Evergreen’s Statement on NYC DCP’s Industrial Plan

Evergreen is a passionate champion for the industrial and manufacturing community. We advocate, guide, and serve. Our work anchors businesses so that employers, their workers, and the city can thrive. On behalf of our organization and the North Brooklyn community we have served for over 40 years, we express our strong opposition to key elements of the Industrial Plan in its current form. If the plan is not revised, NYC risks destabilizing the very businesses and jobs it was meant to support—particularly in North Brooklyn, where we have 47,900 direct, indirect, and induced jobs and $15 billion total in economic activity flowing from industrial businesses.

The plan fails to meet the intent of the legislation that called for it: to support and grow the industrial sector. Though it contains 72 recommendations, it provides no clear data on how these actions would affect job creation, business retention, or the amount of land available for industrial use. Instead, the plan gives the impression that the Department of City Planning (DCP) is using this process to advance unrelated development goals—at the expense of working-class jobs.

The draft plan has already sparked speculation. The proposed maps published on the NYC DCP website omit protections for large portions of industrial land, signaling to the market that rezonings are imminent. This encourages vacancy and displacement, just as we witnessed in the lead up to the 2005 Greenpoint–Williamsburg rezoning, when industrial tenants were pushed out in anticipation of redevelopment.

By proposing mixed-use zoning in unprotected industrial areas, the plan creates a blueprint for gentrification. Such actions would drive out industrial employers and erase accessible, family-sustaining jobs. The resulting housing would not be affordable to the very residents whose livelihoods are being displaced.

DCP’s claim that Industrial Business Zones (IBZs) are merely tax policy instruments ignores two decades of proven success in stabilizing industrial neighborhoods and curbing speculation. The longstanding commitment to refrain from residential rezonings within IBZs has been vital to protecting good jobs, maintaining essential services to a functioning city, and preserving a balanced economy.

Evergreen is particularly alarmed that large portions of the North Brooklyn and Greenpoint–Williamsburg IBZs—including the most job-rich industrial corridors—have been excluded from “primary” and “secondary” industrial designations. Businesses in these areas have made substantial investments in their facilities, supported by both private capital and public funds. Those investments—and the jobs they sustain—are now at risk. Four of Evergreen’s five industrial properties fall outside the proposed protection zones, jeopardizing our tenants and undermining public investments in affordable industrial space.

We call on the City to withdraw the draft maps and revise the Industrial Plan to restore full protections for New York City’s Industrial Business Zones and to reaffirm its commitment to sustaining and growing the good-paying, accessible jobs that keep this city working.

New York City cannot build a strong, equitable and resilient economy by undermining the very businesses that make it run. Click here for the statement and our recommendations.