Tell City Council to Vote NO On Gowanus Rezone

The City Council is meeting Wednesday, Nov 10, and will be voting on the massive Gowanus Rezone plan. Please tell them to vote NO with the following 1-click email letter.

Unfortunately, we are only able to send 20 emails at a time and we have 60 councilmembers to send to. When you are finished with this letter you will be brought to a link where you can complete the 2nd letter, and after that, the 3rd.

This is letter 1 of 3

PLEASE COMPLETE ALL 3 LETTERS TO REACH THE ENTIRE COUNCIL.

This letter will be sent to the following councilmembers (GROUP A):Corey Johnson, Adrienne Adams, Alicka Ampry-Samuel, Diana Ayala, Inez Barron, Joseph Borelli, Justin Brannan, Fernando Cabrera, Margaret Chin, Andrew Cohen, Robert Cornegy Jr., Michael Lynch Cruz, Laurie A. Cumbo, Chaim Deutsch, Darma V. Diaz, Ruben Diaz Sr., Daniel Dromm, Mathieu Eugene, Oswald Feliz, & James F. Gennaro

You may edit the content of the below letter as you see fit.

LETTER TO GROUP A

<div><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Dear Council Member,</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">I strongly urge you to <u><strong>VOTE NO</strong></u> on the proposed Gowanus Rezoning.</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">No matter what Council Members Brad Lander and Stephen Levin say now, this is a disaster in the making that does not even satisfy their own "redline" conditions that they promised to uphold. The proposal is dangerous hypergentrification on poisoned land. Do not give deference. <br /></span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Listen to your conscience and to the words of Representative Nydia Velazquez:</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<div><em><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">“When it comes to the Gowanus rezoning the City’s environmental impact statement is wrought with inconsistencies and contradictions, as pointed out by EPA and many groups. And most importantly, it does not properly take into consideration the impacts of climate change on the Gowanus community and on the ongoing cleanup of the Gowanus Canal, which is an EPA Superfund site... This is an issue of environmental justice, a sustainable future, and as Ida has proved, it could not be more important.”</span></em></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Why else should you avoid voting for/associating yourself with this deeply troubling proposal?  </span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">It would place low-income and homeless families on <a href="https://bklyner.com/opinion-welcome-to-gowanus-green-brooklyns-own-love-canal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">forever-toxic land</a> that must be monitored for cancer-causing fumes in perpetuity. This is where the only 100% affordable development is planned—on this most highly toxic land—and it makes up less than 3%  of the entire 200-acre rezone.</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">It would bring more than 30,000 people into a <a href="https://msc.fema.gov/portal/search?AddressQuery=brooklyn%2C%20ny#searchresultsanchor" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FEMA Flood Zone A</a> next to an open sewer and EPA Superfund site. </span></div>
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<div><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">It would transfer liability for numerous toxic waste sites and other major foreseeable costs to New York taxpayers. </span></div>
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<div><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">It somehow does not require any city-funded infrastructure to deal with the impacts of climate change, despite the deadly destruction of the remnants of Hurricane Ida; the CSO tanks, designed to handle the <em>current</em> level of sewage in the area, won't even be built before the buildings start generating even more combined sewer overflow. </span></div>
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<div>It would deliver massive 421-a tax cuts to an enormous group of private real estate developers—a program that Brad Lander himself has called <span style="font-weight: 400;">“</span><a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-lets-use-not-waste-17-billion-for-affordable-housing-20210305-yxowvuqv4fawnciweofgruvtmq-story.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">the largest tax expenditure in New York State,</span></a>" and <span style="font-weight: 400;">“</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/nyregion/11housing.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">an expensive gentrification subsidy</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">”</span>—meaning that the developers won't have to pay for any of the public assets and services they would receive.</div>
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<div>And it would continue to facilitate <a href="https://www.dec.ny.gov/hearings/11577.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">decades of continued violation</a> of <a href="https://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/water_pdf/csomod2012.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">multiple state</a> and <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2016-08/documents/nyc_ao_cwa-02-2016-3012.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">federal environmental statutes</a> intended to protect all New Yorkers.</div>
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<div><u>Just a reminder:</u></div>
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<div>Council Members Brad Lander and Stephen Levin have pledged to <u>vote against</u> the rezoning if it does not achieve "net zero combined sewer overflow" into the Gowanus Canal. They have repeatedly described this condition as a "redline." And so they must now live up to their word and <u><strong>VOTE NO</strong></u> because nobody can be sure the proposed rezoning will ever meet this crucial standard.</div>
<p>Lander himself has said that more work is needed, and the EPA has publicly stated in its official comments on the flawed Environmental Impact Statement that neither the City nor EPA are able to "conclude that the project would result in either no increase or a net reduction in CSO loading."</p>
<p><u><span style="color: #000000;"><strong>VOTE NO ON THE GOWANUS REZONING</strong></span></u></p>
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I would like to BCC myself

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