By Holly Ng
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plan to revitalize a large section of central Brooklyn has yet to be communicated to local residents and small business owners, who in recent interviews said they knew little about the state’s planned $1.4 billion investment, unveiled in March.
“We have not heard about the initiative you mentioned specifically. In general, we do support and welcome any investment in the area,” said Georgios Papadopoulos, owner of East Market Diner in East New York.
The Vital Brooklyn initiative aims to invest in “the health and wellness of one of the most disadvantaged areas in New York State,” covering the neighborhoods of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, Flatbush, Brownsville and East New York.
Photo Slideshow: Crown Heights Neighborhood
According to the governor’s March press release, these neighborhoods have been known to have “measurably higher rates of obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure, limited access to healthy foods or opportunities for physical activity, high rates of violence and crime, wide economic disparities from unemployment to poverty levels, and inadequate access to high quality health care and mental health services.”
Investments will be made in eight areas to address these issues. New recreation spaces will be added while existing park facilities will be enhanced in order to promote physical activity. Healthy diets will also be promoted, by targeting the area’s youth. More than a dozen new farmers’ markets, will be added into community schools and farmers upstate will be providing agricultural job training to the youth. School curriculums will expand in order to encourage out-of-classroom learning.
Community-based health care will receive the most priority in funding, half of the $1.4 billion. Statistics from the governor’s press release show that there are only 55 primary care physicians per 100,000 people in Central Brooklyn and 497 emergency room visits per 1,000 people. This will close the gap between the number of health care workers available to aide Central Brooklyn members and the number of ambulatory care sites.
In addition, 40% of the initiative’s funds, $563 million, will go towards building 3,000 new multifamily affordable housing units. The Crown Heights 2015 Community Health Profile indicated that 27% of the neighborhood’s economic stress is linked to poverty, in comparison to New York City’s 21%. The Vital Brooklyn initiative will hire thousands through programs like the Brooklyn Unemployment Strikeforce which trains workers to meet new market demand skills.
The initiative will also financially support existing community anti-violence programs, as well as establish new programs. Community violence rates are almost directly related to economic stress levels. Crown Height’s 2015 Community Health Profile indicated that the neighborhood holds a violence measure of 98, while New York City and Brooklyn hold measures of 64 and 66, respectively.
Lastly, Vital Brooklyn will invest in making Central Brooklyn a more environmentally sustainable and resilient community by developing numerous new energy efficiency housing buildings and incorporating solar projects in existing residential and commercial buildings.
Tom Angotti, Professor of Urban Affairs and Planning at Hunter College said, “In the past New York State involvement in local communities has favored large infrastructure projects and real estate development. It remains to be seen whether this will break the pattern, but so far there is little that would lead us to be hopeful.”
Vital Brooklyn draws a striking similarity to another of Gov. Cuomo’s past investment projects known as Buffalo Billion in 2012, in that both projects cost about a billion dollars and focus on redeveloping a specific local area. The Buffalo Billion project has elicited several bribery scandals, a possible warning about the current project plan.
However, despite all the planning and money involved in Vital Brooklyn, many local Crown Heights residents and small business owners are not even aware of its existence. Carlyle Price, organizer of the Crown Heights Tenant Union expressed how Vital Brooklyn hadn’t been discussed and the union has not been made aware of it, prior to me contacting them.
Dr. Benjamin M. Arthur, optometrist, and owner of Perspective Family Eyecare in Crown Heights, also stated that he did not know of the initiative prior to me contacting him and still doesn’t know enough to be able to form any solid opinion. However, despite his limited knowledge and exposure to the initiative, his one slight concern is that the plan may be a gentrification propellant. Actually, all of the initiative’s targeted neighborhoods, with the exception of East New York, have already been classified as gentrifying neighborhoods by the NYU Furman Center in its May 2016 citywide gentrification report.
“Small locally-owned businesses are rightfully concerned because new large-scale development invariably increases rents and land values and forces out small businesses. They are then replaced by corporate owners and tenants that are able to pay higher rents, land prices and taxes,” said Professor Angotti. It could be concerning that ideas are coming from government executives and community input wasn’t really consulted. Perhaps, on-the-ground surveys should be done and community meetings or project information sessions should be held to discuss where the needs lie, what public sentiment about the plan is, and to do a better job of communicating to the community, prior to its enactment.