "Industry City," and began to speak the language of waterfront redevelopment. They describe the area as "blank space," "ignored," "under-utilized," as ready for "renewal" and primed for the "innovation economy."
Of course, as the doc makes clear, none of these things are really true. There's still manufacturing in the area, the Sunset Park community hasn't been ignoring it, and groups have been working on an alternate plan that would promote waterfront climate resiliency and green manufacturing jobs for people living in the area.
But instead of all that, Industry City wants hotels, a mall, and a large residential component, to recoup their investment in the largest private purchase of an industrial district in New York City history. Enter what amounts to the villain of the film, Andrew Kimball, the redevelopment mercenary hired by Jamestown to push through the rezoning and bring the "innovation economy" to the southwest Brooklyn waterfront, along the lines of redevelopments in Chelsea, Williamsburg, and DUMBO. Between footage of Kimball hamming it up with the likes of Jared Kushner are scenes of him enticing business owners to move their workforce to Industry City, with rents highly subsidized by the developers, all in an effort to kickstart high-end luxury development in the area. Kimball stands beside AECOM's Chris Ward at a boozy event, as Ward calls the area a "blank landscape."
Amidst shots of the antiseptic Industry City, the film cuts back to scenes up the hill in Sunset Park, where the largely Latine and Asian community are trying to figure out the course ahead—should they try to strike a deal with Kimball and Industry City and get some sort of Community Benefits Agreement that would offer some small concessions in exchange for the rezoning, or should they just say "no" to the rezoning entirely, without any promise of an alternate plan?
At the center of this decision is then-Councilmember Carlos Menchaca, who will ultimately cast the yes or no vote on the rezoning. Advising Menchaca are community board members, including Marcela Mitaynes and Alexa Avilés, as well as non-profit groups like UPROSE, who favor the green alternative vision for the area.
"It feels like they say they want to hear from us, but they actually don't want to at all," said Mitaynes during an early planning meeting about whether to work with the developers or not.
Over the course of several contentious years, the film takes us through the ULURP process (or the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure process, if you're feeling proper), which dictates City land use decisions. At almost every step of the way, community groups find an unwilling partner in Industry City, who reflexively, through their perfectly typecasted frumpy lawyer, wield the "as-of-right" option as a cudgel. Industry City doesn't need the community's permission to turn the area into a mall, but it does need hotels and high-rises to fund even more uses that will bring the ever important but always hard-to-quantify "jobs."
Community town halls get interrupted, working groups fall apart, and rent in the neighborhood continues to rise, as property owners anticipate the rest of gentrifying Brooklyn inching ever closer to the working class community. Menchaca, reduced to an ineffectual glad-hander, alienates both the developers and the groups opposing the rezoning. The community board fails to coalesce around an alternate proposal for Industry City and takes no action. Then Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams ends a hearing on the rezoning in just a few minutes, most likely sensing political danger ahead of his mayoral run. Industry City moves forward with applying for the rezoning regardless and it begins to appear inevitable. A sense of defeat washes over the neighborhood as Kimball begins to take victory laps around what's poised to be the next home of New York's "makers."
But the rezoning never happened. Whether it was the pandemic and its economic fallout or community opposition that derailed the rezoning, that's ultimately Industry City's story to tell, and we don't hear it in this documentary. What the documentary does show, through its almost unadulterated access to Menchaca, is that the City Council, almost entirely term-limited and pushing through several rezonings at the end of their term, were ready to go around Menchaca once his vote becomes a firm "no." The end of member deference, which lets City Council members for specific districts make the final call for a rezoning, has been a long-sought goal of developers for decades. Some politicians cannot be bought off at this point by vague promises of housing and jobs, none of it set in stone anyway, and the real estate industry would very much like a way around these councilmembers. (Current member of the Adams administration, Laurie Cumbo, comes off especially poorly).
What "Emergent City" offers is a pretty stirring defense of "member deference," with Menchaca dragging the process out for years, as the community, developers, and economic conditions spar over the future of Sunset Park's waterfront. It isn't pretty, but it is democratic—something that is rare when it comes to determining the future of the city's rapidly shifting neighborhoods.
What happens to our cast of characters? Mitaynes becomes an assemblymember helping to push a green transition at the state level. Avilés takes Menchaca's seat. Menchaca himself has a short-lived run for mayor and, well, he's around. Adams, of course, becomes mayor—and the new head of the City's secretive, semi-private developer, the Economic Development Corporation: Andrew Kimball.
So what happens when a community says no? Do they damn themselves to the dustbin of economic development history? (This next part might be instructive for those following the saga of the Citi Field parking lot, where Queens State Senator Jessica Ramos recently played the Menchaca role and effectively killed Steve Cohen's casino plan.)
The EDC, the state, and the federal government took a hard look at the community plan for green waterfront jobs. Earlier this week, now-Mayor Adams cut the ribbon on a new industrial area that will be central for the state's wind turbine sector, providing those needed jobs, while also committing to local, union labor. Adjacent Industry City has settled into a terminal phase of redeveloped banality, a ghost-town on most days, mostly catering to tourists, with offices and workshops for firms that build things you don't need.
There are still abandoned buildings where Industry City had imagined hotels. There's still tons of "undeveloped" space. But sometimes the power of a "no" is a way to say yes to something completely different. "Emergent City" is a documentary about what happens when developers try to force a vision on a community that doesn't want it. Sunset Park residents are living through what happens next.
On Thursday it was announced that the long-running PBS documentary showcase POV has acquired "Emergent City," so keep an eye out for it on public television soon!
