By Doug Cunningham, Katrina Foster and Tobias Haller

On June 24, Community Board 7 held a public hearing on the Related Companies’ application to develop the Kingsbridge Armory.
This has been a long time coming. If done well, this project will become an engine to revitalize the community; helping northwest Bronx residents succeed for generations to come, with new schools, recreation and community space, new shops which do not drive out existing neighborhood business, and the creation of good jobs for local residents.

Sadly, Related’s application for the sale and rezoning of the Armory falls far short of these goals. In particular, Related’s plan for their “Shops at the Armory” calls for 1,200 30-hour per week, part-time, no-benefit, poverty-wage jobs. Related has gone so far as to state that they will not even discuss living wages for the jobs that they will create in the Armory.

As ministers, we know from our parishioners the devastating toll low-wage, part-time work takes on our families and communities.

One of our congregants, Pauline, was working one of these 30-hour a week, no benefit jobs and struggling to make ends meet. She knew she needed to get a second job, but worried about the effect on her two teenagers who would be left alone in the evenings. She really had no choice but to take the second job in order to pay the rising rent.

Sure enough, within a few weeks, her son got caught up with a group of kids in the neighborhood, ended up getting arrested for robbery and is now in a juvenile detention center upstate. Her daughter fell behind in her schoolwork and became disruptive in class. It only takes one or two disruptive students for an entire class to become difficult to teach, robbing them of the education that they deserve and need to succeed in this world. This is the legacy of poverty wage jobs in a community where 40 percent are already paying more than half of their income on rent.

That is why the Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance (KARA), which represents many components of the community, clergy, small business and labor, turned out in force on June 24 to tell CB 7 members to vote “No” on Related’s application.

This is a public project, and local and city officials have a duty to protect the public’s interests. Related has already received promises of $90 million in public financing through tax credits and repairs to the building. In addition, they seek to purchase the 600,000 square foot Armory for a bargain, $5 million. Related must be held accountable and the Community Board must be held responsible for the expenditure of these public funds.

So, it all comes down to this: will the historic Armory be used for public good or private gain? Will another lucrative Bronx development pay poverty wages after the construction is done? Or will our public officials insist that good, living wage jobs for our local residents and the right to form unions without threat or intimidation be created in this Armory Center?

The Armory project calls the question: What type of development serves New Yorkers best? Will it be one based on the privatized, deregulated, unrestrained and now bankrupt model that brought on our current recession? Or can we do better? Can we meet the community’s need for good jobs that pay a living wage — the bedrock of healthy families and communities?
This is what Community Board 7 must decide within the next 30 days.

While Community Board 7 deliberates, our job is to hold them accountable. We need to speak out and let our voices be heard.

We need to be clear that the Kingsbridge Armory is Our Armory and its development must serve the public good.

That is why we will be rallying on July 15, 6:30 p.m. at PS 86, right across the street from the Armory. We urge you to join us that day as we stand up for a project that will benefit not just the developer, but also the people of the northwest Bronx.

Cunningham, Foster and Haller are pastors at New Day Church, Fordham Lutheran Church and St. James Church respectively.