« C.B. 1 approves Ratner’s tax break just by saying no | Main | EMINENT DOMAINIA: The Big Apple Bites! »
July 1, 2008
City Portraits: Upstart Could Bring Hip-Hop To The Hill
City Limits
By Curtis Stephen
Kevin Powell is the lone challenger running this September against Representative Edolphus Towns in Brooklyn's 10th Congressional District. This lengthy profile of Powell mentions his opposition to the proposed Atlantic Yards development.
Yet as his candidacy receives the support of both the Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats – a political club headed by Chris Owens, son of former U.S. Rep. Major Owens of Brooklyn – and the advocacy group Democracy for New York City, Powell is fully aware of the symbolism. If elected, he would become the first and the most identifiable member of the hip-hop generation ever to serve in the U.S. Congress. On national issues, both Powell and Towns oppose the war in Iraq and support a single-payer healthcare system. But while campaigning on Memorial Day, Powell told practically every resident he encountered about the catalyst for his candidacy: The incumbent’s "absent and ineffective advocacy" on a host of local needs. "What we need in Congress from this district, as we enter a new presidential administration and a new decade, is active leadership that deals with the concerns of regular working-class people," he says.
Chief among those concerns, Powell maintains, is Forest City Ratner’s $4 billion Atlantic Yards redevelopment project that has won Towns’ backing. "We still don’t know what is going to happen there," says Powell, who is skeptical about how many of the plan’s 6,430 rental apartment units will be retained for low- to moderate-income households in the future. "Building $300,000 condos on Flatbush and Myrtle doesn’t factor in people in the $20,000 to $30,000 annual salary bracket who are being priced out," he adds. He argues that future development projects in the borough should be more inclusive, citing the housing initiatives provided by the Park Slope-based Fifth Avenue Committee to lower-income folks in south Brooklyn.
Posted by steve at July 1, 2008 7:46 AM