Gowanus Confidential! We Foiled Councilman Brad Lander's Correspondence About The Rezoning

Who, me?

Councilman Brad Lander of the 39th Council District

3D model of a fully built-out Gowanus after rezoning

by New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) students

During the past few years, I have attended many of the public meetings pertaining to the proposed rezoning of the area around the Gowanus Canal. Those include the Bridging Gowanus community meetings hosted by our Council Member Brad Lander together with Council Member Stephen Levin and other elected representatives, which were a sham in my book.

The more Brad Lander tried to pretend that he would make sure that "plans for growth [for Gowanus] are grounded fully in the public interest, and will achieve our shared goals", the more it appeared to the community that the rezoning was a huge giveaway to developers and that certain organizations had a seat at Brad's table to influence the rezoning long before Bridging Gowanus started.

Increasingly, I was curious to see what was being discussed about the proposed Gowanus rezoning  between our elected officials and government figures...and a very specific developer: Jared Kushner

So, like any good citizen and community activist, I worked with some friends to request Brad Lander's email correspondence pertaining to the Gowanus rezoning under the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL).  And for good measure, we foiled some more of our elected officials and government figures.

The requests were sent in May 2019. In all, we foiled the email correspondence pertaining to the rezoning of:

Councilmember Brad Lander***
Catherine Zinnel , Brad Lander's former Deputy Chief of Staff 

Rachel Goodman, Brad Lander's Chief Of Staff
Councilmember Steve Levin
Benjamin Solotaire, Steve Levin's North Brooklyn Community Organizer
NYC Department of City Planning***(partial)
Winston von Engel, Director, NYC DCP Brooklyn Office***(partial)
Jonathan Keller, NYC DCP in charge of Gowanus rezoning
Community Board 6
Mike Racioppo CB6 manager

Here is the specific FOIL request that was sent out:

To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the New York State Freedom of Information Law (1977 N.Y. Laws ch. 933), I hereby request the following records:
1. Correspondence between ........... and each of the following individuals, officials, agencies, and companies regarding the proposed Gowanus rezoning and regarding the Gowanus Places Study:
Mayor DeBlasio
Alicia Glen, Former Deputy Mayor under deBlasio
Councilmember Brad Lander
Brad Lander (private citizen, private email)
Councilmember Steve Levin
Steve Levin (private citizen, private email)
Jonathan Butler NYC DCP
Winston Von Engel NYC DCP
Peter Fleming CB6 Chair
Mark Shames CB6 Land Use Chair
Mike Racioppo CB6 Manager
Salvatore "Buddy" Scotto, Long Time proponent of a Gowanus rezoning
Debra Scotto CB6 Member
Michelle de La Uz, City Planning Commissioner/ Executive Director, Fifth Avenue Committee
Andrea Parker, Executive Director, Gowanus Conservancy
Sabine Aronowsky, Fifth Avenue Committee

and

2. Any correspondence between Catherine Zinnel of Council Member Brad Lander's office and each of the following individuals a) regarding the proposed Gowanus rezoning, b) regarding the Gowanus Places Study, and c) regarding Brooklyn properties at 169 Third Street, 175-185 Third Street, and 201-225 Third Street.
Jared Kushner
SL Green
Kushner Companies
LIVWRK, Kushner's original partners for Gowanus project
Asher Abehsera, founder of  Livwrk
Aaron Lemma, co-founder of  Livwrk
Robert Schiffer, (Managing Director at SL Green)
Aby Rosen (developer, buyer of former Kushner site)
RFR Realty (Aby Rosen's development firm)

Why Jared Kushner and his associates? Because the developer and son-in-law of President Trump purchased one of the largest sites along the Gowanus in 2014. This prompted Councilman Brad Lander to declare on WNYC in 2017 that it would feel wrong to vote for the rezoning if it meant "enriching the White House senior adviser while he’s got authority over the canal. That feels ethically tainted in a way I don’t see how I could do and how I could ask my colleagues to do."

This seems like a strange statement from Lander,  since we kept on hearing that Lander was trying to convince other property owners on the same block as Kushner's property at 3rd Avenue and 3rd Street to join forces to spot-rezone the entire block to residential ahead of the larger rezoning.. Obviously, things were taking too long for Kushner Companies

In 2017, Kushner Companies and SL Green Realty sold their interest to Aby Rosen's development company RFR Realty. We found email correspondence between the Department of City Planning and a real estate law firm hired by RFR..  Surely it seems plausible that there may have been an exchange of emails between Kushner Companies, RFR and Brad Lander over the years..

After several delays and numerous requests for updates, just a few foil requests came back 7 months later. We did receive the emails of Lander and his former aid, Catherine Zinnel, as well as the emails of Levin staffer Ben Solotaire. We only received partial documents from City Planning.
Community Board 6 and its manager Mike Racioppo ignored our Foil request altogether. We have to see what to do about that with the state's Committee on Open Government.

What emerged...amidst lots of redaction...was very interesting.

Heavily redacted email between Brad Lander and New York City Hall 5/25/2018

The Lander emails from his official Council account did not say much. In fact, there really were not many emails included in the 630 page file sent to us, as many of the pages contained unnecessary printed presentations by the Fifth Avenue Committee and the Gowanus Conservancy, sometimes twice or three times.  The lack of emails seemed strange given how long and intimately Lander has been pushing the Gowanus rezoning. How could there not be far more emails about this massive public project that he has been advancing for years?  

And another question arose as we compared the Lander emails to those of his former staff member Catherine Zinnel and  those of the Department of City Planning.

While we had FOILED the same topics for everyone, the email records returned for Zinnel and DCP were more extensive and contained many additional emails not contained in the Lander email returns.

As we perused these emails, we began to notice a pattern. Lander's staffer (and often Council Member Levin staffer Ben Solotaire) would be in regular communication with a number of local organizations discussing the proposed Gowanus rezoning. In particular, Michelle de La Uz of the Fifth Avenue Committee and Andrea Parker from the Gowanus Conservancy seemed to have quite a correspondence and many meetings with our elected officials.

The Gowanus Conservancy's mission is to facilitate "the development of a resilient, vibrant, open space network centered on the Gowanus Canal."  Though it appears to be an environmental grassroots organization, the Conservancy has accepted money from Gowanus developers and has positioned itself to become the steward of the public waterfront parkland that developers will have to create as part of the rezoning.

And of course, Brad Lander previously served as Executive Director of the Fifth Avenue Committee from 1993 to 2003. He has pushed for a Gowanus Rezoning since his time at FAC, so it is not surprising that he continues to have a close relationship with this not-for profit organization. In addition, FAC is one of the developers of Gowanus Green, the large development planned for Public Place that requires the rezoning to take place in order to proceed
Notice the word 'confidential' in the subject line of the email below.

The emails as a whole show that FAC, GCC and their joint Gowanus Neighborhood Coalition For Justice  are in lockstep with Lander, doing his bidding lest they lose their funding source. 
One noteworthy exception is highlighted below. It shows Brad Lander complaining to De La Uz about a quote by her staff in a City Limit article, which he  obviously disagreed with.

Emails, like the one below show that for years, the Fifth Avenue Committee had privileged seats at the table with Council Members Lander and Levin, as well as with City Planning to discuss Gowanus.

Another question is: Has Brad Lander evaded Public Records Laws to push the Gowanus Rezoning?

Most of the documents block out Brad Lander's email address.  This seems strange since his address surely is part of the public record. Even stranger is that some other correspondence only shows his address blocked out on a long list of email addresses. Given the context, the only email address that would make sense there, as the email chains hashed through various strategies about the proposed rezoning....is Brad Lander's personal email.

Below is an email from the Brooklyn office of the Department of City Planning addressed to Lander's personal Gmail account. (Note that we crossed out Lander's Gmail account in blue since we believe his personal email was left un-redacted by mistake)

And then there is this one, sent by Catherine Zinnel from a .com address to brad, also at a .com address. It is likely that both used www.landerfornyc.com, Lander's campaign web site. Note that she nevertheless uses her official council staffer title in the signature block of her email.

It is very clear from the FOIL documents received, that Lander was involved in many aspects of strategy and negotiation regarding the proposed rezoning. For years now, the Fifth Avenue Committee has enjoyed privileged, special access to the Council Members, their staff members, and the Department of City Planning. It is fair to say that FAC had an outsize role in planning a rezoning that: a) they would benefit from as private developers of the Public Place site, and b) they would have a hand in getting through because one of their leaders is on the City Planning Commission.

On more than one occasion, Lander tried doing so outside the confines of his official email account.

This obviously raises more questions: What other groups or developers did Lander meet with over the years to discuss Gowanus? What deals were cut? What has Brad Lander been doing with his official position that he has worked to keep from the public eye? What else don't we know that is hidden in Brad Lander's personal emails - that will nevertheless have a major impact on thousands of people if the proposed Gowanus rezoning goes through? 

Before we embark on this massive rezoning, we should know the answers to all these questions, no?

We are still working through the reams of FoIL documents ourselves, but please email me if you would like to see the entire trove for yourself.

Additional reading:

Feel Betrayed By Councilman Brad Lander Yet Regarding The Proposed Gowanus Rezoning? We Do!

Behold Landersville!: What Gowanus May Soon Look Like If The Neighborhood Rezoning Becomes Reality

Landersville: Councilman Brad Lander Is Still Promising A Gowanus Rezoning That He Can't Possibly Deliver

Read more

Playing With Blocks And Pretty Pictures: City Asks Community To Envision Housing On Public Place Without Talking About Real Environmental Challenges On The Site

Last night, Carroll Gardens and Gowanus residents who attended a Community Workshop on the future of Public Place were given a map of the site, pretty cut out pictures to help people decide what the buildings should look like and what public amenities should be included, and wooden blocks to build their very own residential high rises. However, they were not given the most important information needed to realistically plan for the future of this six acre City-owned lot: that the site is currently dangerously polluted and that even after environmental remediation, it may be too hazardous to safely house families on Public Place.

Neither Councilmember Brad Lander, nor representatives of NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development or NYC Department of City Planning, who jointly hosted the workshop at PS32, mentioned to the public last night that coal tar on Public Place has been found at depths of 150 feet, that it can never be removed entirely, that recovery wells will be needed long after remediation to continue to collect the oozing tar, and that the groundwater has been proven to be contaminated.
Yes, the public has certainly become more informed about environmental issues in the Gowanus  area in the past few years,  but Public Place has the distinction of being one of, if not the most polluted site in the entire area.  That certainly deserves a mention, one would think.

From the 1860s to 1960s, Public Place was used as a Manufactured Gas Plant facility, first by Citizens Gas Light Company's 12th Ward Gas Work Plant, then by Brooklyn Union Gas, which became Keyspan, which is now owned by National Grid. Coal and petroleum products were turned into flammable gas at the plant and the gas was distributed from there to the surrounding neighborhoods, to be used for cooking, lighting, heating and commercial purposes. Unfortunately, coal gasification produces waste by-products such as coal tar which is a brownish, oily substance, that has seeped deep into the ground and has polluted the ground water.
The responsibility for the clean-up falls on National Grid. Work will be done under the supervision of NYS Department of Environmental Conservation.
Since some of the coal tar has been found to ooze from the site into the Gowanus Canal, the US Environmental Protection Agency, which declared the canal a Superfund site in 2010, is also involved.

The workshop was part of an effort by the City of New York to revive the 2008 "'Gowanus Green'" development project for Public Place. You may remember that in 2008, Hudson Companies, Jonathan Rose, Fifth Avenue Committee, and the Bluestone Organization were selected to develop the site for affordable housing with retail space, community facilities and open space. Their proposal included 770 units of housing, 75% of which were slated to be affordable. To move forward, the site needed to go through a rezoning from manufacturing to residential, which never moved forward after the Environmental Protection Agency declared the Gowanus Canal a Superfund Site.

However, the NYC Department of City Planning has now wrapped Public Place into the framework of the agency's Gowanus Neighborhood Planning Study. The rezoning is likely going to move forward early next year as it goes through the Uniform Land Use Process (ULURP).

Councilman Brad Lander explained last night that Hudson Companies, Jonathan Rose, Fifth Avenue Committee, and the Bluestone Organization are still on board.  However, the City is now planning to make all units on Public Place affordable.  The project, he told local residents, will include 2 1/2 acres of open space.  The plans also call for a new school.  The workshop, Lander felt, was "an exciting opportunity to think together about how we can make this a really great place in the center of the Gowanus neighborhood."

At about a dozen tables, local residents were then prompted to create that vision, with photos of happy families, nice plantings, schools, performance spaces and playgrounds, which they placed around the footprint of Public Place. Then, as if on cue, representatives from  NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development and NYC Department of City Planning  placed wooden blocks on each table. Each block represented 6 stories of a building.  Members of the public were encouraged to stack them up to indicate the building height and density with which  they felt comfortable.

At one table, participants envisioned a 60 story building, while at another, participants felt that they just did not have enough information to make that decision. "What if we don't want any housing on the site, " someone at table #4 said. "Is that even an option?"

Of course that is or should be an option.  Those 6 acres are our public land.  EVERYTHING should be on the table, from the original community wish to turn Public Place into ball fields, to restoring it to wetlands to mitigate flooding in the area, to building affordable housing.

However, if the community decides that housing is the way to go, it is imperative that we understand the environmental challenges associated with Public Place. That means we need to have National Grid and EPA in the room to explain what we can expect after a clean-up. We need to know who will be liable if people living on the site do get exposed to toxins in the future. 

Those are far more important discussions to have now.  Stacking blocks and moving pretty photos around a map is premature if our politicians and city agencies refuse to even acknowledge that Public Place may just be too dangerous for housing. 

Perhaps they would do well to reach back into the past. In 1984, a New York City Partnership withdrew its proposal to build moderate income housing on the site "because of serious environmental problems and exorbitant costs associated with developing the lot."

See below:

Read more

Time To Turn Your Attention To Public Place In Carroll Gardens, As Rezoning Could Mean 770 Units Of Housing On A Former Gas Manufacturing Site

A 1930 view of the former Citizens Gas Work Site on what is now Public Place

2008 Hudson Company rendering for Gowanus Green

Brownfield of Dreams: A Film By Matt Sollars from 2008

Dear Carroll Gardens and Gowanus Residents.
Tomorrow evening, the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development is hosting a 

a Community Workshop on Public Place, the City-owned six acre Brownfield site along Smith Street and 5th Street.

You may remember that in 2008, Hudson Companies, Jonathan Rose, Fifth Avenue Committee, and the Bluestone Organization were selected to develop the site for affordable housing with retail space, community facilities and open space. Their proposal was named 'Gowanus Green' and included 774 units of housing.  To move forward, the site needed to go through a rezoning from manufacturing to residential, which never moved forward after the Environmental Protection Agency declared the Gowanus Canal a Superfund Site.

However, the NYC Department of City Planning has now wrapped Public Place into the framework of the agency's Gowanus Neighborhood Planning Study. The rezoning is likely going to move forward later this year as it moves through the Uniform Land Use Process (ULURP).

Why is this of importance to local residents?

To this day, Public Place remains one of the most polluted sites along the Gowanus Canal and needs extensive remediation.

Here is a brief history of the site.

From the 1860s to the early 1960s, the Public Place site was the home of the former Citizens Gas Light Company's 12th Ward Gas Work Plant, where coal and petroleum products were turned into flammable gas. The gas was used for cooking, lighting, heating and commercial purposes in the surrounding neighborhoods.
Unfortunately, one of the by-products of this gasification process is coal tar, a black viscous liquid, which is harmful to the environment. At Public Place, coal tar has been found at depths of 150 feet.
When the Citizens Gas Works plant was decommissioned in the 60s, the site was given to the city 'by condemnation' as public land in 1975. Hence the name "Public Place".  Citizens Gas Light Company later sold to Brooklyn Union Gas, which became Keyspan, which is now National Grid.
The responsibility for the clean-up falls on National Grid. The work will be done under the supervision of NYS Department of Environmental Conservation.
Since some of the coal tar has been found to ooze from the site into the Gowanus Canal, the US Environmental Protection Agency, which declared the canal a Superfund site in 2010, is also involved.

One has to wonder how prudent and realistic it is to build housing on such historically polluted land. One also has to have a health dose of skepticism that the site will ever be safe for human habitation.

None of this seems to be a deterrent for Councilman Brad Lander, who has been a proponent of the project because of it will include affordable housing. (Take a look at the video by Matt Sollars from 2008, featuring an interview with Lander.

Please take time to attend tomorrow evening's meeting and get involved in this issue.

Let us make sure that we build SAFE affordable housing, and don't put people in harm's way. 

Community Workshop on Public Place

Share your input and update the vision for Public Place!

Thursday, November 1, 2018

6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

P.S. 32, 317 Hoyt St. at Union St.

Read more