The Related Companies’ proposal to turn the Kingsbridge Armory into a massive shopping mall is near the end of the city’s land use review process and is now in the hands of the City Council.

The Council rarely rejects projects that make it this far, but community activists and Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. have insisted that the Council do just that if Related does not sign an enforceable community benefits agreement (CBA), specifically one that requires incoming retailers to pay workers a living wage ($10 with benefits, $11.50 without). 

Key to the decision of Council members in other boroughs will be how well the Bronx’s Council delegation sticks together. Sources close to the negotiations have said that outgoing Council Member Maria Baez who did not show up at the Tolentine rally despite it and the Armory being in her district (see p. 2) will vote for the project even without a CBA.

Members of the Kingsbridge Armory Development Alliance met last week with Council Member Oliver Koppell, who has long taken an interest in this facility which lies just outside his district. 

“[His] basic position is that they [the Council members] are going to negotiate with Related, that they’re going to get the best deal possible,” said Doug Cunningham, a KARA member and Bedford Park resident who is pastor of New Day Church. “But I got the impression that [Koppell] was going for the project one way or the other.”

Koppell said on Tuesday that he agreed that there must be an enforceable CBA but that he wouldn’t draw a line in the sand on living wage. “I said I couldn’t commit to a particular formulation on the wage issue,” Koppell said he told Cunningham.

Related did finally meet with Diaz and the Bronx Council delegation last Friday and both Diaz’s office and Jesse Masyr, a Related spokesman, said it went well and progress was made.
Even so, time is short.

Related’s proposal will first come before the Zoning and Franchises Subcommittee of the Land Use Committee on Nov. 12. It will then go to the full Land Use Committee for a hearing and vote on Nov. 16. If it passes there, it will go to the full City Council the next day.

Tony Avella, the Queens councilman who chairs Zoning and Franchises, is siding with the borough president and KARA. And while Melinda Katz, chair of the Land Use Committee, is not yet willing to show her cards, she did show up to support the Coalition at their Oct. 25 rally.

Joel Rivera and Larry Seabrook are the Bronx members of the Zoning Subcommittee. At the rally, Rivera said he wouldn’t vote for the project unless Related negotiates an agreement with KARA.
Rivera, Seabrook and Baez are members of Land Use along with Bronxites Annabel Palma and Maria del Carmen Arroyo. Palma told the Norwood News her support was contingent upon a guarantee of living wage jobs.