Members of the City Council’s Bronx delegation, at a public hearing, said they opposed the project because the developer would not agree to a living wage provision for armory workers. On December 14, 2009, the City Council denied Related Companies’ redevelopment plan for the long-vacant Kingsbridge Armory in the northwest Bronx. Under the proposal, Related would have built a four-story structure within the armory providing 500,000 sq.ft. of commercial space, 27,000 sq.ft. of community facility space, 30,000 sq.ft. of open space, and a sub-level parking garage. To facilitate the $300 million project, the proposal included applications to dispose of the City-owned armory and to rezone the area from an R6 district to a C4-4 commercial use district.

At the City Planning Commission’s hearing, members of the Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance (KARA), a coalition of nineteen Bronx community groups, and a representative of Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. expressed concerns about the project’s impact on the community. They requested that Related sign a community benefits agreement guaranteeing a living wage provision that would provide employees with a salary of at least $10 an hour with benefits, or $11.50 an hour without benefits. The owners of a nearby supermarket chain claimed that a potential new supermarket within the armory would hurt the local markets in the area. (read more…)