City misrepresenting property in order to sell it

From the Times Ledger:

In a city auction nine years ago, a man put up hundreds of thousands of dollars for what he thought was waterfront property, but it turned out to be a parcel of land in the middle of a College Point boat yard and now the Department of Citywide Administrative Services is attempting to pawn off the parcel once again.

At the time, the 3,850-square-foot, irregularly shaped lot was completely surrounded by a gravel area that the College Point Yacht Club used to store boats, much to the bidder’s surprise.

In a brochure the city is distributing, a map of the lot shows it is bordered on one side by a road — a road that does not yet exist.

The city wants to extend Powell’s Cove Boulevard right through the yacht club’s borders on land the club rents from the department. The road would pass right by the property.

McCrossen said the club owns land on the other side of the proposed road that it wants to give to the city in exchange for the irregularly shaped lot. A trade would streamline its property without sticking the club with a useless triangle-shaped strip of grass across from the proposed thoroughfare.

The club turned to City Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Whitestone), who sent a letter requesting the department look into the deal, but it has not received a response.

Otherwise, the lot, which is zoned for manufacturing use, will hit the auction block at what McCrossen called the absurd minimum bid of $114,000.

The department seems to be repeating some of the same procedures that led to the last misrepresentation of the property.

A picture in the brochure is a photo of the club. In it, McCrossen said there is a blue truck the club sold about nine years ago, showing that the city is again using outdated information to pitch the oddly shaped property.