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Date: April 30, 2009

Time: 4:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Where: Liberation High School 2865 West 19th Street Brooklyn, NY 11224

Meet representatives from:

Helmets to Hardhats

Nontraditional Employment for Women (NEW)

The Edward J. Malloy Initiative for Construction Skills

New York State Department of Labor

Various construction apprenticeship programs

Various service and industry training programs

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This event is brought to you by:

Coney Island CLEAR, Coney Island Development Corporation,

Urban Neighborhood Services, Astella Development,

South Brooklyn Youth Consortium and the Liberation Diploma Plus High School

The city’s Coney Island Comprehensive Rezoning Plan will soon be heading for its public review process and may be looking at an end-of-summer completion date, according to Lynn Kelly, president of the Coney Island Development Corp.

“The Environmental Impact Statement is almost complete, certifying will come in the next few weeks — possibly by the end of January or early February — and then ULURP [the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure] can begin,” said Kelly, speaking at a panel on Coney Island yesterday sponsored by the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce and its Real Estate and Development Committee.

“Following ULURP, we will be issuing an RFP for a developer,” she said.

The event was essentially held to provide Chamber members with an update on the planning and rezoning effort and included two other panelists: Purnima Kapur, director of the Department of City Planning’s Brooklyn office; and Denis Vouderis, who was present as the owner of the Wonder Wheel, one of Coney Island’s landmarks.

What are the goals of the Department of City Planning?

Said Kapur, in her presentation, the specific goals are to create a 27-acre year-round entertainment and amusement district; facilitate the development of retail and housing, including affordable housing; and create jobs and job access for area residents.

There are 50,000 residents and a very high unemployment rate (“it’s double the average for the entire city”), according to Kapur.

In addition to the high jobless rate, there are other severe challenges, she said, like a lack of neighborhood retail and services, a lack of diversity in housing options and the seasonality of the area (“it’s desolate except in summer”).

Affordable housing and creating job access for Coney Island residents are the two principal concerns of Coney Island CLEAR. Accordingly, we feel compelled to ask about the details of those aspects of the plan:

• What is meant by “area” residents? That is an ambiguous term.

• What percentage of the jobs will be designated for area residents?

• What income levels will be used to determine eligibility for “affordable housing?” Will they be set at a level that reflects the income levels of an area surrounding Coney Island? Or will they be set by the income levels of Coney Island itself, which is lower than the surrounding area?

• Why is there no mention of a community benefits agreement for Coney Island?

Clearly, the details are important because they can affect the prosperity, life, and well being of community of Coney Island for years to come.

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Source: Linda Collins, “Coney Island Planning Moves Forward a Step,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 1.6.09.

Brian gave his discussion at the Coney Island United Community Baptist Church. Coney Island Clear board member Rev. Connis Mobley is the Pastor of the church and hosted the event.

If you want to read more about CBAs, see the discussion of them by the Center on Policy Initiatives here.

Subject: The Importance of Coney Island CLEAR.

We will discuss and provide particular audio segments of the meeting in future posts.  But for now the entire meeting is provided in full below.  It runs about 1:15 hours in total.

Part 1

Part 2

Closing remarks were delivered by Rev. Constance M. San Fillipo-Hulla, Pastor of the Coney Island Gospel Assembly.

Although we will be posting all the videos from the event here over time, you can see all 14 of them by visiting our YouTube site.