Cobble Hill Association Statement on the BMT Vision Plan Vote
July 18, 2025
Over the past year, the Cobble Hill Association (CHA) has participated in the Brooklyn Marine Terminal (BMT) Task Force, a collaborative effort to shape the future of one of Brooklyn’s last working waterfronts. After careful review of community feedback, Task Force materials, and the recommendations of our Waterfront & Infrastructure Committee, its Chair and Task Force proxy Amy Breedlove, and CHA President and Task Force representative Amanda Sue Nichols, the Cobble Hill Association Board voted to support the BMT Vision Plan.
This was not a unanimous decision. There were six votes in favor, three opposed, and two abstentions. As in the community-at-large, Board members had different perspectives, questions, and anxieties around traffic, planning, and long-term oversight. But ultimately, the majority concluded that the plan before us represents a meaningful step forward: it reconnects our community to the waterfront, commits to building a meaningful amount of deeply affordable housing in a city where the struggle for housing has become critical, preserves space for maritime industry, expands job and educational opportunities, and launches a major environmental initiative to help combat climate change.
We did not get everything we wanted. No stakeholder did. This Vision Plan is the product of real compromise among groups with deeply different priorities. From the beginning, we sought to balance the needs of our community with the broader realities: a housing crisis, fiscal constraints, and rapidly deteriorating infrastructure critical to the working waterfront’s survival. This was never a vote between the Vision Plan and the status quo. Redevelopment is coming. Under a General Project Plan (GPP) process that is known for lacking transparency and accountability, we had the rare opportunity to influence the plan from the outset and help structure the governance mechanisms that will oversee it.
We did not waste that opportunity. Together with the power of the community and advocacy of our fellow Task Force members, we secured real benefits including:
- A dramatic expansion of public open space, including the full restoration of Pier 7
- A binding commitment to 40% permanently affordable housing on-site, including a minimum of 25% family-sized units
- $330M total in City commitments to create/preserve affordable housing in the adjacent neighborhoods
- A reduction of approximately 500 housing units from earlier concepts, building height caps, and a commitment to a density cap that prevents future increases to offset funding shortfalls
- Formal roles for community representatives throughout the GPP process, in long-term project oversight, and the development corporation that will develop and manage the site
- A package of traffic mitigation measures, transit upgrades, and near-term strategies to reduce interim impacts, plus a commitment from DOT to work with EDC on interim measures to address traffic safety and volume
- Expansion of the traffic study area to extend beyond Columbia Street to Clinton Street
- $2 million for DOT to assess the feasibility of capping portions of the trench, a critical first step
Walking away would have meant forfeiting those hard-won gains, without any assurance we’ll get the chance to shape the process again.
We recognize the risks. We share the traffic concerns. We also know that at this stage of planning, many of the concrete answers people want simply don’t yet exist. That’s not unique to this project, it’s the nature of complex, multi-phase development in New York City. The early phase never comes with full certainty; if it did, this wouldn’t be a controversial decision. But once you acknowledge that redevelopment is happening, it becomes clear that any future plan would bring the same unknowns, under the same imperfect process–only with even less community leverage to influence the outcome.
The agencies, political interests, and financial pressures that concern many in our community will remain, regardless of how we vote. So will other stakeholders, some with competing priorities and greater influence. The difference is whether we face those forces with oversight tools and a meaningful role in what comes next.
To those who made their disapproval known: we hear you. This was an unprecedented situation on multiple fronts with no guidebook. No GPP has ever given stakeholders a binding vote at any stage in the process, and the CHA has never held decision-making power on a land-use action–let alone one of this scale, with regional implications for maritime operations, climate resilience, and affordable housing policy. We worked hard to inform and engage the community–through regular updates, a dedicated website, multiple public meetings, and a survey.
At the end of the day, even with an imperfect plan, born of an imperfect process, and with an uncertain future, we believe that moving this forward is in the best interest of our community. We know some in our community will disagree with this decision, but we hope that even those who are disappointed will understand that our vote was driven by a sincere effort to protect what we love about this neighborhood, while engaging seriously with the broader forces that will shape it, with or without us. In the future, we hope we can put our differences aside and welcome our new neighbors to this special place we call home.
If you have questions, we’re here. If this goes forward and you want to stay involved in what comes next–and there is a lot still to come–we welcome that. Community engagement didn’t end with this vote, it becomes even more important now.
With respect,
The Cobble Hill Association Board
Related Documents
For clarification: The CHA Waterfront Committee and the Committee Chair/Task Force Proxy recommended that the CHA vote no.
We encourage everyone to read the documents submitted to the Board, as they provide important context on all sides of this complicated issue.
BMT Questions & Answers: July 16, 2025
Recommendation from Amanda Sue Nichols, BMT Task Force Representative/CHA President
Recommendation from the CHA Waterfront & Infrastructure Committee
Dissenting from CHA Waterfront & Infrastructure Committee Recommendation