A missing invitation is causing a stir in Williamsburg.
Latino housing advocacy groups like Los Sures and St. Nick are angry that the city has included the United Jewish Organization (UJO), representing the nabe’s Hassidim, in the redevelopment of the Broadway Triangle, and left them out.
The Broadway Triangle, an area bound by Williamsburg, Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant, is currently zoned for industrial use, but is being redeveloped for residential purposes. So, as high-rise developments abound in the area, affordable housing advocates want to claim the land for their constituents needs.
The infamous invitation was to a planning charrette, or design hearing, on the Broadway Triangle, and never made its way to Latino groups or City Council Member Diana Reyna. The city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) would not explain why they were so exclusive with their invitations, providing ones only to UJO and Ridgewood-Bushwick Senior Citizens Council.
After the shock from the initial rejection wore off, Latino groups organized a second charrette with UJO and Ridgewood-Bushwick that was to take place in early September. However, the charrette was canned at the last minute, with no one group or person taking responsibility for the cancellation. HPD said it was not them. Rabbi David Niederman of UJO said it was not him. Angela Battaglia of Ridgewood-Bushwick did not return calls for comment.
Meanwhile, Latino housing advocates are left fuming. “I was appalled,” said Debra Medina, the organizer of Southside United Housing. “Actually, I was pissed off.” Medina said affordable housing is essential for members of the Latino community that are being displaced by gentrification. “We need to be involved in everything that happens in this community, and leaving us out is beyond belief,” she said.
The one person who was willing to explain the initial lack of an invitation was Assembly Member Vito Lopez. Lopez described Ridgewood-Bushwick Senior Citizens Council as “one of the leading affordable housing non-profits in the country,” and stressed the need for “an agency that has a record,” to be in charge of the development of the Broadway Triangle. “I have nothing against Los Sures and St. Nick,” Lopez said. However, in the case of a large project like the Broadway Triangle, he said, “you don’t go to a group that hasn’t done large-scale” development.
