Seventh Avenue Holdout

 

 

NY Post

 Steve Roth, the 80-year-old billionaire real estate mogul, has a dream.

With the blessing of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, he wants to raze much of the area around Penn Station and put up 10 skyscrapers.

But 92-year-old Arnold Gumowitz is ready to spoil the relative whippersnapper’s hopes.

The real-estate mogul owns 421 Seventh Avenue, an office building across from Madison Square Garden that will need to be demolished if Roth’s controversial glass and steel supertalls are to happen.

But Gumowitz doesn’t want to sell the 15-story structure that he bought 43 years ago. It’s where he runs his commercial real estate empire, and where he still comes to work with his son every day.

He also definitely doesn’t want it demolished by eminent domain, a possibility he just found out about recently when he saw plans for the project with a drawing of a roughly 80-story tower in place of his own building.

“I look for fairness but when someone attacks me, I respond,” Gumowitz told The Post. “This is a generational piece of property. This is also a piece of real New York. I also hate to see this area become another impersonal Hudson Yards with nothing but tall buildings and no sunlight.”

Because the state declared the area “blighted” a year ago, Roth’s Vornado Realty and the Empire State Development Corp (ESD) — the state agency directing the project for Cuomo — have the right to tear down certain blocks in the designated area. At least 200 people will lose their homes and 9,000 employees will be out of work if the project goes ahead.

Gumowitz’ building sits at a critical spot for the planned Empire Station project: it’s in an area where the state wants to build a subway entrance and enlarge the sidewalk.

State officials, while cagey about whether they’d take Gumowitz’s building by eminent domain, indicated in a recent community board hearing on the issue that it’s a card they could play if they had to.

But to employ eminent domain, the ESD’s plan would have to undergo another review process, and a public hearing, said an official who did not want to be named.

They could also acquire the building through a negotiated sale.

Good luck with that, said Evan Cooper, who has worked for AAG Management, Gumowitz’s real estate management company, for 23 years.

“Roth and this project are coming at Arnold like a speeding train,” Cooper said. “But what they don’t realize is that Arnold is the immovable object.”

Torres leading anti-tweeding investigative committee

From the NY Times:

If there was any lingering doubt that Mayor Bill de Blasio’s mostly harmonious relationship with the City Council was about to change, Councilman Ritchie Torres may put that question to rest.

Mr. Torres, a Democrat from the Bronx, has been chosen by the Council’s newly selected speaker, Corey D. Johnson, to be in charge of a new investigations unit that will look into the operation of city agencies.

In an interview, Mr. Torres said that between 10 and 15 professional investigators, possibly including former prosecutors, would be hired and that the committee would use them to conduct its own inquiries.

Among the areas of possible investigative interest, according to Mr. Torres: “The abuse of placards. The use of eminent domain. The disposition of public land. Deed restriction. The disbursement of city subsidies,” he said. “All of it is on the table.”

City taking owner's business for peanuts

From the Daily News:

New York City is using eminent domain to take an East Harlem businessman to the cleaners.

Damon Bae, whose family success story embodies the American Dream, is about to lose the shirt off his back — after a 12-year battle with the city for control of his dry cleaning enterprise.

Fancy Cleaners, a 6,000-square-foot facility at the corner of 126th St. and Third Ave., was supposed to be the cornerstone of a family empire built by a Korean couple who came to the U.S. in 1981, bringing their tailoring skills with them along with two young children and endless ambition.

But an eminent domain claim filed by the city in 2008 and enforced — after years of legal challenges — in March 2017 means Bae’s family no longer owns its premier property.

Now Fancy Cleaners has nowhere to go, and the whole enterprise will likely shutter, said Bae, 42, who runs the business created through decades of hard work by his immigrant parents.

“The city has offered my family about 30 cents on the dollar on the market value for what our three lots are worth — that’s not enough to buy anything comparable in East Harlem today,” Bae said. “The city’s working so hard to meet the developer’s timeline; meanwhile, we’re trying to stay in business.”

The city said it would pay the Bae family $3.5 million for the lot holding Fancy Cleaners when it took the property title through eminent domain in the spring, Bae said.

The asking price for a similar 5,000-square-foot lot about five blocks south of Fancy Cleaners’ current location is $11 million, Bae said.

De Blasio thinks this is "creative & bold"

From the NY Times:

Under Mayor Bill de Blasio, the city’s reliance on the cluster sites has grown along with the rise in homelessness, which has arguably been the biggest failure of his tenure.

Now the mayor is taking a large step toward ending that reliance: On Tuesday, Mr. de Blasio is expected to announce a plan to essentially convert many of the homeless apartments into affordable housing, hoping to solve a problem that has worsened over his first term.

Under the plan, the city would use public financing to help nonprofits buy roughly a third of the apartments currently used for the homeless, and then convert the apartments into affordable units, helping the mayor fulfill two goals: lowering homelessness and adding to the city’s affordable housing stock.

If landlords do not cooperate, the city intends to use eminent domain to take the property, officials said.

The planned acquisition involves 800 apartments spread throughout 25 to 30 buildings, mostly in the Bronx, which has the overwhelming majority of cluster apartments in the city. The city targeted buildings where more than 50 percent of the units were occupied by homeless people — a threshold that would guide future acquisitions, the city said.

The planned acquisition could place about 3,000 people into permanent housing; in some cases, homeless families living in the apartments would simply stay put, but would no longer be considered homeless. It was not immediately known how much the program would cost the city.

In other words, we're condemning buildings that already house homeless families in order to turn them over to someone else and then reclassifying the people living in them as "not homeless". This sounds like a plan. A bad one.

De Blasio plans to condemn Coney Island properties

From the NY Post:

Frustrated by stubborn Coney Island landowners, the de Blasio administration plans to seize property under the city’s rarely used power of eminent domain in order to spur long-stalled economic development in the People’s Playground, The Post has learned.

The Parks Department plans to create new amusements and other amenities by grabbing up three vacant beachfront sites through condemnation proceedings — including a 60,000-square-foot tract that once housed the original Thunderbolt roller coaster immortalized in Woody Allen’s 1977 film “Annie Hall,” officials said.

It’s unclear what type of attractions the city wants to bring to these sites, which together total 75,000 square feet and also include smaller tracts off the Boardwalk on West 12th Street and on West 23rd Street.

City officials said they’re turning to eminent domain because they’ve been unable to cut “fair-market” deals with the property owners after exhaustive efforts.

But area business owners said they were stunned by the scheme, which includes using seized land to build new streets and parks that were outlined in a rezoning plan approved in 2009, under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Sewer project will shave off guy's living room

From the Times Ledger:

The city is taking more than 20,000 square feet from Ozone Park residents under the eminent domain law. The private property grab is meant to alleviate flooding and replace the underground sewage system in the area. For many residents, the project is a long overdue relief. But for some residents, especially those on Bristol Avenue, the changes require them to give up 14 feet deep into their property to make room for widened streets and to install sewer lines in their homes.

The city estimates the cost of the project, called HWQ411B, at more than $41 million. The repairs will include the installation of about 200 catch basins, 15 manholes and thousands of square feet of new sidewalks. According to the Department of Design and Construction, everything will be done by 2018.

“They want to buy the first 14 feet of my house, that puts them in my living room,” Carlos Reitez said. “I have a problem with them forcing me to sell my land to them.”

Reitez recently paid $10,000 for a new holding tank for his household’s waste. While the city will pay “market value” for the land they take from homeowners, they won’t pay Reitez for the costs to install a sewer system.

Reitez said that a city agent told them that the city would only remove the first five feet of his property, which would eat up just his stoop, to make room for a sidewalk. “But then why do they need to buy 14 feet from me?,” he said.

No eminent domain plans for affordable housing (right now)

From CBS New York:

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ambitious redevelopment plans won’t involve the use of eminent domain to acquire property, Planning Director Carl Weisbrod said Tuesday.

The mayor’s planning priorities include building more affordable housing and rezoning a five-block stretch of midtown Manhattan adjacent to Grand Central Terminal.

“I don’t see us using eminent domain in a broad way,” Weisbrod told a real estate conference hosted by Crain’s New York Business. “I don’t believe that it’s going to be in our toolbox.”

People in Atlantic Yards area still facing eviction

From Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report:

Nearly all the condemnees remaining in seven properties in the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park footprint have left or have agreed to leave, months after the state formally took title to their property.

But not quite all, and that made for some heated exchanges at a hearing last Thursday, 1/28/15, in front of Justice Wayne Saitta, the Kings County judge who oversees condemnation.

The judge gave one longtime homeowner another month to negotiate an exit, even as the state has suggested he consider "comparable" properties a good distance away, in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights.

But the absence of another former homeowner meant Saitta issued a "writ of assistance" requested by the state to evict condemnees by the end of February.

Barring a settlement or extension in that case, Saitta's decision sets up some unsavory optics: a sheriff could be used to remove a family with a new baby to help a private developer owned mainly by the Shanghai government build a market-rate tower, albeit with a school.

With eminent domain already approved, Saitta in September conveyed ownership the seven properties--which involved eleven separate owners/leaseholders--to Empire State Development (ESD). All are located east of Sixth Avenue, either along Atlantic Avenue or on the 100-foot strip from Dean Street to Pacific Street.

The only remaining properties in the project footprint not yet condemned are those at Site 5, bounded by Flatbush and Fourth avenues and Pacific Street, currently home to P.C. Richard and the very busy sportswear store Modell's, and slated someday to be the site of a 250-foot tower.

"Mayor's Fund to Advance NYC" is full of notorious developers

From Capital New York:

Mayor Bill de Blasio wants the city's parks and playgrounds to offer year-round equipment and recreational activites for adults and senior citizens, not only children.

The mayor presented that idea Monday morning, when he laid out several of his fund-raising goals during a closed-door meeting of the newly formed, 58-member board of advisers to the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City, according to a document obtained by Capital.

His wife, Chirlane McCray, chairs the Mayor's Fund, a 20-year-old organization that solicits donations to bolster initiatives run out of City Hall.

The three-page document outlines three priorities for de Blasio and McCray, who met with the board at Gracie Mansion.

The first idea is upgrading parks, pools and playgrounds.

"In addition to the conventional park equipment for children and passive recreation space, the model envisions: multi-purpose equipment for adults and seniors; year-round programming for kids and adults; wifi connectivity; site specific apps complementing on-site programs; unique public safety elements grounded in community policing models - all of which will build on local community partnership and park 'ownership,'" according to the memo, which was distributed to those attending the meeting.

That program will be run jointly by the city's health, education and parks departments, the mayor's Community Affairs Unit and the NYPD.

And here are the members of the Fund. Miss Heather has the poop, er, scoop:

The Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City Board of Advisors:

Husam Ahmad, HAKS Construction
Marisol Alcantara, West Harlem District Leader
Jo Andres, Artist, Filmmaker & Choreographer
Gina Argento, Broadway Stages
Barry Berke, Kramer Levin
Anthony Bonomo, Physicians’ Reciprocal Insurers
Barbara Bowen, Professional Staff Congress
Jill Bright, Conde Nast
Steve Buscemi, Actor
Derrick Cephas, Weil, Gotshal & Manges
Janet Dewart Bell, Communications and Policy Consultant
Cheryl Effron, Founder, Conjunction Fund & Founder, Greater NY
Jay Eisenhofer, Grant & Eisenhofer
Steven Feldman, Bullion International
Hal Fetner, Sidney Fetner Associates
Marian Fontana, Writer, Performer & Founder, 9-11 Families Association
Charlene Gayle, Macon Realty
Aron Govil, Ducon Technologies
Beth Green, Attorney
George Gresham, 1199 SEIU
Jon Halpern, Halpern Real Estate Ventures
Fred Heller, Metro Systems
Louis Hernandez, Former President, NYPD Hispanic Society
Anne Hess, MADRE & Philanthropist
Lorna Brett Howard, Philanthropist
Laura Imperiale, Tully Construction
Amabel Boyce James, Philanthropist
Orin Kramer, Boston Provident
Pam Kwatra, Kripari Marketing
John McAvoy, Con Edison of New York
Mary McCormick, Fund for the City of New York
Cheryl McKissack, McKissack & McKissack
Ron Moelis, L+M Development
Rud Morales, Primary One, Inc.
Mike Muse, Muse Recordings
Charles Myers, Evercore Partners
Cynthia Nixon, Actor
Ronald O. Perelman, MacAndrews and Forbes
Bruce Ratner, Forest City Ratner
Steven Rubenstein, Rubenstein Communications
Bill Rudin, Rudin Management
Bill Samuels, Effective New York
Mary Sansone, Congress of Italian-Americans Organization
Chris Shelton, CWA, District 1
Harendra Singh, Singh Hospitality Group
Daisy Soros, Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans
Jerry Speyer, Tishman Speyer
Rob Speyer, Tishman Speyer
Mary Alice Stephenson, GLAM4GOOD
Stuart Suna, Silvercup Studios
Ken Sunshine, Sunshine Sachs
Carol Sutton Lewis, Carol Sutton Lewis and William M. Lewis, Jr. Charitable Foundation
Jon Tisch, Loews
Dan Tishman, Tishman Construction
Estela Vasquez, 1199 SEIU
George Walker, Neuberger Berman
Jeff Wilpon, Sterling Equities
Steven Witkoff, The Witkoff Group

The names highlighted should get your attention. So much for the DeBlasios being real progressives. They're nothing but tweeders. Filling an advisory board with folks that have resisted and/or gotten around providing promised affordable housing, taken advantage of eminent domain for private gain, as well as a chick with an on-the-record a shady past, patners-in-grime with a slumlord who plans to use Newtown Creek environmental settlement money to build a hotel? What a joke.

You simply can't make this sh*t up.

Council Members want foreclosures condemned

From the Observer:

Council members Donovan Richards, Daneek Miller and Mark Levine rallied with activists and academics on the steps of City Hall today to call on the city to use eminent domain to stop home foreclosures.

They discussed a new report by the left-leaning New York Communities for Change (N.Y.C.C.), which revealed that thousands of African-American and Latino homeowners were still at risk of losing their homes due to foreclosures and underwater mortgages.

Mr. Richards, who represents areas like southeast Queens and the Rockaways that were hard-hit by the foreclosure crisis and Hurricane Sandy, went straight to the point.

“I’m here because I think the people need their bailout. Didn’t the banks get their bailout? So why can’t the people get a bailout?” Mr. Richards said. “Today I stand with N.Y.C.C. to call on New York City to use eminent domain to really seize these mortgages and make a difference in the lives of New Yorkers.”

Financial institutions have aggressively opposed the usage of eminent domain in this instance and questioned its legality–it remains unlikely, observers say, that it will be implemented in New York City. Mr. Levine, however, said the tactic could be viable.

Eminent domain invoked for project that may never happen

From DNA Info:

The city recently launched eminent domain proceedings for a long-delayed six-acre East Harlem redevelopment zone where property owners say they are unfairly being squeezed off their land.

The city's Planning Commission approved the acquisition of the property via the use of eminent domain in August 2008 with the goal of building the $700 million East Harlem Media, Entertainment and Cultural Center, a 1.7 million-square-foot project that was supposed to include affordable housing, retail and cultural space, and create at least 1,500 permanent jobs.

But the developers have had struggles, with developer General Growth having gone bankrupt and Archstone being acquired by another company.

The delay left the land in limbo with rising property taxes but sapped the owners' ability to sell, develop or mortgage their land because of a blight designation, necessary for any eminent domain prococess.

The city would have lost the right to use eminent domain in the area on Feb. 16 without starting the proceedings, which they did on Feb. 12.

Officials with the city's Economic Development Corporation said the filing was made to preserve their right to use eminent domain in the area "only as a last resort," because they hope to negotiate sales agreements with the property owners.

Main Street elevators get green light

From the Queens Chronicle:

The board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority on Wednesday gave its Real Estate Department the go-ahead to acquire property that will be essential for the installation of elevators at the Long Island Rail Road’s Flushing-Main Street station.

LIRR spokesman Salvatore Arena said Tuesday that the board’s Finance Committee had voted to recommend the purchase.

The land in question sits at 40-36 Main St., just north of the Main Street trestle. It is occupied by the Ou Jiang City Supermarket.

A planned $8.5 million renovation of the station will include the installation of elevators on both sides of the tracks, which right now are not handicapped-accessible.

While the resolution does include the possibility of taking the land if necessary, a statement issued by the MTA said both its legal and real estate divisions have been in contact with the property owner and the store owner since before a public hearing held last Oct. 28, and that they will work to reach a negotiated price in an effort to avoid eminent domain proceedings.

In response to concerns raised at the hearing by Councilman Peter Koo (D-Flushing), the MTA said its staff will continue working with both owners in an effort “to address their concerns and mitigate impacts as much as is reasonably possible.”

Willets Point = Bloomberg's folly

From the Queens Courier:

The proposed Willets Point economic development project is essentially government picking the winners and losers. Many of the developers continue to act like pigs, by feasting on taxpayer dollars. The borough of Queens and New York City prospered for centuries prior to the creation of various city and state development corporations over the past decades. In too many cases, projects have been heavily subsidized by taxpayers, commonly known as corporate welfare. Between direct government funding, low interest loans and long term tax exemptions — the bill to taxpayers may be greater than the benefits. Also there is a relationship between Pay for Play campaign contributions from developers to elected officials looking for favorable legislation, permits and subsidies.

Don’t forget the conflict of interest for senior staff from city or state regulatory and permitting agencies. Too many leave at the end of any mayoral or governor’s administration to become employees or consultants to the same developers they previously oversaw. Remember former Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff who went to work on some of the very same projects he previously represented at City Hall? Too many mega developers try to purchase the support of local community groups by making so-called voluntary donations. They also make promises for capital improvements, which after the major project is completed, don’t always appear.

If projects like Willets Point are so worthwhile, why can’t major developers use their own funds? Can’t they obtain loans from banks, like medium and small businesses, rather than pick the pockets of taxpayers to pay a significant portion of the bill? Can our water, sewage, power and transportation infrastructures handle the additional stress on the environment from such projects?

Existing small business people at Willets Point created their companies, over time by their own hard work and sweat with no assistance from government. During that same time period, they created hundreds of jobs. Both the owners and employees are our neighbors. They pay taxes like the rest of us. The only difference is that for decades they have been denied basic essential municipal services that we take for granted.

Real business people who believe in capitalism build companies on their own. How sad that some don’t want to do it the old fashion way by sweat and hard work. They continue to look for shortcuts in the form of huge subsidies at taxpayers’ expense, including favorable tax code changes, long term low or no interest loans, physical infrastructure improvements, such as roads, sewers and street lighting, along with eminent domain favors from elected officials.

With a looming multibillion dollar municipal budget shortfall in the upcoming fiscal year and $66 billion dollar long term debt, there are surely other priorities that City Hall could spend hard earned tax dollars on than the so-called Willets Point development project.

Shulman, Ferreras, called out at Willets Point press conference

From A Walk in the Park:

Opponents of the Willet's Point West attempted land grab in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park gathered on the steps of City Hall on Wednesday and voiced their overwhelming opposition toward the mega-development project planned on more than 30 acres of public parkland.

Under the proposal a massive 1.4 million sq. ft. mall would be built in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park on parkland currently used for Citi-Field parking. The majority of the land for the $3 billion Willets Point project would be taken from the public parkland.

Critics of the plan argue that if the 40-plus acres being proposed for mall use are no longer needed for parking then it should revert back to its original recreational use.

The City and Bloomberg-preferred developer the Related Companies in partnership with Sterling Equities, the real estate firm controlled by the owner of the Mets - are attempting this without seeking State Alienation legislation as is required under state law to use parkland for non-park purposes.
Critics denounced numerous issues regarding the Willets Point redevelopment project including:

1. This was not the deal that the Council approved: The affordable housing component has been delayed and subject to escape clauses, and the agreed living wage provision has been eliminated;
2. No project - let alone a 1.4 million square foot mall - should be built on public parkland;
3. The City Administrative Code does not authorize or provide any legal basis for the construction of a mall on 30+ acres of parkland, in violation of the parkland Public Trust Doctrine;
4. No massive development should be built in this area without new access ramps being built to and from the Van Wyck Expressway before any other construction;
5. No private property should be taken to merely be paved over as a parking lot;
6. Developers Sterling and Related were selected via a process that excluded the Willets Point Advisory Committee and Queens officials – contrary to written promises made by the City administration in 2008;
7. The City must be compensated for the $200 million it has spent to buy Willets Point property;
8. No team of billionaire developers should be given said property as a $1 gift;
9. No developer who was part of an illegal lobbying scheme should be allowed to profit for engaging in the illegality;
10. No development deal based on an illegal lobbying scheme should be approved by the City Council

Press Conference Statement from Irene Presti, Willets Point property owner:

My name is Irene Presti and I own property at Willets Point that is threatened by the illegal and unethical deal that the Bloomberg administration has put forward to develop the Iron Triangle. 

That’s right, the entire development was promoted by a violation of not only the not for profit lobbying laws of New York State; but by the brazen violation of Federal law as well.

In order to promote this dirty deal the city helped to set up a phony not for profit local development group headed by Claire Shulman. The group, made up of rich developers with the names Muss, Wilpon, Mattone and TDC, was never anything but a not for profit but in name only-it was put in place to advance the special interest of its real estate company members.

Incredibly, NYC EDC forwarded $500,000 in tax payer funds to finance this illegal lobbying scheme.

Unfortunately, this LDC was barred from doing any legal lobbying from the standpoint of the NY State law on local development corporations. Don’t just take my word for it. In July of 2012, the NY State Attorney General cited the violation of the law but, shamefully, failed to do anything to sanction the illegal behavior.

Apparently, some people are considered to be above the law and the AG even failed to demand that the Shulman group refund the illegal contribution from EDC and the tax payers. So small property owners like myself were forced to fend off the big real estate companies who were publicly funded in the campaign to take away my property.

But it gets worse folks. When the Shulman group filed for tax exempt status with the IRS there are two important boxes it checked. The first was: Will you be doing any lobbying? The second was: will you be doing any economic development? The group, lying through its teeth, answered no to both questions-even though Shulman told the NY Times that the entire purpose of the group was to lobby for the Willets Point project.

Did the IRS act on this blatant violation of the federal not for profit laws? Not on your life. It was busy chasing the Tea Party and didn’t have the time to investigate and punish a clear violation of law. So on the state and the federal level, law enforcement is a partisan activity and justice be damned!

Now, however, it gets much worse. We see that Mr. Wilpon of the Mets-the prime mover of the illegal lobbying group- has been awarded the development rights to Willets West and $200 million worth of property for $1. And there is no one with the courage to step in and put an end to this criminal scheme. Who says crime doesn’t pay?

Not only that, but the entire original development deal has been changed in a breathless bait and switch that has eliminated the affordable housing and living wage pledges that were the heart of the approval in 2008. Instead of the “next green neighborhood” we have been given a huge mall and a parking lot. For this we are abusing the eminent domain process?

I am a proud member of Willets Point United. If my group had done what EDC, Wilpon and Shulman have conspired to do, we would be under arrest and awaiting trial. Instead, Shulman remains at large and Wilpon is poised to reap billions of dollars for evading the law and ripping off the tax payers.

Willets West is a scandal and the conspirators should not be rewarded for their illegal scheme. The city council must vote, No-and let the next mayor sort out this scandal.

A film that may interest you

A story about greed, politics and the land grab of the century, ZIPPER chronicles the battle over an American cultural icon. Small-time ride operator, Eddie Miranda, proudly operates a 38-year-old carnival contraption called the Zipper in the heart of Coney Island’s gritty amusement district. When his rented lot is snatched up by an opportunistic real estate mogul, Eddie and his ride become casualties of a power struggle between the developer and the City of New York over the future of the world-famous destination. Be it an affront to history or simply the path of progress, the spirit of Coney Island is at stake. In an increasingly corporate landscape, where authenticity is often sacrificed in the interest of economic growth, the Zipper may be just the beginning of what is lost.

Zipper website

It opens Friday, August 9th at IFC in Manhattan.

Taxpayers on legal hook for Bloomberg's folly

Eminent domain legal fee reimbursement decision by unitedtriangle

From Willets Point United:

New York State Supreme Court judge Jaime A. Rios has denied a motion made by the city to dismiss the claim of Willets Point United Inc. ("WPU") seeking reimbursement of legal and expert fees incurred by WPU when defending against the city's failed attempt to use eminent domain to forcibly acquire our properties.

The decision means that WPU's claim against the city in the amount of $1,102,035.41 is valid, and will proceed in court. We are confident that the city will have to pay the fees that we are entitled to recover – adding to the already exorbitant amount of city funds being spent to pursue the proposed Willets Point development.

Way to go, EDC!

Willets Point landowner educates public on the project

Willets Point United's Gerald Antonacci teaches a "master class" concerning the changes to the proposed Willets Point development since 2008, including the free give-aways of tax dollars and properties to developers Sterling Equities and Related Companies, the suspicious delay of the housing component that was previously said to be the linchpin, and the addition of a 1,400,000 square foot "Willets West" mall to be built on mapped parkland. Essential viewing for civic-minded Queens residents.

0:00 -- Introduction
1:24 -- Lay of the Land (Willets Point Property)
2:46 -- What Was Proposed and Approved (The City's Plan)
4:44 -- But After Approvals, Changes and New Taxpayer Costs
9:11 -- Remediation Costs Shifted to Taxpayers
9:39 -- Remediation Claims Exaggerated
12:48 -- Contamination and Citi Field
13:40 -- Housing Delayed Is Housing Denied
17:11 -- Selecting Sterling / Related
20:37 -- What About The Casino?
21:16 -- Twenty Year Quest
23:22 -- Conclusion

Take notes, folks!

Brooklyn gets parks, Queensites get crap

From the Brooklyn Paper:

The neighborhood named by Dutch settlers for its plentiful woods is better known today for noisy elevated train lines and burgeoning bar scene, but residents hope the neighborhood will once again live up to its name when a planned park transforms a local eyesore into an urban oasis.

The city will convert a swath of blighted properties at the busy intersection of Bushwick Avenue and Beaver Street into a green space as soon the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which owns the vacant lots and three connected, graffiti-coated garages, razes the buildings and clears trash from the site.

The Parks Department says it won’t share its vision for the space until the demolition work is complete, but neighbors and activists already have ideas of their own.

The abandoned lots housed a welding shop and a used car dealership until the owners locked up for good after losing a condemnation fight with City Hall in 2007.

Bushwick’s green space has grown nearly seven-fold since 1999, when it had the second worst children per acre of parkland ratio of any neighborhood in the city. But the last decade has also seen an increase in population density as developers have scrambled to cash in on Bushwick’s latte and loft-living allure.

So the city condemned land and businesses to create parks for hipsters in Bushwick who just arrived, but people in Queens who have been asking for new parks for years not only are getting bupkis, but are having pieces of their existing parks sold off to the highest bidder? What great representation we have. Please, continue the non-competitive elections. They're fantastic.

More broken promises at city construction site

From the Daily News:

Unions and community groups are calling on the Bloomberg Administration to halt construction work at the City Point mega-project.

The city should stop the massive downtown Brooklyn development at DeKalb and Flatbush Aves. while it does a new study of the impact of low wages developers are paying, the groups said.

“We know that construction workers are being paid poverty wages at City Point and they are not getting any benefits,” said Terry Moore of Metallic Ironworkers Local 46.

Workers are being paid $15 per hour at the 1.6 million-square-foot residential and commercial development, the advocates charged — which adds up to $22,500 per year, below the city’s poverty level for a family of four.

“Brooklyn’s middle class is under attack and this project is a major portion of the assault,” the groups’ lawyer Thomas Kennedy wrote in a March 4 letter to Deputy Mayor Robert Steel.

Bloomberg Adminstration spokeswoman Julie Wood called City Point “a linchpin for revitalization in downtown Brooklyn” but did not address charges of poverty-level wages.

You may recall this was another eminent domain deal that was supposed to provide great jobs, parkland, etc.  It's funny how the outcome is NEVER what's promised?  When will we stop believing the hype?

How the Hasids overdeveloped Williamsburg

From the NY Observer:

How the ultra-Orthodox have succeeded in building thousands of units and keeping the neighborhood affordable for families—on private land, and without public money—is a testament to their strongly pro-development attitudes and a bloc voting strategy reminiscent of the ethnic politics patterns of the Tammany Hall era. In a city slow to accommodate new development, they have managed to keep on building in a way that the city’s storied real estate interests can only dream of.

In a city slow to accomodate new development, the Satmars have managed to keep building.

So during the 1990s, private Hasidic developers, seeking to house their multiplying masses, began asking for—and receiving—variances to build apartment buildings, without subsidies, on land around the edges of South Williamsburg that was otherwise zoned exclusively for industrial and commercial use.

At the time, the city was freely granting these one-off exemptions, but was not willing to rezone entirely, said Sheldon Lobel, a land use attorney whose name shows up on many of the applications. “But about 10 years ago,” Mr. Lobel told The Observer, “getting variances became more difficult.”

So it was in the late 1990s that the current building boom kicked into high gear. Hasidic leaders lobbied for—and won—the right to build housing on industrial land around South Williamsburg, including a large swath in northern Bed-Stuy, around Bedford and Flushing Avenues, in 2001. No longer did the Hasids need to beg the Board of Standards and Appeals for permission on each individual project—new six- and seven-story residential buildings were now allowed as a matter of right.

A solid wall of buildings rose in northern Bed-Stuy, in an area some in the community now call “New Williamsburg.” The development was not the piecemeal building that takes place in the rest of the borough, but an entirely new neighborhood, anchored by beige apartment blocks, embellished with faux classical touches and served by new synagogues, schools, grocery stores and shops.

And it didn’t stop there. In the early 2000s, outgrowing their new territory in northern Bed-Stuy, the Hasidic community began to apply pressure to the Bloomberg administration to rezone the Broadway Triangle, an industrial enclave wedged between Bed-Stuy and South and East Williamsburg. It took the better part of the decade, but the Satmar eventually got their wish: the right to strike out to the east.

The rezoning had both a public and private component, and it’s the public portion of the project—an affordable housing complex that was to be built in part by the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg, the secular wing of the largest Satmar faction—that attracted the most controversy. Black and Latino leaders claimed that the affordable housing complex—to be built on city-owned land, some of which would be seized by eminent domain—would give a disproportionate number of units to the ultra-Orthodox, as traditional public housing projects nearby had in the past.

A judge halted the mixed-income housing development in 2009, but resentments linger. While nothing has happened on the city-owned land, the stay on private development has been lifted, and Hasidic developers are closing in fast.