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Take Action | Call Laurie Cumbo’s Office

Call Laurie Cumbo at 718-260-9191
This is your last chance to #killthedeal and demand 100% affordable housing at the Bedford Union Armory

The current plan for the Bedford Union Armory will push out the longtime residents who built this community.  Call Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo at 718-260-9191 and tell her that we demand 100% affordable housing for Crown Heights and we want her to #killthedeal!

Council Member Laurie Cumbo campaigned on a platform of affordable housing, but she refuses to #killthedeal with BFC Partners to redevelop the Bedford Union Armory which only includes 5% affordable housing for Crown Heights residents.

Laurie Cumbo is the only person with the sole power to #killthedeal with BFC Partners to redevelop the Bedford Union Armory.  Instead of fulfilling her campaign promise to create affordable housing in Crown Heights, she continues to negotiate with a Trump supporting, anti-union developer.  Call Laurie Cumbo at 718-260-9191 and demand that she #killthedeal!

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Black Star News | Green Party Candidate Detained for Protesting Controversial Housing Redevelopment Plan

Green Party Candidate Detained for Protesting Controversial Housing Redevelopment Plan

City Council candidate Jabari Brisport, who was detained by the NYPD on Monday, for protesting the controversial Bedford Union Armory redevelopment meeting, said he would have preferred to be arrested if that resulted in stopping the vote.

“I’m really pissed. I’m really annoyed at the vote. Its making the problem of the highest eviction rates in the city even worse. I would have gladly been locked up, if that meant the vote wouldn’t go through,” Brisport said during a phone interview.

If it [redevelopment plan] does go through [after the City Council vote], what’s gonna happen to the residents in Crown Heights is way worse than me being detained,” he continued.

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Curbed | Embattled Bedford-Union Armory conversion clears City Planning Commission

https://ny.curbed.com/2017/10/30/16573056/crown-heights-armory-city-planning-commission

Despite the opposition and protests, the project has the backing of Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is particularly in favor of the community facilities the project will bring to Crown Heights, including basketball courts, and a swimming pool. As plans stand right now, BFC Partners wants to redevelop the armory site into 330 rentals and 60 condos. Half of the rentals and 20 percent of the condos will be affordable.

On Monday, the CPC voted 11-1 in favor of the redevelopment, and now the project heads to the City Council.

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Our Time Press | Asbestos Suspected at Bedford-Union Armory

Asbestos Suspected at Bedford-Union Armory

Dr. Juan Blanco Ruiz, the architect and preservationist, read the Phase I Environmental Site Assessment (i.e., Brownfield Report) prepared by Sam Schwartz Engineering and Integral Consulting in March 2016 to find the scope of the assessment subjects did not include asbestos, lead-based paint, radon, lead in drinking water, mold and ten other services. Given the armory was built in 1906 when these substances were commonly used or the conditions existed, Dr. Blanco Ruiz has few good words for the project.

“The Drill Hall’s roof is 1.2 acres in area. The cost of asbestos remediation would be monumental. It would cost as much as $50 million to replace the roof and it is not what they (BFC Partners) budgeted,” explains Dr. Ruiz. He discovered the presence of asbestos in the building “upon reading a professional journal published in 1906 which announced the completion of the armory”. In that article, they placed special pride in the use of new “fireproof mineral roofing cement”.