Sunday, December 17, 2017
Forest Hills empty storefronts are bad news
From CBS 2:
There are many empty storefronts in the main shopping district in Forest Hills, Queens. They stand out like the empty space left when a tooth has been pulled, and business owners say it hurts just as much.
A staggering increase in the number of vacant storefronts is the city’s latest economic crisis, with many wondering why nothing has been done. According to a new report by the City Council, 600,000 people are employed by small retail businesses and restaurants in the city.
This made a City Council hearing on vacant storefronts all the more disheartening, Kramer reported. Members of the De Blasio administration were unable to tell Councilman Dan Garodnick and others what’s going on and what they’re doing about it.
Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz, who represents Forest Hills, says the city has to do something.
“We have to look at each neighborhood to see what is going on, and why is this happening, and also have conversations with the landlords,” she said.
Meanwhile, two state lawmakers are taking action, introducing legislation to create a property tax exemption for landlords who offer mom and pop stores a long-term lease with fair increase to help them stay in business.
31 comments:
More mixed use towers,more retail space! Yeah,that’s the ticket!
It may sound like obsessing on trivialities, but that woman in the middle sounds just like that chick who was representing the DHS in a town hall in L.I.C. a few months ago that was featured here. With that transplant Valley Girl accent. But at the matter at hand here, these appointed officials act like they have no idea what's going on or what's been happening for the past 5 years. Certainly they were hired because of their youth and social media savvy, you would think they would be cognizant of the affordability crisis among small businesses just by reading Jeremiah's Vanishing New York.
Karen there is also following and spreading the narrative too with her plausible deniability assessments. What else is there to look for? Stores are shutting down and long time businesses are being forced to leave right in front of her stupid face.
REBNY is clearly in control of things. No doubt the gentrification pandemic is hitting Forest Hills. It's not minorities they are displacing, but the upper middle and middle class and the retired. I guess the REBNY pogrom and their subservient city officials they bought off are hoping for trendy pretentious spots and monthly pop-up theme stores to fill those spaces.
It all started with the bike lanes.
in case some still don't understand why:
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2017/11/27/de-blasio-small-business-taxes/
Yes it all started with stupid (retarded is more accurate) bike lanes. Has anyone ever spotted an "elected" bicycling to work on a consistent basis? Not gonna happen. They have greenie dreams for everyone but themselves.
" We have to look at each neighborhood to see what is going on, and why is this happening, and also have conversations with the landlords,” she said."
Jesus! Is she really THAT dense?
It's happening because the city is making it almost impossible for a small business to thrive, or even just mosey along. What with taxes and difficult regulations, the city government always has their hands in your pocket.
WOW, who where the three stooges for the city. They completely as a collective could not answer any of those VERY SIMPLE questions that pretty much are comparable to 1+1. I mean why where these dumb shits hired, but we all know the real reason and JQ LLC has been on the forefront of this for some time now, the gentrification complex of the blaz administration.
AND what the fuck stupid answer was that coming from the political hack, Koz.
This is not rocket science or trying to find a cure for cancer. I mean if you cannot answer these very simple questions to a simple problem, then what the hell are you doing to do with much more complex problems (homelessness). Guess the typical, "I don't know".
I though NYC was filled with smart intelligent ahead of the curve folks, isn't that what we have been told for decades.
This is a not a find the needle in the haystack problem, it is glaring right in front of you as bright as the sum.
Is the water supply in NYC filled with an idiot chemical.
If these landlords want to pay property taxes with no no rental income because they won't come down, fine by me.
Has anyone ever spotted an "elected" bicycling to work on a consistent basis? Not gonna happen.
They have reserved parking spots at City Hall
The rent is too damn high. Bike lanes are not causing empty store fronts.
This is another example of people who were never taught the lesson of the children's parable regarding the "Golden Goose".
Such is how liberals look with contempt at all entrepreneurial endeavors where capitalism and free market economic principles are the foundational basis.
Of course Starbucks, craft breweries, and a few other select endeavors are exempted from this scorn.
Please, if you have a few minutes see this report that shows, with the exemption of traffic fines, all other fines and penalties cost MORE to collect than the moneys collected, imagine that, the government is not even capable of stealing our hard earned moneys without losing more than they take.
http://www.ibo.nyc.ny.us/iboreports/Fines.pdf
"This made a City Council hearing on vacant storefronts all the more disheartening, Kramer reported. Members of the De Blasio administration were unable to tell Councilman Dan Garodnick and others what’s going on and what they’re doing about it."
A group of people who know nothing but the fact that they HATE businesses and how they work, and who would most like that the government to take them over so we can more rapidly approach the communist Utopia they have all learned of.
"Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz, who represents Forest Hills, says the city has to do something."
Yes!
Something good or HORRIBLE,as long as it is something, so we have a talking point at election time, "we did something".
“We have to look at each neighborhood to see what is going on, and why is this happening, and also have conversations with the landlords,” she said.
Perhaps charging EXORBITANT rates for commercial property taxes, water and sewer taxes, permits, fees, fines, penalties, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Removing all customer parking an replacing it with bicycle lanes is not a good business model???
I don't shop local anymore. If I want to go buy something I go to a place with a parking lot. NYC doesn't want cars.... Who's walking?
Everyone drives out to LI to shop.
All the smart people live on the West Coast.
So the landlord wants to squeeze the tenants for more rent & the state legislature wants to bail them out. I say leave the landlords alone let them have empty buildings with no rental income and things will eventually level out. The city council is lunatic and the mayor is dysfunctional.
Koslowitz says the city should do something? YOU ARE THE CITY! But the stupid democrat lemmings keep voting for you so what do you care!
Overpriced rents due to rent gouging landlords.
I never shop in Forest Hills if I can help it because it is next to impossible to find a parking space. And it is far worse now because the never-used "bike lanes" have eliminated a LOT of parking in an area already very short of that commodity. I agree with posters above that this situation was created by libtard IDIOTS. Agenda uber reality. Meanwhile, if people can't find parking, they won't patronize stores, which then close. The place will become a wasteland, or instead of having nice stores, will be taken over by dollar stores and the like.
Now, what would you expect someone like Karen Koslowitz to say, when she is part of the hemorrhaging herself - she, and her vacuous entourage of mostly Jewish, city payroll 'Friends & Family?'
But, Koslowitz already showed Kew Gardens and Forest Hills her true colors, when, on Saturday, December 15, 2012, she idly stood by as a 22-ton statue, Triumph of Civic Virtue, was URGENTLY hauled up into the air, and lifted off of its still working fountain platform (by all publicly unauthorized, taxpayer-funded crane services——on the heels of Hurricane Sandy, no less!), as she allowed an ignorant, West Indian woman, and walking corpse (and, now finally a REAL ONE!), named Helen Marshall, whose last contempt for Queens County, the borough whom she betrayed all public trust, ethics, integrity, accountability and transparency, with impunity, was executed by the flagrant abuses of power that she wielded that was never in her purview to exploit in the first place (no public referendum, no due process, no City Charter Law review).
So, if no one was enraged after the hijacked robbery of Civic Virtue WAAAAY back in 2012, then what do you expect now from this fat blob of 'do nothing, know nothing' waste of skin, whose vacuous presence continues to deplete the Earth of precious oxygen, to do now, I ask in disbelief and exasperation?
You get the government that you deserve 'SHEEPLE!' Forest Hills: Come for the over development and empty storefronts——STAY for the profligate, wanton waste, corruption, fraud, graft, greed, mismanagement and Third Worldism!
mom & pop stores started becoming extinct 25 years ago even before Amazon took hold. Knowing this, do the greedy landlords keep prices stable? No. Only the bar or restaurant that does very very well can survive. retail has pretty much died, even the larger stores
First of all, whoever wrote this: "The REBNY pogrom and their subservient city officials they bought off are hoping for trendy pretentious spots and monthly pop-up theme stores to fill those spaces" - well done, you basically nailed down the issue that three people from the city administration could not, one of whom is the Deputy Commissioner of the NYC Department of Small Business Services.
Now this Commissioner should know why these small store front businesses are struggling, and so should Councilmember Koslowitz. This is not some big mystery. Has the Deputy Commissioner of Small Business Services actually ever walked into a small business, say a beauty salon, dress store, barber shop, diner or bodega, and spoken with an owner. I'm not talking about hearings or town halls or reading some government study. I am actually talking about getting up out of your siloed office and actually heading to an outer borough (I know, it's a stretch of the imagination) and actually listening to someone who is struggling with rent, payroll, city and state regulations, outside influences beyond their control that effects foot traffic (like those wonderful bike lanes, gentrification, and all these lovely subway closures). Karen, you're one of the better council members, but you are still joined at the hip with the county organization, Toby Stavisky, and Joe Crowley. There's only so much you are willing to do for your constituents, so let's stop pretending you're going to do anything to alleviate this problem. Giving tax relief to the landlords isn't going to stop them from raising the rents. Perhaps giving some tax relief to the small businesses may help the at least break even. And maybe ease up on some of the regulations and permits. For these Deputy Commissioner types, we are all impressed with your degrees in Urban Studies but at some point, you have to do some real life research. That means you have to step out of your comfort zone and go visit these small business and at least pretend that you care and listen to what you need, and the next time you show up at a hearing, have some answers to these questions. Why? Because it's your job.
Its is now to hostile for a patron to go to that area with a a car. To add, Some of them Russian & Jewish landlords want $30K+ a month rent. One can not sustain a business let alone earn a profit even working 12 hours days.
The Chinese guy running the Laundromat, the Greek running a restaurant cant take it no more, some of these poor business owners are working their asses off 70+ hours a week to break even ?
The lack of parking, traffic camera & tickets, bus and bicycle lanes are killing them, near 40% of business is gone. I hope the rent bubble goes bust let all these greedy commercial landlords and the no good doped up Marxist Mayor eat shit and die.
Then start all over.
And we got the commie front group Transportation Alternatives, who's stated goal is ELIMINATE cars running the DOT through the back door
That's why we got all these stupid multi million plazas & bike lanes taking our parking
Somebody's gotta shut them down
Cut the free government grant money off and we got a chance at getting some quality of life back before we move or die in this god forsaken hellhole
Those banks on 71 Av are paying 6-figure monthly rents. The same landlords who own those bank properties also own those vacant ones along Austin. They're not worried about any revenue loss. Believe me.
For years I've asked very smart people how it pays for a land lord to kick out old time businesses and ask astronomical rents, only to have their properties remain empty for years going on decades. I never get an answer I understand. Can anyone take a shot?
So if you're getting six figures from a bank at your corner property, you can't take a lesser rent to keep your other properties up and generating even more income? Makes no sense at all.
Summary of video:
City person 1: I don't know anything yet. Nobody can.
City person 2: We don't know anything from now. We don't know anything from before.
Koslowitz: I never knew there was a problem - let's talk to people to introduce us to this problem.
AAAAARRRRRRGGGH!!
Did not see the video, but if it's Austin street, I could tell you those storefronts charge alot of money for rent. Those stores would rather stay empty, and enjoy a tax break, instead of renting for a lower price. Those property owners don't give an f how it looks. The bottom line is all they worry about.
LOL. Forest Hills getting what it deserves from electing a stooge like Koslowitz?
RENT IS INSANE. Nouveau-hipsters rushed to Forest Hills because too many professional newcomers loved the sound of saying they lived there. Used to be a solidly-middle class hood, excepting the mansions along 71st. Especially out by Metropolitan. Of course all anyone cared about was how cute and quaint and twee and hip and so on AUSTIN street was.
Austin street is an open-air mall now, unremarkable and indistinct from Queens Center - but at least QC is SUPPOSED to be that.
KK and the gang are all to happy to let developers steam-roll into the heart of Queens. Maybe they got kick-backs, who knows? At least people in Mid-Vill, Glendale, ETC WERE SMARTER. They support their local business, and they DO NOT FUCKING GUSH ABOUT WHERE THEY LIVE.
There was enough buildings up of the Rego-Park/FH Queens blvd corridor by Cord Meyer, etc. Koslowitz ran unopposed btw...
And by the by, the place was Whitepot, Forest Hills is and always was an artificial, make-believe concept, like so many others engendered by developers...(but at least you can argue Cord Meyer created valued for most people, not just elites!)..people chasing a name and a zipcode, the ruin of so many perfectly good, quiet places.
>So the landlord wants to squeeze the tenants for more rent & the state legislature wants to bail them out. I say leave the landlords alone let them have empty buildings with no rental income and things will eventually level out.
>For years I've asked very smart people how it pays for a land lord to kick out old time businesses and ask astronomical rents, only to have their properties remain empty for years going on decades.
Landlords get to use empty storefronts as a tax writeoff. There's little financial incentive for them to lower the rent to fill their stores.
Add to that absurd taxes, constant fines, years or time and huge fees to get licenses and permits, parking space in front of stores disappearing, the middle class being squeezed out of the City, and it's a wonder we have any mom n' pop stores at all.
('scuse the double post)
"Meanwhile, two state lawmakers are taking action, introducing legislation to create a property tax exemption for landlords who offer mom and pop stores a long-term lease with fair increase to help them stay in business."
The most important part of the article. Who are the state lawmakers? This should be supported, it's fair and balanced. Landlords win, small business proprietors win, communities win.
I found it, I think:
http://bradlander.nyc/news/releases/legislators-announce-proposal-for-mom-pop-rent-increase-exemption-to-help-save-nyc-s-m
Looks like CM Brad Lander's suggestion.
We don't read your stuff Efreeti because of the annoying monkey icon. Please get rid of it, Thanks.
Efreeti, you make intelligent points in your commentary which is totally ruined by that JUVENILE frenetic monkey image. You want a monkey as an icon? Then get a static one.
Why do so many people want to monkey with the monkey?
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