2025-06-12 testify about BMT at City Council Economic Development Committee
/The BMT needs to stay in maritime use! NYC needs more #Piers4Boats
Get info on how to testify below the image. We need maritime people to testify because the NYC Economic Development Corporation (EDC) proposes little too maritime activity in their plans for the Brooklyn Marine Terminal. Below is a proposal for Atlantic Basin. Maritime activity could and should be on all sides of the waterspace. The right corner of Atlantic Basin is cropped out. That crops out PortSide’s flagship MARY A. WHALEN. We are being erased from EDC documents and plans! More at PortSideneedsahome. As of 6/9/25, the EDC’s plans for BMT are here.
ACT NOW! Thursday, June 12, 1pm, testify to the NYC Council Committee on Economic Development oversight hearing about the Brooklyn Marine Terminal (BMT) Redevelopment.
You can testify in-person, virtually, or in writing.
You have 72 hours after the hearing to submit written testimony.
Send written testimony here.
Venue changed from City Hall to 250 Broadway, 14th floor.
Full details about registration and more here.
When PortSide said that maritime needs more space in NYC and that that the EDC’s plans for BMT don’t align with the pro-maritime City policy in the Waterfront Revitalization Program, (info on that below) the EDC denied both statements. See that in this video. (This is from the 6/5/25 “All Hands” BMT meeting, eg all members of BMT Task Force and Advisory Groups, people selected by the EDC to advise. The Task Force votes on the EDC proposals; the Advisory Groups have no vote. PortSide is in an Advisory Group.)
As a result, we ask maritime people to submit written testimony describing how there is a shortage of space for maritime uses in NYC.
Template
[Date]
[Your Name]
[Your company, if you chose to add one]
[Your Address]
[City, State, ZIP Code]
[Email Address]
[Phone Number]
To: Amanda Farías (Chair)
Committee on Economic Development
New York City Council
Subject: Testimony on Oversight of the Brooklyn Marine Terminal Redevelopment Plan
Dear Council Member Farías and Members of the Committee on Economic Development,
The Brooklyn Marine Terminal should stay in maritime use. Too many working waterfront sites have already been converted to condos and parks. NYC was founded here because of its maritime assets, but the city has lost touch with how to use them.
Since the 1991 closure of the City department of Ports & Trade, there has been no one City agency planning, designing, and managing the City’s diverse maritime activity that includes cruise terminals, ports, piers for docking boats not in the cargo business (commercial and historic ships) ferries, industry workboats of all types, boats in the tourism trade, historic/cultural vessels, recreational boating - and places for shipyards and the businesses that build and maintain piers and dredge channels. Places for maritime activity have been shrinking.
[Describe what kind of maritime space is needed in NYC, include:
Struggles finding maritime space you have experienced or know about
What kind of maritime experience you have (your USCG license level, what kinds of boat or boats you have worked on, your years working in maritime, where you work now if you are willing to disclose that, other harbors you have worked in)
How other harbors are more maritime-friendly if you have examples
We would appreciate your adding that PortSide should finally be guaranteed space to create the maritime center as the EDC promised from 2008 into 2011. That is 150’ of pier for visiting vessels in addition to a berth for our ship MARY A. WHALEN, 12,000 sq ft of building space, and outdoor space ashore. More info on that at PortSideneedsahome.]
Thank you for the opportunity of this hearing.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
About the Waterfront Revitalization Program (WRP)
The Waterfront Revitalization Program (WRP) was published in 2016 before pandemic-era changes made maritime more important:
Port of NY/NJ surged from being the 3rd busiest in the USA to the 1st (that is mostly containership volume)
ecommerce surged leading to traffic issues at delivery sites, so the City DOT joined the EDC in looking for ways to move freight by water, aka marine highway or blue highway (along with other DOT solutions)
last mile facilities were built in NYC leading to traffic issues in the communities that have them, Red Hook being one, leading to more discussion of using the waterways as in 2 above.
In the WRP, read pages 23-32 for industrial maritime. Read through through to page 36 for non-industrial maritime.
Note that on page 27 is PortSide’s long-standing proposal to serve workboats, primarily tugs, with services comparable to a truckstop, one of our goals since we were founded in 2005:
“Promote the development of temporary and permanent maritime hubs to support maritime operations. Maritime hubs are sites which contain some of the following features: tie-up space, removal of bilges, grey water and sludge, refueling, water and electric connections, crew change capacity, proximity to groceries and restaurants, and proximity to transit. A hub could also integrate commercial, recreational, tourist, and/or educational uses within the same complex. Hubs should be located close to active maritime facilities, anchorage, and berthing locations to minimize travel distances.”
PortSide was the first in this harbor to propose this kind of place/service, and the EDC promised us space from 2008 into 2011 to do this (and more), but never delivered. More at PortSideneedsahome.
More background - challenges to maritime in NYC
See our webpage Advocacy for a description of what NYC is missing in terms of maritime and the dysfunction and impediments to maritime activity.
NYC was founded here because of its maritime assets, but the city has lost touch with how to use them.
Since the 1991 closure of the City department of Ports & Trade, there has been no one City agency planning, designing, and managing the City’s diverse maritime activity that includes cruise terminals, ports, piers for docking boats not in the cargo business (commercial and historic ships) ferries, industry workboats of all types, boats in the tourism trade, historic/cultural vessels, and recreational boating.
With the City acquiring the Brooklyn Marine Terminal from the Port Authority, the City will own and manage its first container terminal. The lack of a maritime agency shows in the EDC’s plans to put massive amounts of housing on this working waterfront, making about half of the 122 acres into housing and parks, reducing the container port to 60 acres and keeping the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in a separate footprint.
All maritime sectors in NYC have been trying to grow, but the City has let piers lie fallow and even fall into the sea for not understanding how to deploy them for maritime activity. The redevelopment of the waterfront that surged around 2000 was driven by land-focused people, often by the real estate industry, and favored housing developments fronted by waterfront parks and esplanades. Those had much less maritime activity that they could have and that many of us called for. If our advice had been heeded, those new waterfront parks would have piers that could serve the blue highway. New piers have been built but not for boats! We were told in 2012, that the new north Brooklyn park piers were even built with the concept “boats block the view.” WHAT? Piers ostensibly for boats have also been designed and built badly (Pier 25, Hudson River Park).
NYC is missing the boat and all the transportation, economic, tourist, cultural, and recreational benefits of more fully using the waterways, the BLUEspace. NYC needs more #Piers4Boats.
If you have follow-up questions or sugegestions, email us at Chiclet@portsidenewyork.org.
