Brooklyn Rezoning Could Benefit Kushner

Today, Jared Kushner is a White House senior advisor. But in 2014, he was CEO of his family real estate business, pushing into Brooklyn in a big way. 

"It’s funny," he said at a conference held at the Brooklyn Academy of Music that year, "when I think back on starting my career, the last place I thought I would be is spending a lot of time in was Brooklyn.”

One of the lots he found was 175-225 Third Street, across the street from a Whole Foods supermarket and abutting the Gowanus Canal, the federal Superfund site currently undergoing an expensive and lengthy clean-up by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Currently, the Kushner site is being used as a parking lot, but the neighborhood is in the early stages of a process that could see it rezoned from manufacturing to mixed use. If that happens, the Kushner property could become far more valuable.

"For developers, Gowanus must be a Shangri-la" said Katia Kelly, a local activist who runs the blog “Pardon Me For Asking.” That’s a concern for the local councilmember, Brad Lander.

Kushner has stepped down as CEO from his namesake business and sold many assets to his brother and a family trust that includes his mother, Seryl, as the trustee. Kushner now works in the White House, which oversees the EPA, which oversees the cleanup of the canal. As that work finishes in Brooklyn, real estate developers who own properties nearby could stand to benefit, including the Kushner real estate company and its partner, SL Green Realty Corp.

SL Green put up financing for the site and now owns 95% of the lot, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. A spokesman for SL Green declined to comment for this story.

But it's the continued role that the Kushner company plays that Lander said makes him feel trapped.

"Not doing something has risk," Lander said. "If we don’t vote to rezone, they might cancel the Superfund cleanup, and really screw the whole area, and I wouldn't feel good about that."

"The flip side feels ethically worse," he continued. “Voting to take part in enriching the White House senior adviser while he’s got authority over the canal, that feels ethically tainted in a way I don’t see how I could do and how I could ask my colleagues to do."

In response, a White House spokesman said, "Jared takes the ethics rules very seriously and would never compromise himself or the administration." The EPA said the cleanup is proceeding apace and expects parts will be completed in 2022 and "it would be inappropriate to speculate" about other factors that could impact the clean-up.

As for the Kushner real estate company,  spokesperson Christine Taylor said in a statement that the "project would be a great benefit to the neighborhood." She said it will include affordable housing, an esplanade along the canal and "artist maker space in keeping with the unique character that has emerged in Gowanus."

Lander, who represents this part of Brooklyn, one of the more progressive districts in the city, is unpersuaded.

“What's different here is not Jared Kushner...not the president's politics which, whether we like them or don't like them, and I don't like them," he said. "The issue is there's just a fundamental conflict of interest.” 

Once, the Kushners, like the Trumps, prided themselves on working with and cultivating local politicians. Now, Kushner's role in the White House may be doing precisely the opposite.