The return of Robert Moses

From City Limits:

Restaurants, stores, and a 200-room hotel would go up on the Willets Point side of 126th Street, just east of Citi Field, though the city does not entirely own the property. The proposed shopping mall west of the stadium may face a larger hurdle: The parking lot is part of Flushing Meadows Corona Park. State law requires the alienation of parkland before it can be used for non-park purposes.

To meet that requirement, Bloomberg has reached back to a law passed 51 years ago, summoning an uncertain ally in the ghost of Robert Moses. But questions surround this curious piece of legislation, setting up the latest in a string of disputes over city-sponsored developments on public parkland.

"Yes, this area is parkland," says Benjamin Branham, a spokesman for the city's Economic Development Corporation, "but development is permitted under the 1961 law that authorized the construction of Shea Stadium—known as Administrative Code 18-118—which also allowed for additional uses to be built on the parking lot. It's important to be clear the authorization comes from this law as opposed to a contract or other agreement of some kind."

Yet, as recently as 2001, New York's highest court ruled parkland can't be taken, even for temporary use, without an explicit act of alienation passed by the state Legislature and approved by the Governor: "[O]ur courts have time and again reaffirmed the principle that parkland is impressed with a public trust, requiring legislative approval before it can be alienated or used for an extended period for non-park purposes."

Moses presided over the 1961 groundbreaking for Shea Stadium. He had originally offered to build the municipal arena in Flushing Meadows for the Brooklyn Dodgers and resurrected the plan when the city pushed for a new National League franchise.

The state Legislature approved his building of Shea Stadium in the park, but its 1961 legislation was primarily aimed at granting the city authority to issue bonds to finance construction. It loosely laid out the permitted uses for the stadium and grounds, listing "recreation, entertainment, amusement, education, enlightenment, cultural development or betterment, and improvement of trade and commerce." The law even allowed the city to use the site for "any business or commercial purpose," so long as this activity "aids in the financing of the construction and operation of [the] stadium, grounds, parking areas and facilities" and "does not interfere with the accomplishment of the purposes referred to" above.

"The bill reads like a Robert Moses special," says Geoffrey Croft of the watchdog group NYC Park Advocates. The broad powers it conferred were a hallmark of the Power Broker, who was so well-practiced in the black art of political legislating that Al Smith once called him "the best bill-drafter I know." The Parks Commissioner could enter into agreements to use part or all of the stadium grounds, but any agreements lasting for more than a year had to be approved by the Board of Estimate, which included the mayor, the comptroller, the City Council president, and all of the borough presidents.

In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court found the Board of Estimate unconstitutional, because it violated the “one man, one vote” rule—for example, the borough president of Brooklyn (the city’s most populous county) had no more power than the borough president of Staten Island (the least populous county). With the elimination of the Board of Estimate, the city's Law Department says, the power of site approval under the 1961 Shea Stadium law now rests solely with the mayor. A shopping mall may not offer the "enlightenment" referenced in the text, but a Bloomberg administration spokesperson describes the new project as a "retail/entertainment complex" benefiting “trade and commerce.”

Don't you love how the city has no money for needed services for existing neighborhoods, yet has tons of cash to throw around in an attempt to justify park alienation in order to realize a Bloomberg legacy project? Why doesn't the billionaire pony up his own cash and buy out the Willets Point property owners? Then he can build whatever the hell he wants.

Leave the damn park alone.

USTA plans to gobble up more parkland

From the Daily News:

Not every aspect of the U.S. Tennis Association’s proposed expansion in Queens is an ace right down the middle in the court of public opinion.

Advocates are yelling “fault” at the proposal to build two parking garages in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, saying they have no place in the greenspace.

The garages are included in the $500 million expansion plan for the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center announced last month.

The two garages — two and three stories — to be built on the footprint of current surface-level parking, would add 500 spaces.

But several community board members and parks advocates panned the proposal.

“Queens is getting to be a parking lot. It’s wrong,” Eugene Kelty, chairman of Community Board 7, said during Wednesday’s hearing. “We’re not building parking garages. I can’t see my board voting that way.”

The park falls under the jurisdiction of Community Boards 3, 4, 6, 7 and 8.

Atlas Park lot used for towed cabs

From the NY Times:

In sleek black sedans and unmarked blue vans, stretch limousines and family-friendly S.U.V.’s, the city’s unlicensed taxi drivers have long thrived on a simple fact: Officials often could not seize their cars because there was no place to put them.

But about three months ago, David S. Yassky, the chairman of New York City’s Taxi and Limousine Commission, received an e-mail from an old acquaintance. The man had heard about the space issue, he said. Would the city like to use his lot in Queens?

The man was Damon Hemmerdinger, a co-president at his family’s real estate company, ATCO Properties and Management, and the son of Dale Hemmerdinger, the former chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

After reading an article in The New York Times about the dearth of available tow pound space for unlicensed taxis, Mr. Hemmerdinger agreed to allow the city to use his company’s roughly two-acre lot in Glendale. The city needed to pay only for electricity, lot security, and an occasional cleaning.

By the beginning of June, the lot could hold more than 100 unlicensed taxis at a time. Turnover is typically rapid, as drivers retrieve their vehicles after paying fines and fees that often rise to over $500. Over the last year, the commission added about 60 enforcement agents, bringing its total to over 150. In 2011, 1,737 cars were seized, according to the commission. This year, more than 2,400 cars have been rounded up already.

Even allies think the EDC is full of crap

From the Queens Chronicle:

Although plans for Willets Point, also known as the Iron Triangle, were leaked last month, Bloomberg outlined a timeline at the Laguardia Marriott Hotel in East Elmhurst for development initially along 126th Street and eventually in the Citi Field parking lot. The first phase of the Willets Point development is expected to take up to 15 years.

Following completion, the developers will erect “Willets West” on the existing Citi Field parking lot and turn it into a million- square-foot retail and entertainment center with more than 200 stores, movie theaters, restaurants, a parking structure and surface spaces for 2,500 cars.

This is the part of the project that has some in the community scratching their heads. Gene Kelty, chairman of Community Board 7, who attended the breakfast, said he isn’t sure of the plan’s legality. Citi Field and its parking lot sit on public parkland, and Kelty doesn’t think putting up a commercial shopping center is the proper usage.

Jack Friedman, executive director of the Queens Chamber of Commerce, who organized the breakfast at the mayor’s urging, thinks such a use of the parking lot could be alienation of parkland.

But Seth Pinsky, president of the city’s Economic Development Corp., said following the mayor’s speech that a 1961 agreement with the Mets allows for development.

Really? Well then why hasn't it already been done? They waited this whole time to build a mall on the parking lot when they got approval for it more than 50 years ago? As usual, what's coming out of city officials' mouths smells like crap.

Yankee Stadium parking garage a huge failure

From the Daily News:

THE FIRM that built and manages the new Yankee Stadium parking garages can’t repay $237 million in tax-exempt bonds the Bloomberg administration arranged for it four years ago, new financial records show.

Bronx Parking Development Company LLC is running perilously low on cash reserves and faces a looming default by the end of the year, according to a report filed Friday by a trustee for the firm’s bondholders.

Time is running out, in other words, to avoid one of the biggest failures in decades of bonds issued by a New York City agency.

The simple fact is that Bloomberg and his aides made a costly mistake when they succumbed back in 2005 to the Yankees’ demand for a 9,000-space garage system. It was all part of the deal for the team to build a new stadium in the Bronx.

But Yankees fans have shunned the garages, where gameday self-parking rates soared last year to $35 — up from $23 previously and more than double the original $14 charge. Valet parking now goes for $48.

So many fans are staying away, in part due to the lure of cheaper local competition, that Bronx Parking Development now projects only 3,500 paying customers per game for the upcoming season.

Website encourages homeowners to rent out parking spaces

From the Daily News:

Live near Kennedy Airport? Great. Is your property near Yankee Stadium? Even better.

You might be able to turn your empty parking space into some cold, hard cash courtesy of ParkatmyHouse, an online parking marketplace that’s rolling into the city.

Based in the U.K., the website is making a big push into the tri-state area, Boston, Washington D.C. and Philadelphia. ParkatmyHouse.com matches homeowners, business owners, churches and schools who have spare parking space with drivers looking for a place to park.

Except if you're going to rent out parking spaces in NYC, you need to be zoned for it, obtain a commercial garage/parking lot permit and pay tax to the City.

Whoops.

We're not talking about a homeowner renting a garage out to a neighbor, but residential properties becoming commercial.

So now we have websites openly advertising illegal conversions, renting apartments out as hotel rooms and now commercial parking spaces in residential districts. The DOB and DOF could rake in big bucks here, yet they continue to do nothing.

Cars on sidewalk endangering kids

From Fox 5:

It's a curb-jumping controversy that has parents in an uproar in Queens. After a third grader was nearly hit by a car driving on a sidewalk, parents want it to stop before it's too late.

On 113th Street and 71st Road in Forest Hills, parents say they have an extra worry every time they take their kids to school at P.S. 196: they are concerned about getting hit by cars driving up onto a sidewalk that is a main route for most of the children and that's also used as a driveway and parking lot by cars from the Touro College Graduate School of Education and the Bnos Malka Academy.

We tried to talk with the academy to see what they had to say, but they refused to speak with us. I did speak with the property manager from Touro College, who insisted the sidewalk parking and driving were in compliance with city codes.

We did some checking around with the city. The Department of Transportation referred us to the NYPD.

The NYPD said it is now aware of the situation and will speak with school authorities to rectify the problem.

This is mainly DOB's responsibility. And dollars to donuts, they won't do a thing about it.

JFK lot parking cars on street

Lost Battalion Hall finds itself a deal

From the Times Ledger:

Lost Battalion Park in Rego Park will be expanding its boundaries, thanks to a land swap between the city and a developer.

An oddly shaped parking lot and one end of the park currently fit together like puzzle pieces, but according to state Sen. Toby Stavisky (D-Whitestone), the swap deal will make both the parking and park easier to use.

“Everybody benefits,” she said. “The developer benefits, the city benefits and the developer is going to do the improvements.”

The park is at 93-29 Queens Blvd., and with the new deal would stretch all the way from Queens Boulevard to Junction Boulevard.

A vast parking lot now sits beside the park and near the back it snakes around and encompasses the entire greenspace.

The developer, Vornado Realty Trust, owns part of the huge parking lot, while the city owns another.

In the swap, the city will give Vornado a piece of the lot that is near the park and Vornado will trade the portion of the asphalt that wraps around the back of the park. That way, both the greenspace and the parking lot will become more normally shaped.

Why there's no new owner of Scobee

From Little Neck Patch:

Bob Greenberg, a lawyer whose family owns the bulk of the diner's parking lot (which, yes, is owned separately from the building) said that though the property has generated a lot of interest, the prospect of purchasing the former Scobee building - in addition to paying rent on the parking lot - has thus far deterred fruitful negotiations.

Greenberg said that though he understands the desire of potential buyers to want to own the lot adjacent to the building, he and his family remain staunch in their unwillingness to part with it. For one, he said, selling the lot would go against the "philosophy" of property ownership that the Greenberg's embrace. Add the loss of income stream and burden of high taxes, and you have the reason they are uninterested in selling.

Though Greenberg acknowledges that many people are indeed discouraged by his family's refusal to sell the parking lot, he said the bigger issue may be the asking price for the Scobee building itself.

Greenberg said that last he heard, Scobee’s lawyers wanted $3.7 million for the building, a figure that Greenberg said sounds unrealistic in the current economic climate.

A foolish proposition

From Backyard and Beyond:

The marsh itself was mosquito-free. And tranquil-looking… but don’t let looks deceive you. Salt-marshes are one of the most productive of ecosystems, nursing fish and many invertebrates, filtering water and absorbing storm surges, pumping blessed oxygen into the air, providing food for everything from bacteria to mammals.

Green with two species of spartina, ringed by phragmites, studded with the keystone ribbed mussels, soft and hard shell clams, mud snails, fiddler crabs, and plentiful little fish in the rising tide. Is this Brooklyn? Yes, it is. A Forever Wild remnant of the salt-marshes that once ringed Jamaica Bay and much of the city. (JFK, LGA, EWR and TEB were all built on salt marshes). But “Forever Wild,” a Parks Department designation without much legal pull, doesn’t mean all that much unless we fight for it.

The EDC wants to give part of this land to Bruce Ratner so he can build a strip mall and large parking lot. The attitude is: "Who needs nature? This is NYC, damn it!"