MANHATTAN — A coalition of 40 Brooklyn organizations will rally and hold a press conference just prior to the City Council’s Land Use Subcommittee hearing Thursday, Nov. 19, on the plan to rezone the Broadway Triangle in Brooklyn.

The rally will take place beginning at 9 a.m. on the steps of City Hall. The triangle is a 50-acre urban renewal area on the border of Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant.

The group, known as the Broadway Triangle Community Coalition, made up of most major housing and community organizations in Williamsburg and a number from Bedford-Stuyvesant, condemn the proposed rezoning as “a political give-away� to the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council and the United Jewish Organizations (UJO) of Williamsburg — at the expense of the Latino, Hasidic and African-American communities in the affected neighborhoods, according to coalition Chair Juan Ramos. “The city’s plan is defective at multiple levels, having completely excluded the Bed-Stuy community from participation in its development, and if approved will permanently prevent the Triangle Rezoning from providing maximum and comprehensive benefits to residents of the surrounding communities,� said Ramos, a Bed-Stuy resident.

Ramos notes that the proposed rezoning:

• Provides for less than half of the possible 4,000 units of housing that could be built;

• Guarantees that no more than 150 units of such housing be affordable, relying on incentives rather than a mandatory provision for such affordable housing;

• Adds no new open space or any additional community facilities, such as schools, despite the significant increase in residents that would result;

• Would result in the loss of existing businesses in the affected area; and

• Provides that a 50 percent preference for any affordable housing be given to residents of Williamsburg-Greenpoint only, excluding Bed-Stuy residents from the same preference, despite the fact that the Triangle falls within both Community Boards.

Ramos also calls attention to recent editorials in the New York Times and El Diario that have attacked the mayor’s secretive give-away that excluded every major community organization from the planning process other than the two beneficiaries, the Ridgewood Bushwick Council and the UJO.

Congress Members Nydia Velazquez and Ed Towns, and Council Member Diana Reyna, have indicated their opposition to the proposal and will call for a reopened, transparent process.

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