Food delivery giant FreshDirect has announced it will expand service into the Bronx, beginning this week. In addition, the company says it has received government approval to launch a pilot program that for the first time would allow food stamp recipients to use their benefits to order food from online vendors.

Opponents of the deal to move FreshDirect from Queens to the Harlem River Yards in Port Morris have pointed out that while the grocer will bring 2,000 additional truck trips per day to the South Bronx, it did not serve its residents. Only the Northwest Bronx has been included in FreshDirect’s service area until now.

The critics say the added traffic would worsen existing air pollution problems without providing any benefits to residents. FreshDirect is set to receive $130 million in subsidies from the city to move.

In an effort to quiet criticism, in February the company signed a non-binding agreement with the office of Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., promising, among other things, to begin delivering to the Bronx.

Diaz hailed the announcement that the company would begin to serve the entire borough.

“Today’s announcement shows that FreshDirect is ready to live up to those commitments ahead of schedule, years before making the Bronx their official home,” he said. “Ultimately, this move will offer residents increased healthy grocery options.”

FreshDirect officials added they will offer 50 percent discounts on certain popular items and discounts of $25 for new customers, to celebrate their service expansion to the borough. Details for implementation of the food stamps pilot project are still being worked out, but the company says they will be finalized in the coming weeks.

City Councilwomen Maria del Carmen Arroyo and Melissa Mark-Viverito say 2000 FreshDirect truck trips per day would add to Mott Haven's existing environmental woes.

Mark-Viverito, Arroyo demand an audit on Harlem River Yards

Two members of the New York City Council want the State Department of Transportation to reconsider the lease of the land where FreshDirect is planning to build its new headquarters.

Melissa Mark-Viverito and Maria del Carmen Arroyo, who represent Mott Haven, have called for a moratorium on all new development in the Harlem River Yards until an audit is conducted on the impact of heavy industrial use of the land on the surrounding neighborhood.

Mark-Viverito and Arroyo sent a letter to DOT commissioner Joan McDonald on May 3, urging the agency to take into account the harmful impact FreshDirect’s 2,000 truck trips per day would have on a neighborhood already heavily burdened with polluting industries. 

The letter asks for the agency to re-examine the lease of the state-owned property to the Galesi Group, a real estate firm doing business locally as Harlem River Yard Ventures Inc. Mark-Viverito and Arroyo say the firm has violated the spirit of the lease by renting parcels to “an array of manufacturing and waste processing facilities that place a disproportionate impact of diesel truck traffic running in and through the South Bronx.”

There are four waste transfer stations on the narrow waterfront strip, which contribute to the area’s sky-high asthma rates, leading the council members to conclude “the tenant is using the property in a manner that is inconsistent with the terms of the lease.”

Since the Galesi Group signed the 99-year lease with the city in 1991, the area adjacent to the Harlem River Yards has been rezoned to allow for increased residential use, and to help bolster local businesses, the council members say.

“Adding insult to injury,” the letter says, “Harlem River Yard Ventures collects approximately $500,000 per month in rent from its subleases while paying only $43,000 per month in rent to DOT for the entire 94 acres.”

Mark-Viverito and Arroyo concluded by suggesting the DOT declare a default on the property and collaborate with state authorities to consider , “taking full account of the socio-economic makeup of the neighborhood and the disproportionate impact” on area residents.

Opponents of the FreshDirect deal, in which the city and state have authorized $130 million in subsidies to help the online grocer move from Queens to Port Morris, hailed the effort. Mott Haven community leader Mychal Johnson echoed the letter, saying, “This is a budding residential area with new developments and loft conversions; it is not an industrial wasteland.” He added, “We need open space and waterfront access and real economic development.”

South Bronx Unite, the umbrella organization that is coordinating opposition to the FreshDirect deal, also applauded the council members’ effort. The organization, which has been holding demonstrations in Manhattan calling for a boycott of FreshDirect (which does not serve most of the Bronx), is also seeking to show that local residents want access to the South Bronx waterfront. It is asking residents to fill out this survey.

Next month, Ruben Diaz Jr. will celebrate the achievement of Fat Joe, the rap star who wrote these lyrics:

I never seen an ass like that
no I never seen seen an ass so fat (tat, tat, tat)
I’mma beat it til tomorrow
And all I keep telling her is “shut up bitch, swallow”
Your legs is shaking
I won’t hurt you
Now you can be the star of that new commercial

That’s about as much of Fat Joe’s rap “Porn Star” as we can bear to publish, but if you have the stomach, you can read the rest. He’s selling it as a ringtone, here.

Says the Borough President, Fat Joe “has been an outstanding citizen and a role model to countless Bronxites,” who “has positively represented the Bronx and throughout his music career has helped keep the Bronx on the ‘musical map,’ becoming one of our very own homegrown success stories.”

The rapper, who grew up poor in the South Bronx, has made himself a major commercial success with songs like “Porn Star.” But do they “positively represent” the borough you live in? Do you find them a source of pride?

Are you proud of lyrics that demean women, treating them as little more that inflatable dummies for the rapper’s masturbatory pleasure? Should our borough president be?

In Hunts Point and Mott Haven residents are begging the state to stop licensing strip clubs because they bring prostitution and violence to their neighborhoods. The borough president says he supports those efforts. Yet he salutes an artist who helps foster the very attitudes he says he deplores.

Our borough can offer better, and deserves better.

Mott Haven resident Maria Ojeda decided what initiatives to vote for, with help from her children. Photo by Sean Carlson

Playground repairs and public housing security cameras win

Millbrook Houses in Mott Haven will get long-awaited improvements to its playground on St. Ann’s Avenue, and public housing projects across the neighborhood will receive new tamper-proof security cameras as part of the city’s first-ever participatory budgeting initiative.

Over 1,000 voters in Mott Haven and in the Manhattan portion of City Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito’s district turned out to vote on March 31 for neighborhood projects they wanted to see funded with the $1.1 million she set aside for an experiment in participatory budgeting. In all, there were 29 projects on the ballot, ranging from playground upgrades to a solar-powered greenhouse. Each voter was allowed to vote for up to five items.

Maria Ojeda smiled as she checked off her ballot and handed it to election staff at the Betances Senior Center, where Mott Haven residents voted. Although the minimum voting age was 18, her two children, a boy and girl, whispered suggestions into her ear.

“To know what the people want is so important,” said Ojeda, who lives across the street from the senior center on St. Ann’s Avenue, where she cast her vote. “For me, education is the key. My kids are on the honor roll.”

The voting, which took place over the course of a week and ended on the last day in March, gave Mark-Viverito’s constituents in Mott Haven, the Upper West Side and East Harlem a chance to choose where a portion of their council representative’s budget will be spent.

Along with the Millbrook playground, transportation services for seniors in East Harlem, including a Meals-on-Wheels delivery van, and playground improvements at an Upper West Side housing complex rounded out the top three projects selected to get funding.

But Mark-Viverito had a surprise for her constituents as she announced the winners at an event in East Harlem after the votes were tallied. The Councilwoman pledged to fund the projects that came in fourth, fifth and sixth places, along with the top three vote-getters.

“It’s been great to see some of the creativity in these projects,” said Mark-Viverito. “This is democracy in action.”

An ultrasound system for the Metropolitan Hospital Center, new technology for the Aguilar branch of the Public Library and construction of a youth development headquarters and the DREAM Charter School in Harlem were the other three projects she approved funding for.

Even those whose projects were not voted in saw value in the process.

Community activist Ray Figueroa served as a budget delegate, helping organize the initiative locally and explaining the process to residents at various stages of the campaign. He also pushed a plan for the building and opening of a solar-powered greenhouse in Mott Haven. The project would have grown food that would then be sold at a farmer’s market run by young people from the neighborhood.

“We are not unhappy,” he said of the fact that his project will not be funded. “Mott Haven as a community is benefiting tremendously as a result of this process. Participatory budgeting is a great lesson in social responsibility.”

Angel Molina, a Mott Haven resident, also served as a delegate.

“The community knows what its problems are,” said Molina. “And because of that, they also know the solutions.”

The budgeting initiative was also implemented in three other city council districts, two in Brooklyn and one in Queens.

Community Voices Heard, a development organization with chapters across the state, was instrumental in persuading Mark-Viverito and three other council members to try the participatory budgeting experiment. Members of the group helped organize residents in the participating districts, and staffed some of the polling stations.

“A lot of people feel that the government doesn’t hear them,” said Stephen Bradley, an organizer with the group, who helped run the polling station at the Betances Senior Center. “But who knows what’s better for the community than the people?”

Participatory budgeting was first implemented in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre in 1989. Since then, hundreds of millions of dollars from that city’s budget have gone to fund local initiatives through the process. Over 1,000 cities throughout the world have since initiated similar programs.

Cezar Busatto, who works for the city department in Porto Alegre that administers participatory budgeting, toured the polling stations in Mark-Viverito’s district on March 31st. He was impressed with how the process was being carried out in the U.S.

“People are conscious of what they need,” said Busatto. He noted that the most popular participatory budget projects in Porto Alegre were to improve housing, education and healthcare, particularly for the elderly.

“The community should be able to put public money to use to benefit them,” he said. “It’s just so exciting to see this happening in New York.”

Jose Cintron, father of Naiesha Pearson, and sons, at the street renaming ceremony on March 31st. Photo by Joe Hirsch

Residents and officials commemorate slain child

The corner of E. 139th St. and Brook Avenue in Mott Haven was renamed Naiesha Pearson Place on March 31st, in memory of the ten-year-old girl whose death shook the community when she was struck by a stray bullet in September 2005.

Some 100 family, friends, residents and elected officials gathered under a steady drizzle to witness the unveiling of the street sign in her memory. 

“Some believe the right to own a gun is more important than our children,” said Congressman Jose E. Serrano, adding that constitutional rights can still be protected even while stricter standards are imposed on gun owners.

“We have a right to safety,” he said.

City Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito said city officials were at first reluctant to allow a street-renaming for a pre-teen without a lengthy list of life achievements. Mark-Viverito said they were persuaded to change their minds, because of “the impact her death has had on this community.”

Every year since Pearson’s death, hundreds have marched through the streets of Mott Haven on Mother’s Day to commemorate Naiesha at the Million Mom March, and to plead with federal officials to tighten gun laws.

Gloria Cruz, Pearson’s aunt, who has organized the march every year since in response to the shooting, told the crowd the renaming will help her niece’s memory live on, while serving as a symbol to help establish momentum to reform gun laws.

“She’s not a file in someone’s office. She’s not a statistic,” Cruz said.

Wallace Hasan, a resident of the Paterson Houses and, like Cruz, a member of the group New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, said the need to curb illegal guns remains as urgent as ever.

“Every day someone gets shot, if not here in another neighborhood,” he said. “These guns have got to stop.”

Taesha Pearson, Naiesha’s mother, was called on to speak to the crowd, but was overcome with grief as she approached the microphone, and walked away sobbing.

Rene Bonilla, then 20, is serving a sentence of 50 years-to-life for the shooting. He came to the Saw Mill Playground on a September Sunday in 2005 seeking revenge against a man he’d been in a fight with. Bonilla shot and wounded him, but one of the bullets he fired struck and killed Pearson. He was chased into a nearby building by family members and residents, who caught him and turned him in to police from the 40th Precinct.

The Harlem River Yards in Port Morris, where FreshDirect plans to move. Photo by Joe Hirsch

Worried members say Mott Haven will suffer

Community Board 1 condemned the deal to move online grocer FreshDirect from Queens to Port Morris without community consultation after a heated debate at its March meeting.

The board passed a resolution authored by board member and activist Mychal Johnson, who charged Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. and city and state officials had deceived South Bronx residents by pushing through the $123 million package of subsidies to the company too quickly, without allowing community input or considering the negative effects that added truck traffic and waste could have on Mott Haven and Melrose, which already suffer from some of the country’s highest asthma rates.

The city’s Industrial Development Agency approved the subsidies in February, after New Jersey tried to lure FreshDirect and its 2,000 jobs across the Hudson River. 

“We all want our constituents to have the best and not to be dumped upon,” Johnson said, adding he had received confidential data showing that FreshDirect plans 2,000 truck trips per day–far more than the company has publicly acknowledged–once it completes its move to the Harlem River Rail Yards.

District Manager Cedric Loftin strongly disagreed, saying a memorandum of understanding negotiated by the borough president in answer to critics of the deal, showed that the borough’s highest-ranking official was taking local citizens’ concerns to heart.

“I understand people should have been brought to the table,” Loftin said, but added, “I don’t think the door is closed” for further discussion.

“There’s going to be an opportunity for many jobs here,” Loftin continued. He added that he thought Diaz would meet with the board to answer concerns that FreshDirect will not comply with the agreement. In it, FreshDirect promises to try to fill about 200 of the 600 new jobs the company says it will create with Bronx residents and to build a cleaner-running fleet of trucks. The company is also scheduled to meet with borough president’s office in June to discuss expanding its service to the Bronx, where it currently delivers only to Riverdale and Woodlawn.

Critics call the agreement toothless, saying there are no sanctions if FreshDirect falls short on its promises, and say that the additional garbage and the air pollution from increased truck traffic far outweigh any benefits to the neighborhood.

“What happens to the jobs after they get the money?” Johnson asked.

“I’m not here to rubber stamp that,” said Land Use Committee chairwoman Arline Parks of the city’s deal. “I’m not saying it’s not a good deal, but the fact they didn’t come to us is a problem.”

Parks criticized the Galesi Group, the real estate developer that leases the rail yard and will be FreshDirect’s landlord, saying it has imposed burdens on the neighborhood without corresponding benefits. “The giveback has not been there in exchange for what they’ve gotten,” she said.

Community board members “often find out after the fact,” she added. “We need to hold them more accountable.”

The board agreed almost unanimously to a motion Johnson presented, condemning the process by which the city deal was done.

“There has to be a point at which we say ‘basta,’” Johnson said, to loud applause.

Opponents of company’s move to Mott Haven seek broad support for boycott

Over a dozen South Bronx activists took their protest against FreshDirect to the Upper West Side on March 21st, urging Manhattanites to join them in a citywide boycott of the online grocer. 

The activists, representing a group called South Bronx Unite, gathered at Verdi Square on W. 72nd St. to rally support. They argue the food delivery company’s planned move to Mott Haven will add extensive truck traffic to a neighborhood whose residents are already among the city’s most asthma-plagued.

FreshDirect announced in February it will move from its Queens facility to the South Bronx, after the city offered it $130 million in loans and incentives to keep it from moving to New Jersey.

“We want everyone in the city to know that this is a very serious issue that doesn’t just impact the South Bronx,”said Harry Bubbins, director of the Mott Haven group Friends of Brook Park.

“FreshDirect customers are around here, and their customer base needs to be aware of the impact that they are having on us,”said Daniel Wallace, a Mott Haven resident.

Asthma hospitalization rates are higher in the South Bronx than anywhere else in the city, according to a 2008 study conducted by the city’s Department of Health, but Community Board 1 member Mychal Johnson said the tony Upper West Side is equally affected by noise and pollution from Fresh Direct’s vehicles.

“We just want to let Manhattan residents know it’s not just a Bronx issue,” he said.

Ivelyse Andino, who has lived in Mott Haven her whole life, said she suffers from asthma and is worried about pollution from the trucks.

“I’m tired of seeing the city polluting our neighborhoods, doing back-room deals with public money and not considering the community,” she said.

Brian Chidester, who recently moved to Port Morris from Virginia, said he had open-heart surgery in October.

“I don’t want to be breathing the kind of toxins that are going to be coming out of the trucks coming through our area every single day,” he said.

Members of South Bronx Unite protested FreshDirect's move to Mott Haven on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Photo by Alex Robinson

FreshDirect officials have said the company will transition gradually to a fleet of electric trucks, including ten when it opens. In addition, they vow to create up to 1,000 jobs over five years.

Protesters said they are skeptical the company will keep its word. They alluded to an audit released by City Comptroller John Liu’s office on March 19th, which revealed that over 300 companies that received similar tax breaks in 2009 failed to create or retain the jobs they had promised to.

“This is a company that wants to move to our neighborhood without offering any benefit.  We’re going to bear only costs and people elsewhere are going to get all the benefits,” Wallace said.

Opponents argue that adding insult to injury, FreshDirect does not deliver to the South Bronx, but the company has promised that will change.

A representative for FreshDirect handed out promotional flyers for the company at the protest, but he declined to comment.

“Today’s rally against FreshDirect’s decision to expand in New York ignores the positive impact of our public-private partnership with the city,”the flyer read.

Audio slideshow produced by Tom DiChristopher and Alex Robinson

The Andrew Jackson Houses on Courtlandt Ave. Photo by Sarah Grile

At Jackson Houses, maintenance is too little, too late

One bright spring day a year ago, Ivis Rosado opened her kitchen windows to allow dust to escape from her fifth floor apartment in the Andrew Jackson Houses, while her father Fernando chipped layers of plaster from her hallway walls. The patchwork of plaster piled on over 30 years by New York City Housing Authority maintenance workers was coming off.

For three weeks, Rosado’s Mott Haven apartment was turned upside down as she and her father worked. By the time her father finished, Rosado had amassed 16 contractors’ bags full of debris.

Do-it-yourself repairs have a way of turning any home upside down. But they’re especially traumatic when they have to happen because a landlord has failed to maintain an apartment in livable condition. For Ivis Rosado and thousands of other tenants, that landlord is the New York City Housing Authority, or NYCHA, the biggest residential property owner in New York City.

Across the city, NYCHA tenants have decided to take repairs into their own hands, as the authority staggers under a massive backlog. Among its 178,000 apartments, more than 700,000 work orders await completion and another 300,000 are in the pipeline. Leaks, cracked walls, rodent infestations, broken cabinets and appliances and other deterioration demand the constant attention of work crews.

The Housing Authority has a backlog of $7 billion in needed repairs. Meanwhile its capital budget, which pays for big investments such as roofs, plumbing and elevators, faces a $13 billion gap through 2015, and NYCHA expects a $138 million cut this year to its $3 billion operating budget, which includes salaries for maintenance staff.

The agency has cut one in 10 of its maintenance workers over the last six years, even as the number of work orders coming in has soared.

In the face of tenant frustration, last year NYCHA created a special repair team to target 10,000 apartments in buildings with the heaviest load of backed-up work orders. That effort is already yielding results, says authority spokeswoman Sheila Stainback.

“In just six months, the repair teams that include carpenters, plumbers, plasterers and maintenance workers successfully completed nearly 40,000 repair work orders,” she said.

A new City Council initiative aims to funnel $10 million to the Housing Authority to allow it to hire 176 residents to complete some repairs. But in the meantime, tenants like Rosado are taking the DIY route.

Nearly 30 years ago, Rosado remembers, green painted walls greeted her as she moved into her new home in the Jackson Houses on Cortlandt Avenue. From an early age, Rosado learned what it meant to be self-sufficient as she watched her mother Carmen fix up the apartment when she got tired of waiting for repairmen.

The most persistent problem, which to this day still affects tenants who live in the B and C line apartments, is a leak from a broken pipe on the 16th floor of Rosado’s building.  For more than 30 years, the leak has caused the plaster on the bathroom ceiling and adjacent hallway walls of her 5th floor apartment to chip and fall.

Over the years another leak, in Rosado’s son’s room, produced a gaping hole in his closet, exposing the hollow interior between his room and the apartment next door. It also gave waterbugs a portal into the apartment.

Stainback of the Housing Authority says that inadequate funding from the federal government has fueled delays and deterioration. Without additional capital funds, she says, “Ultimately, whatever we’re trying to do is patchwork.”

Part of the problem may be of the authority’s own making, tenants say, as workers turn to provisional fixes, like plastering over a hole, instead of tackling the cause, like the leak in Rosado’s building.  

A neighbor of Rosado’s, Danny Barber, has stepped into the breach. He is the tenant association president, and each week he conducts a vertical tour through every building in the complex. If he sees that a doorknob is missing or a light fixture is broken, he makes a note of it and puts in a work order for the repair.

Like Rosado, Barber, 42, is a lifelong resident of Jackson Houses. He is also the most formidable voice for the tenants at Jackson, having turned his volunteer duties as president into a full-time if still unpaid job.

In his eight years in the position, Barber has become a thorn in the Housing Authority’s side, using the high-level contacts he’s made in the authority and in the mayor’s office to advocate for tenants. Whenever an elevator is out of service, a call from Barber to the local management office usually gets it back in action within the hour.

But he is powerless to address NYCHA’s budget deficit, which has allowed crucial structural problems at Jackson to go unaddressed.

That’s why Rosado’s father took on the repair job. Plastering and painting the apartment took three weeks and cost $1,200 for materials. But because the leak from the apartment above persists, he still must return every few weeks to patch-up the plaster above the showerhead.

Barber applauds Rosado’s father for stepping in. “He’s willing to sacrifice his time,” says Barber, “and he’s willing to give up all his money to fix the problem in the building to help the Housing Authority.”

Not every tenant has the means and the resources to do their own repairs, however. Jeanette Otano, another Jackson resident, who has lived in the development for nine years, is also battling a leak in her bathroom ceiling.

Maintenance workers did not come soon enough. Moisture from a leaky toilet caused the plaster to break off in large chunks. Once parts of the ceiling fell, the Housing Authority sent a worker to inspect the damage.

Then, though, the urgency vanished. Three months later, a soggy layer of plaster and paint, created by the continuing leak, fell onto the floor. When Otano reported it, on November 20, 2010, she learned that her ceiling would not be fixed until May 2012. Like Rosado, Otano reached out to Barber, who was able to help speed up her appointment.

Otano, however, is bracing to repeat the ordeal. Until the upstairs leak is fixed, her ceiling will keep accumulating moisture, making it likely to fall once again.

Some tenant advocacy groups around the city have begun to pursue other strategies to generate results for tenants who can no longer endure the long wait for repairs to be made. They have been taking cases to Housing Court. Some tenants also withhold rent to force action.

Danny Barber looks for solutions closer to home. He is convinced that regular tenant involvement and participation in Jackson Houses tenant association meetings, which usually see the same 20 or so loyal residents, could curb some of the persistent problems plaguing the buildings. He is disappointed when tenants compound existing decay by vandalizing buildings and elevators, breaking the glass panes from building entries or dumping trash in the hallways.

Frustrated at the apathy that he sees, Barber often thinks of quitting his post. Rosado jokingly threatens to kill him if he ever seriously considered stepping down.

This story is adapted from a longer version in The New York World. It was produced in the Jack Newfield urban investigative reporting class at Hunter College.

Ray Figueroa explains how a youth-run greenhouse he wants Mott Haven residents to vote for would operate, if they vote for it as part of a new community budgeting initiative. Photo by Alex Robinson

Ray Figueroa would like to see a solar-powered greenhouse at Millbrook Houses in Mott Haven, with a farmer’s market that would be run by young people from the neighborhood. Some want designated barbecue areas, while others want the streetlights fixed.

These were among dozens of initiatives Mott Haven residents serving as volunteer budget delegates presented at Betances Houses on St. Ann’s Ave. in late February, as part of City Council member Melissa Mark-Viverito’s first participatory budgeting project.

The delegates who decided on the projects volunteered last fall to take part in helping decide how to divvy up $1 million in funding for projects ranging from youth recreation to playground renovations.

All of of the delegates live or work in Mark-Viverito’s district. They have been shrinking the list since area residents came up with over 500 proposals in November. A mere 28 project possibilities remain. These are up for a final vote across Mark-Viverito’s district in March, which includes Mott Haven, East Harlem and the Upper West Side.

After the presentations, residents in the small crowd read descriptions of the proposed items on poster boards and had a chance to ask questions.

Other proposals that have survived the cut so far include the installation of security cameras at Millbrook Houses, new recycling bins, and playground renovations at numerous public housing complexes.

Ray Figueroa explained the value the solar-powered greenhouse at Millbrook Houses could have for the neighborhood.

“We’re talking about growing food and growing income; harvesting health and harvesting wealth,” he said.

“The greenhouse is an investment for the future,” said delegate Joe Perez. “It will teach our kids how to grow and how to run their own business.”

Perez said the farmer’s market would keep money in the community because local residents will not have to negotiate with farmers from upstate when they bring in produce.

Adriane Agostini of Mott Haven said she likes the idea of the greenhouse because it will show kids how to grow their own food and give them a safe place to go.

“We need more projects like this to get kids off the streets,” she said.

Perez said he may vote for a streetlight fixing initiative at a public housing complex.

“I’ve seen some of this housing at night and I wouldn’t walk through them unless I had the marines behind me,” he said.

Mark-Viverito said she will use the results of the project as a benchmark to help decide the rest of her budget. Even ideas that do not survive the final vote may get some funding, she said, depending how much she has available in her budget. She added she would consider allocating more of her budget to participatory budgeting next year.

“Looking at the projects people are coming up with and then looking historically at what I’ve allocated money to, I’m glad and comfortable that I’ve been able to put money where people say they want it,” she said.

The Councilwoman’s office has now given the delegates the task of informing residents about the process, and getting out the vote.

All residents of Mark-Viverito’s district who are over 18 are eligible to vote. Voters can choose up to five different proposals on their ballots.

Final voting on which of the 28 projects will get funded is slated to take place on March 31^st between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. at Betances Senior Center, at 401 St. Ann’s Ave, or during work hours at the Councilwoman’s office at 110 E. 116^th St. between March 25^th and March 31^st.

A rendering of the city's proposed Crossroads Plaza at E. 149th St. and Southern Boulevard.

Community Board set to vote on proposed zoning change

The city has decided to build a massive, three-building complex at the intersection of Southern Boulevard and Union Avenue and E. 149^th St., where the eviction of the Morning Glory community garden in November led to the arrest of four protesters and a journalist.

The construction of a complex with buildings ranging from eight to 15 stories high requires a zoning change to accommodate denser development than is permitted under the current land use rules.

The complex would include an Easter Seals school for special needs children, 37,000 square feet of retail space and 430 new apartments. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development has chosen Queens-based Douglaston Development. The developer and the city would co-own the building.

HPD spokesman Eric Bederman says the complex will provide “badly needed new affordable apartments for low-income and moderate-income New Yorkers.”

But some residents say the project, dubbed Crossroads Plaza, is being pushed through without enough public notice, and add that it will sacrifice the need for green space to development. They want officials to address concerns about financing, environmental remediation and whether rents will be realistic for Mott Havenites.

“There haven’t been funds secured prior to asking for our support,” said neighborhood activist Mychal Johnson, who heard the Department of Housing and Development’s presentation, and found it short on details. “Not having finances in place gives me uncertainty about the future of the project. We’ve seen sometimes where funding wasn’t secured and it didn’t turn out the way it had been planned.”

Johnson also questioned whether the rents would really be affordable to area residents. “The rates they’re using for what they say is affordable don’t apply to our area,” he said.

Officials say the eight-story Easter Seals building will be built first, to be followed by 13- and 15-story buildings where the stores and apartments will be located.

The city says apartments in the first building will go for between $808 and $1,135 for one-bedroom apartments and between $979 and $1,371 for two-bedrooms. Families with incomes ranging between $31,700 and $79,320 will be eligible, including a 50 percent preference for residents of Community Board 1.

After hearing the city present its plan in early February, Community Board 1′s Land Use committee agreed almost unanimously to send it to a Feb. 23 vote on the zoning change. City rules require the community board to hold a hearing and vote on zoning changes, then to send the proposal to the borough president. Final decisions on zoning are made by the City Planning Commission and the City Council.

City officials removed the plants—which had been planted without a permit–and fenced off the lot in November. Angry members of the garden group briefly occupied the community board office later that month. When they staged a demonstration in December, police broke it up, arresting five.

Mott Haven resident Aazam Otero who gardened at the site, charged the city used “overly heavy-handed treatment” to evict him and other gardeners, and said the community board is not doing enough to inform the public about the proposal, and may even be trying to avoid public scrutiny. He thinks residents would support the urban farm he and his group want to create, rather than supporting commercial development.

“The community board is not willing to be contested or to give us an opportunity,” he said. “From start to finish, there’s been no real community input.”

Not so, said Cedric Loftin, district manager of Community Board 1, adding all committee meetings are public, and that the area’s 22 Green Thumb-registered community gardens are more than in any other community district.

Loftin said the addition of more gardens is always open to consideration. “It’s not like that avenue is closed to anyone,” he said, but added, “that particular site has been earmarked for affordable housing.”

Speaking for HPD, Bederman offered assurances that any toxic material from the gas station would be cleaned up before construction begins and added that HPD is sensitive to the needs and demands of local gardeners.

“Unfortunately, the people who recently unlawfully entered this city-owned site did not seek permission to do so from HPD,” Bederman wrote in an email, and added they did not “consult the community board to determine the status of this property.”