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Email updates Twitter Facebook RSS FeedsThey’ve tried inflatable rats. They’ve tried lawsuits. But now opponents of developer Shaya Boymelgreen are using a rolling ad truck to get their message out.
Last week, a group of labor activists rolled through the Gowanus Canal zone in a truck covered in a four-foot banner proclaiming “Brooklyn Beware!” and directing people to their Web site, shayaiscoming.org.
Shayaiscoming.org is a coalition between the Laborers’ Union and the affordable housing advocacy group ACORN, which opposes the developer’s use of the city’s controversial 421-a tax break for luxury developments.
Only 73 of the 1,317 housing units the developer has built in the city are priced at below-market levels, according to ACORN spokesman Jonathan Rosen.
Union leaders said the big-wheeled banner would be rolling through Brooklyn regularly to highlight Boymelgreen’s record, which they complain includes using non-union workers and failing to pay them overtime wages (the state attorney general is looking into that charge).
The timing of the new anti-Boymelgreen campaign is not a coincidence: the city is currently moving forward with its rezoning of the gritty area — a decision that will shape Boymelgreen’s “Gowanus Village” development.
Boymelgreen’s spokeswoman Rebecca Regal said the truck “distorts our position and mischaracterizes our achievements.” She added that the developer’s “Gowanus Village” plan includes affordable housing.
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