Gowanus residents fight 400-bed migrant shelter inside ‘toxic building’ — and say it’s for asylum seekers’ own good: lawsuit
Residents near the infamous Gowanus superfund site are fighting against a 400-bed migrant shelter — but they say it’s for the asylum seekers’ own good, according to a new lawsuit.
Mayor Eric Adams’ administration plans to open the shelter at the corner of Third and Bond streets on the canal’s shoreline, an area tagged by the US Department of Environmental Protection as toxic in 2010.
Despite an ensuing $500 million cleanup project and the neighborhood’s growing status as a hotspot, a resident group says the site of the shelter is still contaminated.
“Selecting a toxic building in a manufacturing zone with no remediation run by one of the city’s ‘worst landlords’ to shelter vulnerable migrants is a recipe for disaster,” the Third Street Block Association said in a statement to The Post.
The association and other plaintiffs’ comment targeted one of the co-owners of the company that owns the building — David Levitan — who previously landed on the city public advocate’s list of “worst landlords” list in 2015.
The lawsuit filed in Brooklyn state Supreme Court claims the city and 130 Third Owner LLC and BHRAGS Home Care Corp, which would run the shelter, failed to conduct an environmental review under state law or give “consideration for the long and very well-known history of environmental contamination in this area.”
“This oversight stands in sharp contrast to the sensible development restrictions the City has placed on other properties in the Gowanus neighborhood to protect the health and safety of people living there,” lawyer Christopher Rizzo of Carter, Ledyard & Milburn said in court papers. “The City’s homeless population deserves no less under the State Environmental Quality Review Act.”
Both the city’s zoning law and administrative code bar the conversion of existing industrial or commercial buildings located in a manufacturing district to be used for residential housing or “rooming units” — except under limited circumstances, the plaintiffs said.
The suit notes that the city Planning Commission did not include the shelter site in an 82-block Gowanus Rezoning District allowing residential as well as manufacturing use.
“HPD conducted no environmental review…..which is especially troublesome given that HPD’s
decision would result in hundreds of persons residing in a location with a long and extremely
well-known history of environmental contamination,” the suit said.
A City Hall spokesperson said it was reviewing the lawsuit.
The city Department of Social Services/Homeless Services said it has contracted with BHRAGS Home Care to operate the sanctuary site for up to 400 recently arrived migrants. Though it’s an emergency site, officials said Gowanus residents were given notice months in advance of the planned opening.
DSS said in a statement to The Post that it is providing a secure and safe environment for the migrants in Gowanus, with round-the-clock security and a 24-hour open line for community feedback though it didn’t address the site specifically.
A DSS rep said more than 178,000 migrants have arrived in the city since the spring of 2022 — with hundreds more arriving weekly — and the city has opened 216 emergency sites across the five boroughs to meet the unprecedented need, pushing the city’s shelter system “well past its breaking point.”
“Additional capacity is desperately needed, and we need every community to come together as we identify viable capacity across all five boroughs to meet the urgent need for shelter,” the agency spokesperson said.
“As the city continues to call on our federal and state partners for additional support, we are using every tool at our disposal to address this humanitarian crisis, and connecting vulnerable households to vital support to help them move on to the next step in their journey.”
The Post reached out to the building owner, David Levitan, for comment.
Brooklyn Councilwoman Shahana Hanif, who represents Gowanus, has not objected to the shelter, the plaintiffs said.
The Adams administration has come under criticism for issuing too many pricey no-bid emergency contracts for migrant services — including to one vendor for providing pre-paid cash cards to asylum seekers and to other private firms charging exorbitant costs for security and other staffing.
