Progress at Farley, but what about Penn?

From PIX11:

The 106-year-old Farley Post Office Building is across the avenue from the busy transit center. New entrances have opened in the facility that lead to railroads.

A big project has been underway since 2016 and it is scheduled to open in 2020.

The new train hall will feature new platforms and tracks for LIRR and Amtrak and there will be commercial space.

From The Real Deal:

The City Council and James Dolan’s Madison Square Garden Company appear to be headed toward another clash over plans to relocate the iconic sports stadium.

Madison Square Garden is now at the midway point of the 10-year timetable the city laid out in 2013 for the stadium to relocate and make way for a modern Penn Station.

But with five years left on its special operating permit, MSG appears to have taken no significant steps toward what would be a years-long process of acquiring a new site and constructing a new stadium.

“We have not provided any public information” on the matter, MSG spokesperson Kimberly Kerns told The Real Deal.

Stakeholders such as the Regional Plan Association and the Municipal Arts Society that have called for the Garden to move said they have not been informed of any plans to do so. Madison Square Garden has not filed an application with the City Planning Commission to extend its special permit, and sources said the City Council hasn’t been made aware of the stadium’s future plans.

The City Council made it clear five years ago that it expected MSG to be gone by 2023, but a Council spokesperson would not say whether the legislative body expected the Garden to stick to the deadline.

Earth to Julissa: Willets Point businesses are NOT being relocated

At the Queens Borough Board meeting held last Monday, November 18, 2013 – just before voting to authorize the sale of 23 acres of Willets Point property to Sterling Equities and Related Companies for the price of $1 (yes, one dollar) – Council member Julissa Ferreras told the Board that "we've worked with the tenants that are still there, and they will be relocated".

Tenant businesses are mystified as to why Council member Ferreras would say such a thing – because in reality, the City is now evicting the businesses without relocating them. The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development ("HPD") has issued eviction notices and commenced court proceedings against businesses that are tenants of the City. Any business that voluntarily vacates the premises by November 30, 2013 (this upcoming Saturday) is being offered a paltry payout equal to 12 months' of its present rent. Not only is such a payment too small to ensure the relocation and survival of each business, but the City has failed to implement any group relocation plan for the businesses – they are being kicked out with nowhere to go.

This, despite the City's relocation consultant, Cornerstone Group, having been paid $700,000.00 by the City to provide relocation assistance to Willets Point businesses.

Moreover, at the City Council on October 9, 2013, Ferreras had announced an additional $3 million for relocation assistance. But a business is only eligible for a share of those funds if it relocates together with at least four other businesses – and with no group relocation properties offered by the City, or group plan implemented, no one is actually eligible to receive any of the additional $3 million touted by Ferreras. From the businesses' perspective, the "relocation" – and Ferreras' statements – are all smoke-and-mirrors.

And so, last Wednesday, two days after Ferreras stated incredibly that the tenants "will be relocated", the tenants rallied at City Hall with State Senator Tony Avella to set the record straight and call attention to what is actually happening now at Willets Point. Carrying signs that said "Earth to Julissa: We're NOT Being Relocated" and "All Talk; No Results" above a photo of Ferreras, tenant business owners and workers denounced their evictions without relocation, and called on the involved agencies and Mayor-elect de Blasio to hit the pause button.

Avella also revealed his request that the United States Department of Justice investigate the role of Cornerstone Group in the Willets Point relocation debacle. The following video shows excerpts of the tenants' and Avella's statements.

Video courtesy of LoScalzo Media Design LLC

Senator Avella has also written to HPD, NYCEDC and the Mayor, requesting that the time available to the businesses be extended.

Letter to Mayor Bloomberg, EDC, HPD Re: Willets Point Tenant Relocation

P.S. Where the hell is the public advocate? You're still expected to work in that role until December 31st, Mr. de Blasio.

Willets Point on the brink

Quotation of the clergyman at the end: "Julissa -- We are your people.
This will destroy our neighborhoods; change our lives. Council members,
listen to us: Vote "NO" on October 9."

Willets Point: Yes indeed, the fix is in

Dear Editor [Queens Chronicle]:

The Chronicle’s report on the Willets Point public hearing held September 3 by the City Council Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises (“Willets vote delayed; hunger strike ends”; Sept. 5) focused on the tenant businesses’ grave complaint about their eviction without group relocation, but omitted many other newsworthy aspects of the hearing.

At issue was not just relocation, but the application of developers Sterling/Related, which if approved by the Council would result in a 1.4-million-square-foot “Willets West” mall being constructed on Queens parkland, Willets Point property worth $200+ million gifted to Sterling/Related for just $1, an additional $99 million grant of taxpayer funds, no contractual obligation to construct new Van Wyck access ramps, and therefore no clear path to construct any housing — among many abrogations of promises made in 2008.

At the hearing, those opposed to the Sterling/Related application significantly outnumbered those in favor. Testifiers in opposition included the Queens Civic Congress, representing 100+ civic associations; individual community organizations; the Property Rights Foundation of America, whose president traveled from Albany to testify; and New York City Park Advocates, among others. Testifiers said why constructing a mall on parkland is illegal; explained how it doesn’t deliver benefits touted during 2008, or makes them susceptible to contractual escape clauses; summarized the severe, unavoidable traffic impacts; and recounted how the state Attorney General determined that NYCEDC and Claire Shulman’s local development corporation illegally lobbied for approval of the development — and yet the development not only proceeds but is awarded to Sterling, owned by the owners of the Mets: premier financiers of Shulman’s development corporation as it illegally lobbied.

The circumstances of the hearing were also newsworthy. With minimal advance notice, it was scheduled for 9:30 a.m. on the morning after Labor Day, when many people were away. Less than half of the committee members were present for the Willets Point portion of the hearing. Subcommittee Chairman Mark Weprin only allowed each speaker two minutes, and prohibited Willets Point United from showing its PowerPoint presentation — even though people would have ceded their time for it. In our opinion, all this demonstrates the Council’s contempt for public comment about the proposed development.

These latest examples of bias come on top of expanding the development from 62 to 108.9 acres including a mall on parkland, in a private process that shut out the Queens-based Willets Point Advisory Committee from participation, contrary to multiple written promises.

The fix appears to be in; let the Council now show us otherwise.

Gerald Antonacci
For Willets Point United Inc.
Flushing

Julissa "finds" Hiram's $3.5M; can't find group relocation site

Daily News

In November 2008, then-City Council member Hiram Monserrate and Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that a $3 million tenant relocation fund would be established and available for Willets Point businesses (i.e., tenant businesses operating at Willets Point, that would eventually need to relocate due to the proposed development).

In addition, immediately prior to the City Council's vote to approve the Willets Point development, during the City Council Stated Meeting held on November 13, 2008, Council Member Monserrate referred to the Willets Point tenant business relocation fund: "We have put forth … a fund to assist the current business owners, that I also met with today." (Tenant businesses that attended the meeting with Monserrate that day recall that the amount of the fund was $3.5M.)

Later in 2009, when Monserrate successor Julissa Ferreras took office, she acknowledged that the tenant businesses want group relocation, together -- and she articulated a plan for the businesses to incorporate a co-operative so that they may best deal with commercial landlords. Ferreras would facilitate the legalities of this with EDC, and she said that the city must find or provide the needed property and that she would fight for this to the end...

Excerpts of interview with City Council Member Julissa Ferreras -- September 2009

Q: When you meet with representatives of the tenant businesses, what concerns are you hearing from them?

JF: Currently the concerns are, they want to move as a group. They want to move as a – all of them, together, for whatever property it is. They're concerned about identifying a property that is conducive and that makes sense for them, that's reflective of the services that they've already had. And when I say "services", I don't mean, you know – clearly, there's no sewer – we all know what they don't have. But they do have a highway; they do have mass transit; they're in the center of a huge hub. So they want to be able to replicate that and ensure that that is replicated wherever they go.
________________________

JF: EDC really feels that they are on their timeline. That their timeline hasn't budged. They feel, you know, "we said that we wouldn't start any type of looking for a site or working with Cornerstone until next year." So they say January first of 2010 is when they'll start looking for a site; identifying a site. Now, interesting, what I have learned in the conversations is that relocating them as a group is more complicated than just saying "okay, we're going to identify a spot," because all of them have independent landlords currently. So if you relocate them, and you move them, the landlord wherever they're moving, wherever they find a spot, let's say that they find a spot, the new landlord has to agree to subdivide them – the location – and give them each an independent lease. Which most landlords probably wouldn't necessarily agree on. So the conversations that we're trying to see if it can happen, is if they can form a cooperation, or a "co-op," or some type of corporation where they can all become partners. But then that's something independently as tenants that they all have to agree with, see what it means; and then the corporation would sign the lease with whatever manufacturing building that it is that they identify. And then, I think as the conversations are starting to happen, they originally talked about moving 60 of them together; now it's more like 40. So we really have to look at what the real numbers are, because I think even within their own groups the frustration and anxiety is now kind of wearing a little at the coalition that they have. But still, even if you're moving 20, or 50, it's still an incredibly large number, and I think it is the City's responsibility to find this space. And I'm someone who's going to advocate for that and fight for it to the very end, because it's something that they deserve. The monies are still there, which is the $3 million dollars.
________________________

JF: I think that Willets Point really needs to get that conversation going, and train the workers, as opposed to just trying to shuffle them off. Because that's where my frustration comes in – don't try to shuffle my people off! That I will not accept. We deserve the best, and that's what I'm going to advocate for.
________________________

JF: You know, I in my heart believe that we need to – we need Willets Point as a, as an entity, to be relocated. And it makes sense for our communities. So I think that they need to be relocated.

The Willets Point Defense Committee produced a 77-page document known as the Sunrise Cooperative Business Plan explaining exactly how, where and why the businesses needed to be relocated as a group, which is what Julissa suggested they do. The report was done in collaboration with the Urban Justice Center and Council Member Ferreras and was submitted to the EDC in October 2012 with the expectation that the City would act upon it.  Below is an excerpt:




Now, per the recent EDC letter to tenants below, there is NO group relocation -- after all of the effort that had been dedicated to it.  Instead, Ferreras seems poised to take credit, with EDC, for "identifying" $3.5 million to be disbursed to the tenant businesses. Per the letter, each tenant may receive a payout equivalent to 12 months' rent -- provided that the tenant must agree to leave Willets Point by November 30, 2013. Those who stay through the end of January 2014 would receive just 6 months' rent. Beyond that, perhaps nothing.

RentBuyOutLetter_130809

The announcement of this $3.5 million -- on the heels of tenant businesses receiving 30-day eviction notices -- is designed to distract from the real news: that Ferreras and EDC have failed to implement the group relocation that was the goal, and which the Sunrise Co-operative sought in good faith. Moreover, Ferreras has no business claiming credit for arranging the $3.5 million offered now, as $3.5 million was already established by her predecessor in 2008, and has been awaiting use since that time. In any case, 12 months' rent (or roughly $12,000 - $18,000) is insufficient for any business to make a down payment on rental of a property outside of Willets Point, where rents are considerably higher.

Queens Chronicle

Ferreras is unavailable to meet with Willets Point United Inc. to discuss the proposed development that will soon be considered by the City Council, as she is on "bed rest" during maternity leave -- but evidently, she is able to come off of bed rest in order to promote the availability of $3.5 million for tenant businesses (see paragraph 4 of above letter from EDC to tenant businesses).

It will be interesting to see whether Marco Neira, leader of the tenant businesses, objects to the inadequacy of the $3.5M fund or the failure to implement group relocation considering that he does not operate any business within "Phase One" (and so he is not affected by the $3.5M fund), and he has been presented with a proclamation by Ferreras.