State Constitution Evoked in Lawsuit Against Two Bridges Luxury Public Housing Mega-Development

 

StreetsblogNYC

A controversial development that has been tied up in court for more than six years ago is now facing yet another lawsuit from residents of the Lower East Side and Chinatown — this time arguing that the Two Bridges mega-project will infringe upon the new constitutional right to clean air and water in a low-income community of color that already suffers from high rates of asthma.

The latest lawsuit was filed last month by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund on behalf of 12 plaintiffs from the Lower East Side and Chinatown, and Council Member Christopher Marte, who represents the area.

Marte says his constituents face enough pollution and exhaust from the FDR Drive, and that construction of the planned towers along the East River would result in more fumes, while also unearthing toxic chemicals from old petroleum tanks that sit under one of the development lots. 

“This construction is gonna really hurt a lot of the people who historically have health issues. This area is an environmental justice neighborhood that’s already had to bear the brunt of development,” said Marte. “Their whole livelihood, where they go to school, where they go for a walk is going to be a construction site.”

But is a super-dense development atop an already toxic site what the so-called “green amendment” to the state constitution was meant to block … or to allow?

Just one year ago, environmental attorneys and activists pushed hard for Proposition 2 — also known as the Green Amendment — on the November ballot, arguing that it would give New Yorkers legal standing to stop the environmental harms caused by highway expansions or the placement of waste transfer stations. The referendum passed overwhelmingly, supported by 69 percent of state voters.

For many, the purpose was obvious: stop environmental degradation.

“Say there was a defined pollution hotspot with a heavy volume of diesel-truck traffic — the community could petition to the City Council to ask for relief,” Peter Iwanowicz, executive director of Environmental Advocates NY, told Streetsblog at the time. “The government would then have to weigh [the] individual right to breathe air that doesn’t cut lives short or make people sick. If they ignore the plea, people can say, ‘I’m taking you to court. I think you’re violating my right to clean air.’”

The lawsuit against the Two Bridges project is the first in the five boroughs to cite the green amendment, though others have already been filed upstate, including against the permitting of a waste transfer station in upstate Cayuta.

Similar green amendments exist now only in Pennsylvania and Montana, but there’s been no parallel suit against a development project in those states, according to Maya van Rossum, founder of the Pennsylvania-based Green Amendments For The Generations, which helped write and pass New York’s law.

As such, there’s no way to know if courts will rule against urban development — which by definition is far more polluting than, say, an open field of trees — or rule in favor of urban development on the grounds that dense housing with limited parking is far better for the environment than suburban sprawl, over which there is very little environmental oversight.

To lawyer Jack Lester, who is representing the plaintiffs, the green amendment is clear.

“It enshrines in law the right to every citizen of New York State to have environmental justice,” said Lester, who is also suing on behalf of plaintiffs hoping to stop the SoHo/NoHo rezoning. “The development at that location will destroy both air quality and statutory mandates for air and sunshine. It will set a precedent that developers must abide by constitutional rights.”

But others are pushing back, saying the lawsuit is part of a kitchen-sink effort to defeat an affordable housing project and, worse, could set a dangerous precedent for other much-needed projects. And as feared, that it’s a perversion of the amendment by NIMBYs who are not invoking it in good faith. 

Words from Tenantnet who sent this here:

Jack Lester? Is he even still alive?
Guess where DSA is on this? (I'm blocked so I can't see it-JQ) What about Lincoln Restler? What about Cea?
Of course, this BS is in TA's Streetsblog

Correction: Streetsblog is run by Open Plans. And it's hilarious and also very expected that this yellow journalism digital rag (since when did they do stories about real estate, oh wait, this is also about the parked car menace they bloviate about) and the Demorcat Fauxcialists of America would support something like this that's highly antithetical to what their alleged environmental platforms are about. Didn't know the Green New Deal included cloud piercing iron and glass luxury beanstalks.-JQ LLC

 

City Council approves luxury public housing rezoning for Soho and Noho

  

Bowery Boogie

Two years of controversy was capped Wednesday as the city passed a sweeping rezoning of the SoHo and NoHo neighborhoods.

The City Council voted overwhelmingly to approve the SoHo/NoHo rezoning by a 43 – 8 margin, thereby completing the final step in ULURP. The passage happened in the nick of time, with just two weeks remaining in Mayor de Blasio’s term.

The councilmembers who voted no were Ben Kallos, Carlos Menchaca, Robert Holden, Inez Barron, and Kalman Yeager.

Next stop is de Blasio’s office for the proverbial rubber stamp.

In a gloating joint release, Councilmembers Carlina Rivera and Margaret Chin (who is leaving office) hailed the vote as a victory for housing, despite “roadblocks from from private interests, political pressure, scare tactics, and misinformation.”

“The final zoning map and text are a product of countless hours of negotiation with the Administration and in-depth discussion with community stakeholders,” Chin said. “As a City Council Member I believe it is my responsibility to create equal housing opportunities in high-opportunity neighborhoods for low-income New Yorkers, and I am confident that this rezoning accomplishes that goal.”

“This historic rezoning will create a rational framework for equitable housing generation and retail operation – one that I hope we will see replicated in neighborhoods throughout the Five Boroughs in the years to come,” Rivera echoed. “Through hard work and rigorous process, made possible only by the unwavering dedication of our teams and advocates to building a better future for all New Yorkers, we were able to balance the concerns of community stakeholders while centering our main goal: to incentivize the creation of affordable housing in a transit- and resource-rich neighborhood.”

The most vocal opponent of the rezoning, Village Preservation, wasn’t buying it, though.

“This plan is a giant giveaway to real estate interests, with the promise that a tiny percentage of that enormous gift will be returned to the public in the form of new affordable housing,” executive director Andrew Berman responded in a statement. “The reality is in by far the majority of cases, it won’t. What it will do is prompt a flood of luxury condos, giant big-box chain stores and high-priced corporate offices and hotels, and generate enormous pressure and incentive to demolish hundreds of units of affordable rent-regulated housing in the area, displacing lower-income residents who are disproportionately seniors, artists, and Asian Americans.

Queens, Bronx and Manhattan civic groups continue their battles against borough tower prisons

Patch

  A group of homeowners in Kew Gardens, Forest Hills and Briarwood is planning to sue the city in a last-ditch effort to stop a new jail from going up in their neighborhood and get the mayor's office to return to the drawing board.

The group, which calls itself the Community Preservation Coalition, is preparing to file an Article 78 lawsuit over the city's decision to approve building a new jail in Kew Gardens, part of a $9 billion plan to replace the detention facilities on Rikers Island with a new jail in every borough except Staten Island by 2026.

Article 78 refers to a civil law that empowers New Yorkers to challenge decisions made by public agencies or officials on the grounds that it was unlawful, arbitrary or capricious.

"We really want them to do a meaningful review," Kew Gardens Civic Association President Dominick Pistone told Patch in an interview. "We don't think they've fulfilled their obligations under the City Charter."

The New York City Charter lays out a series of design and funding details that officials must include for a capital project to be approved by the mayor. 

Members of Queens Community Board 9, which voted unanimously against the Kew Gardens jail plan last year, previously accused the mayor's office of failing to meet those requirements in a Sept. 27 letter to the City Council. 

The Kew Gardens Civic Association, which is helping spearhead the legal effort, sent a letter to homeowners Wednesday soliciting contributions to fund the lawsuit, pitching it as "an investment in preserving your home," according to a copy obtained by Patch.

NY Post

A group of South Bronx residents is suing the city in a bid to block a new jail from coming to their neighborhood as part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s larger efforts to shutter the Rikers Island prison complex.

The suit, filed Tuesday in Bronx Supreme Court on behalf of the Diego Beekman Mutual Housing Association and other parties, seeks to halt construction on a 19-story, 886-bed jail planned for the site of the NYPD’s tow pound in Mott Haven — a neighborhood located in the nation’s poorest congressional district.

It alleges the de Blasio administration and City Council broke the law by snubbing alternative sites for the jail, failed to reveal the true environmental impact of the project to residents and snubbed the entire public-review process.

“The Mayor and Council Speaker broke the law and rigged the process to saddle a low-income community of color with a jail, plain and simple,” said Arline Parks, CEO of Diego Beekman Mutual Housing Association, which represents 5,000 residents in 38 buildings.

NY Daily News

 The city’s plan to construct a jail in Chinatown routinely neglected community input, including 
Native Americans concerned about the possibility of large amounts of human remains in the area of the planned facility, a lawsuit set to be filed Friday claims.

The suit, which will be filed by Neighbors United Below Canal and American Indian Community House, claims the city’s plan will cause “irreparable damage to indigenous lands” and that the city failed to adequately reach out to neighborhood organizations and affected residents.

“The work and outreach that’s gone into this lawsuit is work the city should have been doing in the first place," said Jan Lee, who runs Neighbors United Below Canal. “It’s a robust case because we did meaningful outreach to our neighbors and came to realize just how deeply negligent the mayor’s plan was from the very beginning.”

The suit, which was shared with the Daily News, also alleges the city violated its own land use procedure, in which the City Council must approve projects before they can be built, by changing the proposed location of the Manhattan facility from 80 Centre St. to 124-125 White St. at the last minute. The White St. location is where the borough’s current jail , known as “The Tombs,” stands.

“Although the community was not pleased with the initial proposal to build a new jail structure at 80 Centre Street, the change of location was even worse,” a draft of the lawsuit reads, noting that the new plan puts the jail near residences, small retailers and a senior center.

The city also identified that there is a “moderate to high” possibility of Native American remains at the site of the proposed Chinatown jail, but still failed to reach out to the indigenous community, neighborhood advocate Christopher Marte told the Daily News.

This is nuts

This video is a sad example of what people in America think is a priority.

Hell hotel is still disgusting and still in business

Case of the counterfeiting couple

From CBS New York:

Authorities conducted a major bust of counterfeit bags, watches and sunglasses Wednesday afternoon at a small store in Lower Manhattan.

Investigators piled garbage bags containing the knockoffs at the corner of Canal and Lafayette streets.

The husband and wife team of Chen Zhibin and Yun Wei Huang – of College Point Queens – were arrested and charged with trademark counterfeiting and criminal tax fraud. They were awaiting arraignment late Wednesday afternoon.

They operated the Mendi Gift Shop at 251A Canal St.

Building containing human cages busted

From the NY Post:

Chinatown’s “human kennel” was hit with more than 60 violations from multiple agencies for unsafe conditions exposed by The Post, records show.

After the exposé, the Hester Street hellhole, where men live in cage-like rooms, received 47 housing-code violations from the city’s Housing and Preservation Department, records show.

The department issued summonses on each of the building’s six floors for obstructed exits and illegal alterations to fire escapes and windows.

The building’s owner was slapped with an additional 13 Environmental Control Board violations, and the Department of Health issued an order to abate “cockroach conditions.”

This exists in 2013?

From the NY Post:

It’s a human kennel.

Less than a 10-minute walk from Soho is the Sun Bright Hotel — where men pay $10 a night to live in tiny cells bounded by chicken wire.

It’s a single-room-occupancy hotel that has been operating since the late 19th century and where today men live side by side in filth.

Nestled on the edge of Chinatown between the Bowery and Elizabeth Street, the hotel on Hester Street is minutes from Balthazar, where the $135 côte de boeuf for two would cover half a month’s rent at the Sun Bright.

Only men are allowed in the units on the third and fourth floors, the hotel’s most hellish. The accommodations there measure 7 by 5 feet, smaller than the average 8-by-10 solitary-confinement cell in a state prison.

Roaches, bedbugs, fleas and other vermin infest the building. Hot hallways reek of rotting trash, sweat and urine.

More than 100 men on the floor share one bathroom with two shower stalls, four toilets and one urinal. Wet, moldy spackle peels off the ceiling like snakeskin. Black mold spreads over filthy walls in two shower stalls.

Bug bomb building illegally converted

From the NY Post:

The Chinatown building blasted apart by pesticide bombs had been illegally subdivided and was using illegal gas and plumbing lines, city building officials said.

The slipshod structure at 17 Pike Street — which went up in a fiery explosion just before 1 p.m. yesterday, injuring at least nine people — has been ordered emptied of all tenants.

“A full vacate order was issued for the property due to the presence of illegal conversions in the building,” said Dept. of Buildings spokeswoman Kelly Magee.

DOB inspectors found illegal partitions that compromised exits on the second through fifth floors of the five-story prewar building, according to a newly-filed complaint, which also cited the exploding bug bombs as causing the partial collapse of the structure.

The investigation also revealed “illegal plumbing work and gas lines” in the “shaking/vibrating” building, which houses a beauty parlor and bus company on the ground floor, and is listed as an “18 family dwelling” in city records.

It is unclear how many people were living in the building, or how many subdivided apartments there were. But the Red Cross yesterday had 61 people from 17 Pike – 46 adults and 15 children – register for emergency assistance.

Explosion and evacuation of Chinatown building

From NY1:

Fire investigators are looking into the cause of an explosion and partial collapse that injured nearly a dozen people Thursday in Chinatown.

It happened shortly before 1 p.m. inside a ground-level beauty shop located at 17 Pike Street near the Manhattan Bridge.

The fire department says at least eight people were being treated for injuries, three of which are said to be serious.

Four firefighters were also injured.

All were taken to area hospitals.

Witnesses at the scene say they first heard an explosion and felt the ground shake around the five-story walk up.

All tenants have been evacuated as a precaution.

Fire officials say the building had several violations on record.

And then this:

Sources say a common pest control tool could be to blame for a fiery explosion and partial collapse of a building in Chinatown.

Sources tell NY1 that fire officials are looking into the fact that several bug foggers, commonly known as "roach bombs," were found at the site of the Pike Street building.

Check out its past history here and here.

Developer malfeasance causes restaurant to close

From WPIX:

Nom Wah Tea Parlor — a famous tea parlor in Chinatown — has been closed down for the past two weeks.

The owners say it’s because of a disagreement between them and the owner of another building.

Guess who’s in the middle of this one?

There was a time when a hand shake was all you needed to seal a deal. Yes, but today it’s wise to have a lawyer draw up a legal document so there is no room for misinterpretation.

This is what Wilson Tang was thinking. And unfortunately, that is why is restaurant is closed.

Chinatown SRO vacated by FDNY

From the Daily News:

Dozens of Chinatown tenants were evacuated Thursday from a single-room-occupancy building on the Bowery notorious for its makeshift cubicle dwellings.

Officials said they issued a vacate order for the top floor of the four-story building after firefighters responded to a complaint about living conditions at 81 Bowery.

The action left tenants homeless and concerned — and not for the first time. The building was evacuated in 2008 under similar circumstances and nine months passed before its inhabitants could return.

Firefighters and Buildings Department inspectors found “numerous life hazards” Thursday amid rows of rooms separated by thin partitions — many without ceilings, a Fire Department spokesman said.

“There were about 40 separate rooms with 40 people,” said the spokesman, citing “possible tampering with gas and pipes” and blocked exits and sprinklers.

Bunch of lawyers arrested for immigration fraud

From NY Times:

They invented woeful tales of persecution for their Chinese clients. Prepped them on how to lie about having had a forced abortion. Even tutored them on religion.

In all, 26 people, including 6 lawyers, were charged Tuesday with helping Chinese immigrants submit false asylum claims in an effort to stay in the United States, law enforcement officials said.

The indictments describe elaborate schemes based in law offices in Manhattan’s Chinatown and in Flushing, Queens, which involved teams of paralegals and office managers, translators and a church official, who conspired to dupe immigration officials by inventing stories of political and religious persecution for their clients, officials said.

The indictments say female clients who sought asylum based on China’s one-child policy were encouraged to prepare for asylum interviews by watching Chinese soap operas so they could describe the experience of a forced abortion. Some paralegals were called “story writers” for their knack for inventing detailed tales of persecution. A church official in Flushing prepared clients for questions on religion by offering basic instruction in Christianity.

More than 20 defendants were arrested in raids in Manhattan’s Chinatown and in Flushing, capping a three-year investigation.

Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, accused the defendants of “weaving elaborate fictions” and making it “more difficult for those who are legitimately seeking refuge in this country.”

The indictments charged employees of at least 10 law firms, the authorities said. In the past few years, the firms filed more than 1,900 asylum applications, according to the indictments; officials did not say how many they believe were fraudulent.

Liu's supporters dwindling and acting strange

From the NY Post:

John Liu’s support appears to be wearing thin.

A paltry gathering of six supporters held a press conference yesterday to denounce a federal investigation against the city comptroller and possible mayoral contender as an anti-Asian attack.

They promptly compared the Feds' investigation of Liu to the Holocaust and Watergate.

Crackdown on illegal Main Street buses

From the NY Times:

More than two weeks after large buses started competing with vans for passengers traveling between Chinatown and Flushing, Queens, city enforcement officials began a crackdown this week that resulted in the towing of several buses and the levying of fines.

The departure of the big buses was as abrupt and dramatic as their arrival, 18 days ago, which touched off tensions along the commuter van route, including a price war, screaming matches and a smattering of violence.

City officials and the police arrived Thursday at the two main stops – 41st Avenue in Flushing and Division Street in downtown Manhattan – and shut down the operations of the large buses, which were charging $1 for a one-way ride between the Chinatowns in Queens and Manhattan, compared with $2.75 that the smaller vehicles had been charging.

Faced with losing riders, many vans, which typically have less than half of the 57-passenger capacity of the buses, dropped their prices to $1 as well. Other drivers simply stopped operating.

Court forces landlord to repair fire-damaged building

From NY1:

Tenants of a Chinatown building damaged by a fire nearly two years ago have scored a victory.

A judge has ruled that the landlord of 289 Grand Street will have to pay for repairs instead of tearing the building down.

Fire ripped through the building on April 11, 2010, killing an elderly man and leaving 200 people homeless.

The landlord said repairs would be too expensive and wanted to demolish the building – but tenants filed suit to get it fixed.

A judge Friday ruled that the owner's estimates of repair costs and the value of the property were unreliable and inadequate.

Fish smuggler sent to jail

From the Daily News:

A Brooklyn judge struck a blow for endangered fish the world over, sentencing a Queens man Wednesday to one year in jail for smuggling the bony-tongued Arowana in his suitcase.

The rare fish is sold on the black market in Chinatown and Asian neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens for up to $8,000 apiece because of its supposed power to bring good luck.

But Chee Chaw has had nothing but bad luck since his suitcase was misplaced during a transfer from Hong Kong, and the fishy contraband was discovered after the bag arrived on a later flight.

Nine of the 16 fish, packed in water-filled plastic bags, died during the journey. Four more fish from a previous smuggling mission were recovered in his Elmhurst apartment.

"He's contributing to the demise of this fish by importing them into the United States," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Tiana Demas.

The prosecutor said Chaw had smuggled fish at on at least three occasions since 2004. A previous arrest was disposed of with an $850 fine.

Dog meat sold in Chinatown?

From CBS Minnesota:

The owner of Minnesota’s largest dog breeding operation still sold hundreds of puppies illegally, despite being convicted of animal cruelty. That’s what the I-TEAM just found and when WCCO’s James Schugel kept digging, things got more disturbing.

“The Canine Culture Center. Do you know anything about it,” asked I-TEAM’s undercover team.

“No,” said the woman at a New York City meat market.

The I-TEAM went undercover in New York City to see the Canine Culture Center, but found a meat market at the same address.

And as the I-TEAM found, a worker there says he only sells dogs to eat.

UPDATE 11/4: The NY Post is reporting that the reporter and the meat market employee misunderstood each other saying "duck" and "dog" and that the shady shipper meant to send the dogs to the home address of a pet store owner. Which brings up another question: This address clearly is not the address of a home. So were dogs actually sent there and what happened to them?

Illegally subdivided Chinatown building vacated

From Downtown Express:

Fifty residents of 35 Market St., a low-income rental apartment in Chinatown, were locked out of their homes on Wed., July 6, shortly after city officials raided their apartment building.

Eight of the eighteen units in the six-story building were illegally partitioned, according to the NYC Department of Buildings, who, in responding to a 3-1-1 complaint last week, discovered the serious building code violation.

Past and current leaseholders in the building devised a system in which they subdivided apartments to create more bedrooms in order to split up their monthly rent payments. By subletting the extra rooms, the tenants blocked fire escapes that are supposed to serve as emergency exits for everyone in the building, according to Ryan Fitzgibbon, deputy press secretary for the D.O.B.

Last Wednesday afternoon, officials began taping “vacate order” notices onto the doors of the tenants’ apartments, which are separated by narrow hallways. The inspectors proceeded to change the residents’ keys so that they couldn’t return until the vacate orders were lifted.

Buy a fake, go to jail

From the NY Post:

Buyers could face a year in jail or a $,1000 fine under a proposed bill by a city councilwoman fed up with cheapskate tourists and Big Apple residents flooding her district in search of fake designer merchandise.

"We don't want to be known as the place to come to get counterfeit goods," said Councilwoman Margaret Chin, whose Chinatown district is ground zero for counterfeiters.

Under Chin's bill, which is being introduced Thursday, shoppers caught buying any counterfeit product could be jailed or slapped with a fine of $1,000 -- a little less than the price of Marc Jacobs' frequently copied Baroque Quilting Mini Stam bag, which retails for $1,250.

"It's a very big problem," Chin said of the counterfeit market. "People are still coming, and the industry is growing, and we have to stop the demand. We need people to know that they are feeding this demand."

Several of Chin's colleagues have expressed support for the bill, and she already has five co-sponsors.

The punishment might seem draconian, but it's necessary to curb the growing problem, she said.

She pointed out that the money that counterfeiters rake in often funds other nefarious activities, such as terrorism and unsafe child-labor practices.