As Democrats regroup, is the DSA looking to control the narrative… and the neighborhoods?

By Joe Gonzalez

Barely a week goes by without yet another major change afoot in the Bedford-Stuyvesant community.

Many Bed-Stuy residents are in deep pain over the changes that have occurred and continue to take place in our community. Eight such examples abound:

First, residential property taxes — based on the assessed value of the building — have skyrocketed.  Annually, a New York City-employed tax assessor walks past residences and reportedly makes an assessment of the value of a given property. 

Officialdom asserts the value, and the resultant property tax is based on the value of “nearby similarly situated properties.” So, if a property owner makes improvements in the building, those upgrades impact the value of neighboring buildings next to it — even if the neighbor has not “improved” their building. 

An elderly couple who lived in their own building for decades and are on a fixed income will find themselves getting a tax bill compelling them to pay a vastly higher tax bill for no other reason than their neighbor made improvements to their own property.

Second, the next issue of real concern is the recent action to rezone Atlantic Avenue from Vanderbilt to Utica Avenues, thereby allowing eighteen-story buildings along Atlantic Avenue. Nearly every auto body shop on Atlantic Avenue will be wiped out in favor of bringing in 5,000 new high-rent apartments that few, if any, long-term Bed-Stuy residents will be able to afford.

Third, there appears to be a plan to wipe out Smurf Village at Utica Avenue and Fulton Street. Currently, Smurf Village consists of twelve three-story buildings. Its potential replacement would comprise ten, 17-story buildings holding two thousand new high-rent apartments.

Fourth, there’s a proposal to take the public parking lot behind the old Girls’ High School (on Nostrand Avenue) and hand it over to real estate developers so they can erect a sixteen-story building fronting on Halsey Street, a two-way street which is dotted with three and some four-story brownstone buildings.

Fifth, there are rumors that the venerable Restoration Plaza will be handed over to real estate developers who, in fact, have already announced they will erect two high-end, fifteen-story market-rate buildings.

Sixth, multiple churches have closed, and at least three, it is documented, were sold off. For decades, Bed-Stuy churches have had a deep impact on all things Bed-Stuy, from Sunday Services to mid-week food pantries to after-school programs.

Seventh, there continues to be whispers throughout Bed-Stuy that there may be a plot to hand over the historic Boys & Girls High School football field to real estate developers.

Eighth, unknown and faceless real estate developers hiding behind Limited Liability Companies (LLCs) and situated in Williamsburg have snatched up over 1,000 Bed-Stuy properties. Under current law, a person or a company can register their property as an LLC and completely evade responsibility for the conditions of their buildings.

Initially, few Bed-Stuy residents were even aware of the upcoming planned transfer of students. Therein lies another problem: the issue of co-location of Charter Schools (which pay no rent to the NYC schools) situated inside public school buildings.

These nine problems, among many others, do not bode well for the future of Bedford-Stuyvesant by any measure.
Joe Gonzalez, a longtime Brooklyn resident and community activist, is an occasional Our Time Press contributor on various matters relative to public policy. For more of Joe’s work. see http://www.PoliticsNY.com/author/Joe-Gonzalez/

 (Bernice Elizabeth Green, co-founder of Our Time Press, is the creator, publisher, and editor of Our Time At Home: Brooklyn & Beyond, now celebrating its 20th Year.