Court fight over Brooklyn rezoning

From NY1:

Views of the harbor and Lower Manhattan skyline can be seen from the hills of Sunset Park. But some community groups fear the vistas will be blocked if the city's rezoning plan goes through since developers could create taller buildings along the avenues. And that's just one of many reasons the group is suing to stop the plan.

"We know that this plan is going to destroy or community," said Wendy Cheung of the Chinese Staff and Workers' Association. "This rezoning plan is going to upzone. It's going to encourage luxury developers to come in and push people out."

Similar to other recent neighborhood rezonings, City Planning wants to put height restrictions on the residential blocks to preserve Sunset Park's low-scale character. At the same time, it wants to encourage higher density construction on the avenues, particularly 4th and 7th Avenues.

While the group supports the part of the plan that calls for height limits, it says the plan favors developers more than the mostly Latino and Chinese residents. They say it encourages retail chains over mom and pop stores and provides only limited incentives for affordable housing.

Bloomberg's DOB, BSA jeopardize toddlers

From: Auburndale Improvement Assoc. newsletter 'THE VOICE'
TO:Commissioner Robert LiMandri,N.Y.C. Department of Buildings

Dear Commissioner LiMandri:

Within the boundaries of the A.I.A, Inc, is a construction site located at 196-25 42nd Avenue,Flushing,Queens,11358. The site is also identified as 196-29 42nd Avenue. Other addresses used are 40-54 and 40-56 Francis Lewis Blvd. A daycare center is to be constructed there and the owners received approval from the B.S.A. to build in the bed of a mapped street at this location (B.S.A.#217-06-A).

According to the owners, this community facility will accommodate 175 children,ages 2 through 6. In the plans it appears to me that there will be a subcellar at this facility to be used as a daycare gymnasium as well for accessory uses. However, it is my understanding that as of September 1,2008, daycare students are no longer allowed to be kept in a subcellar in newly built facilities. Can you explain to me why the D.O.B. approved plans allowing for a gym in a subcellar given this new regulation? I also note that the number of children allowed on all four floors of this facility adds to 296. Does that mean that the center could conceivably be allowed to service that many children?

Community residents are very concerned about the size, number of children and impact it will have on the community. As you know C.P.B. 11, also voiced serious reservations about this community facility.

The issue of how the children will be dropped off and picked up is a major concern. Safety is of paramount importance not only for the children,but for the residents and the children who attend P.S.130 directly across the street. This intersection which forms the corner of the center site is a very busy area. Remember these children will require assistance to get out of and into vehicles. They also need to be escorted by an adult into and from the building. How can safety be maintained if people are dropping off and picking up children at such a busy and congested area without the use of a turn-in-lane? B.S.A. gave the owners AS OF RIGHT to build in the bed of this mapped street. The blvd. is only 1 1/2 lanes in front of this site.

While looking on the D.O.B. website, I notice that there are 13 open ECB complaints and 2 open DOB complaints for this site. Apparently,fines totaling to many thousands of dollars have been levied against this owner. These fines appear to not have been paid. At what point will the owner be forced to pay the fines? Why is the owner allowed to start construction when fines have not been paid?

And this was followed up with another e-mail:

The property owner, Swayne Shu, who is councilman John C. Liu's landlord, is listed on the N.Y.C. Campaign Finance Board as a donor to the councilman's 2009 N.Y.C. comptrollers race. Shu is also listed as manager of the Kon Wah dayschool located in Liu's Flushing building at 135-27 38th Avenue, Liu's office.

The other business name listed is Yee Kon, LLC. Shu is listed as partner. The B.S.A. gave approval to build in the bed of a mapped street. As Liu is chairman of the transportation committee, is it not strange that the D.O.T. signed its approval of this unsafe project? C.P.B. 11 and Chairman J. Iannece rejected the project. One more "AS OF RIGHT" POLITICAL/DEVELOPER CRAP BUILDING!!

Throgs Neck construction fatality

From WCBS880:

A construction worker has died while on working on the Throgs Neck Bridge.

The worker was pinned under the boom of a crane.

Additional details of the accident weren't immediately available.

The northbound lanes of the bridge were closed after the incident. The bridge connects Queens to the Bronx.

The Throgs Neck is undergoing renovation this summer, and the work has been plagued by trouble.

In July, a fire started by a worker's blowtorch shut down the bridge and caused significant damage. Some sections didn't reopen to heavy trucks until recent weeks.

Bloomberg: "We can't do everything (so let's do nothing)"

From the Queens Tribune:

Bloomberg discussed some development issues brought up in Queens, specifically Klein Farm in Fresh Meadows and St. Saviour's Church in Maspeth, both of which have been turned down by or ignored by the City for assistance in preserving the bucolic and historic nature of the sites.

"The Parks Department just does not have the money," Bloomberg said. "There is a fiscal reality here. We probably built more in parks than any administration in modern day. You'd love to do anything, but you can't do everything. You cannot turn every piece of ground in the city into a park; you can't turn every road into a bike lane - although there's a constituency for it- there's an overall concept that we want more parks. If an area is woefully underserved then we have to focus resources, but we are going into a very tough time economically."

Well, Bloomberg's own Parks Department agreed that Maspeth is "woefully underserved" but that didn't seem to persuade Mr. Mayor.

Now, if money is the only issue preventing him from acquiring more parks, why hasn't he gone along when council members and borough presidents have kicked in most of the cash? This is the guy who says that now is the time to plan for the future, recession be damned. With a million more people coming to the city by 2030, isn't the time to plan for adequate open space now?

Comptroller candidates yuk it up

Last round. I promise.


David Yassky

Melinda Katz

John Liu

David Weprin

Doctoroff's dirty deal with Shulman

From the Neighborhood Retail Alliance:

Now hold it one second. Shulman's group was set up to grease the wheels for the redevelopment effort that the Bloombergistas have been proposing for Willets Point-a plan that involves telling 250 businesses and 2500 workers to simply. "Hit the Road Jack!" Shulman, for her part, was all over this effort, hectoring city council members and testifying on behalf of the city's plan before relevant review bodies. Yet this LDC flatly stated in a federal filing that-contrary to its stated charter-that it wouldn't be lobbying at all!

Sounds like a crime was committed here-and what's with the city's own seemingly large fine? The largest lobbying fine in New York City's history and no press release? After all, the fine was levied in April and no one was even aware of the fine for the attempted end run of the law until August?

...what we have here is apparently a collusion between Doctoroff-already burned by his West Side Stadium failure-and Shulman to set up an illegal lobbying effort with city funds. And EDC, which acted as the midwife of this illegal pact, should have known better since all of the LDC's paper work must be vetted by the agency before any funds are remitted.

So, when Shulman was doing all of this lobbying as the point person for the city's effort, was everyone asleep?

Smell test anyone? Please don't insult our intelligence. And if what EDC is saying has any validity whatsoever, than why hasn't the agency shut down the illegal operation that was misusing the funds it was given? Why is this LDC still in business-with Shulman now registered to lobby on it behalf?

The entire Willets Point redevelopment effort is revealed for what it is-an illegal heist, the kind that is known in law enforcement parlance as, "an inside job." And the city's own role-not to be diminished at all-was aided and abetted by some of the very firms that stood to benefit from the eviction of the existing companies.

This is beginning to look like one big criminal enterprise-and perhaps Cuomo needs to expand his purview; because if the LDC has been functioning outside the law, there an entire cohort of co-conspirators that need to be brought to justice, beginning with Doctoroff himself.

Photo from NY Magazine

City assholes ruin peaceful train ride

From Fox 5:

Imagine a party so wild that people scream and hold each other up, while you have to step over piles of vomit. But this party isn't some kind of crazy college blow-out -- it's a ride on a commuter train.

Fox 5's Andrea Day checked out an infamous evening Long Island Rail Road train that leaves from Hampton Bays. It's known for its wild and rowdy behavior.

Read Andrea's blog for some more background.

Queens cop accused in housing fraud

From The Real Deal, August 19, 2009

A Queens police officer was charged with filing bogus pay stubs with the city's Housing Preservation and Development in an effort to continue receiving a housing subsidy valued at about $7,600, authorities said.

Simone Smith, stationed in the 108th precinct in Long Island City, was arrested today and faces multiple charges including welfare fraud, forgery, criminal possession of a forged instrument and attempted grand larceny, the office of the Manhattan District Attorney said.

Smith, 31, a Queens resident, gave doctored pay stubs and W-2 forms to HPD in Manhattan to keep receiving the housing assistance which she was no longer eligible for after earning a higher salary on the police force, prosecutors said. She was placed on modified leave in May.

The most severe charges each carry a maximum sentence of seven years in prison.

Is this nursing home trying to pull a fast one?

From Crain's:

A land-swap deal between Jewish Home and Hospital and Chetrit Group has enraged some Upper West Side residents who fear the for-profit developer will use Jewish Home’s special exemption in zoning laws to construct massive buildings on the site it’s acquiring from the nonprofit.

Jewish Home possesses an exemption to build higher than typically allowed under zoning rules that prevent the construction of tall buildings in the neighborhood. The city exempted Jewish Home so the nonprofit group could retain its right to someday build an efficient new facility on its West 106th Street campus—even a tall one—because such a project would also deliver a community service. Now, some residents worry that Chetrit Group will use the exemption that was given to Jewish Home so it can build high-rise housing instead.

“This is a classic bait and switch,” said Glory Ann Kerstein, co-coordinator of the Manhattan Valley Preservation Coalition. “Jewish Home got the carve-out from the zoning because they are a nonprofit, and now they want to give it away.”

Spokespeople for both Jewish Home and Chetrit Group denied the allegation.

The Chetrit spokeswoman said the company has no plans to use the exemption granted to Jewish Home and is currently examining neighborhood zoning rules to ensure the developer can build a viable project on the site. She said the contract between the two has not been signed yet.

Bloomberg's campaign finance reforms won't apply to him

From the Daily News:

Like Goliath outlawing slings, Mayor Bloomberg on Wednesday proposed new campaign finance rules that would apply to nearly every candidate - except himself.

As a billionaire who bankrolls his own campaigns, Bloomberg doesn't accept contributions and so wouldn't be held to his newly proposed restrictions.

Bloomberg's proposals did not come from his City Hall office, as an earlier wave of campaign finance reforms did several years ago.

They came instead from Bloomberg campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson, who introduced the proposals in the mayor's midtown campaign office after slamming Thompson for taking money from pension fund managers while overseeing city pension funds.

"Mike Bloomberg doesn't take a dime in special interest money," Wolfson said. "No one will ever have to wonder whether contributions influence his decisions....He works only for the taxpayers."

Correction: He works only for rich developer taxpayers.

All in the family

POL GAVE 160G TO WIFE'S FIRM
By MAGGIE HABERMAN, NY Post

City Councilman Eric Gioia's campaign has paid more than $160,000 to the fund-raising firm run by his wife for his current run for public advocate, records show.

His campaign has paid the Esler Group, run by his wife, fund-raiser Lisa Hernandez Gioia, $162,812, campaign-finance board filings reviewed by The Post show.

The campaign said the payments are in line with a CFB advisory opinion the campaign sought out at the beginning of the race. The opinion said the Gioia campaign "specifically asks for guidance regarding the proper treatment of Ms. Hernandez Gioia's volunteered personal services," as well as the campaign's use of the company's facilities, equipment, supplies, and employee services," according to the opinion.

Nice racket.

Photo from City Hall News

Bloomberg's College Point legacy?

From CityNoise:

I came across a small residential development that seems to have been abandoned half-constructed.

Almost every single piece of glass on the site had been shattered.

West Nile spraying tonight

Forgot to tell you guys that the West Nile spraying that was scheduled for last week in Maspeth, Middle Village, Elmhurst, Glendale and Ridgewood was postponed due to the threat of rain. It will be happening tonight instead into tomorrow morning. So stay inside if possible!

Another one bites the dust

Dear Colleague:

Jay Dee Bakery (98-92 Queens Blvd, Forest Hills) closed its doors after nearly 60 years. It stood as a well-known NY Art Deco landmark since the early 1950s (with features of an earlier bakery dating back to the early 1940s), and has been dear to locals and preservationists. Citywide, there are very few such surviving Art Deco style commercial buildings. On Aug 10th, my colleague and I met with the owner, and tried to convince him to preserve and adaptively reuse the property, making him eligible for grants, positive media, & awards. It will be transformed into a Russian restaurant, and the owner decided that he is not interested in preserving its historic Art Deco features.

The news is unfortunate, but the owner said he will give away any salvagable Art Deco features for free, if an individual, organization, or museum is interested. Rego-Forest Preservation Council is hoping that several features will live on elsewhere and showcased or creatively and adaptively reused, which has been done countrywide. We would be saddened if these unique businesses' Art Deco attributes are demolished forever.

The distinctive Art Deco and decorative features include the following (some are evidently more salvageable than others. Mosaics are salvageable):

- The classic reverse channel neon sign reading Jay Dee Bakery;
- Ravenna green mosaic columns surrounding the window, which features a classic Art Deco orange and red vertical swirl pattern that resembles jewels;
- Art Deco Lucite door and steel handle with "Pull" etched vertically;
- Window featuring a variety of vintage tiered wedding and birthday cake models;
- Exterior green terrazzo exterior floor (which likely continues inside underneath current floor tile);
- Circular Art Deco recessed ceiling & indented cake displays built into upper walls (silhouettes); and
- Any original counters & the brass cake tie devices hanging from the ceiling.

Please contact unlockthevault@hotmail.com if you are interested in an opportunity to own rare Art Deco attributes for free from the last known Jay Dee Bakery, know of someone who may be interested, or would like to offer any suggestions. Please spread the word. Time is of the essence! Thank you!

Sincerely,
Michael Perlman

The City always has money to bailout developers!

From the NY Post:

The owners of two distressed luxury condo buildings -- one in Harlem and another in Downtown Brooklyn -- are in talks with the city to unload their unsold units at fire-sale prices as affordable housing, The Post has learned.

City officials won't say where exactly the buildings are located while they are negotiating with banks that have foreclosed on the properties.

If the deals close, the units would be the first in a program pushed by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to spend $20 million to put vacant apartments on the market at a steep discount in order to expand the city's affordable-housing portfolio.

New homeowners -- who would have to meet income limits and participate in a lottery -- would get the bargain of a lifetime.

A $500,000 luxury condo might be marked down to $300,000, suggested Rafael Cestero, the city housing commissioner.

In return for the markdown, developers or bankers would get up to a $50,000 city subsidy for each apartment.

"They would have to take significant losses," Cestero said.

He added that if the prices are right, the city would be prepared to buy unfinished buildings, as well as those where at least 50 percent of the units are empty.

Whether the program works depends on bankers' hunger to get rid of their distressed properties, he said.

Notice how every time a community in Queens asks for something - new sewers, better police presence, keeping firehouses open, creating parkland, preserving history - it is told that there is no money? But hey, if a developer needs something, Bloomie can't whip out the checkbook fast enough. And Christine Quinn smiles and nods in agreement.

A classic case of an addict and his enabler.

Mayor plays dumb on money he funnelled to Claire

From the Village Voice:

Way back in October, the Willets Point Industry and Realty Association, a group strenuously opposed to the city's attempt to throw their businesses out of Willets Point so it could be redeveloped, accused former Queens borough president Claire Shulman of being an unregistered lobbyist for the Bloomberg Administration and the Economic Development Corporation on that issue. At the time, a spokesman for Shulman admitted to the Queens Gazette that she was a lobbyist and that she was going to revise the paperwork of her organization, the Flushing Willets Point Corona Local Development Corporation, to reflect that.

For their report today on Shulman's possibly illegal lobbying efforts on Willets Point, the Times questions city officials, who insist they weren't paying her to lobby -- though during the Willets Point campaign Shulman was "promising to meet with every member of the City Council as it prepared to vote on the plan last fall," says the Times...

The Mayor's spokesman, Andrew Brent, tells the paper that when the city gave Shulman $450,000 -- coincidentally, the same amount Shulman reported spending on lobbying work -- they never expected her to lobby with it. She was supposed to do "outreach, public relations, and marketing," says Brent -- she never mentioned lobbying (which might be defined as outreach, public relations, and marketing aimed at elected officials).

Zing!

From the WNYC News Blog:

On the last question, WABC moderator Dianah Williams asked each candidate to grade Mayor Bloomberg’s performance and the field got to mix it up without the aid of well rehearsed stump speech snippets. Councilman David Yassky bristled at grading.

Yassky: “He has done a good job.”

Moderator: “Grade?”

Yassky: “He has done a good job.”

Councilwoman Melinda Katz wouldn’t play along either.

Katz: “No, I think he has done a decent job.”

Councilman John Liu was quick with the red pencil.

Liu: “A in the first term, B in the second term — up until the extension of term limits and than an F right after that.”

Councilman David Weprin finished up, trying to use the moment to define the field.

Weprin: “He was doing a B until he overturned term limits, which I strongly opposed because I thought the public should have had a right to say, unlike my two opponents Ms. Katz. and Mr Yassky.”

And Paterson wonders why he's unpopular...

From the NY Daily Balance:

The number of New Yorkers getting food stamps has hit a 15-year high, thanks to an aggressive effort by state and NYC officials to seek out new recipients by mining government databanks for anyone who might be eligible.

The number of food stanmp recipients jumped 25 percent just since last year, and more than 1.5 million New Yorkers are getting the benefit, the highest since then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani led a crackdown as part of welfare reform.

That was then. This is now.

Gov. Paterson and his Democrat allies in the Senate and Assembly have been systematically dismantling those reforms to encourage more New Yorkers to get on the dole.

They already wiped out an antifraud fingerprinting provision that heped trim welfare rolls to historic lows by purging double dippers.

As part of this year’s budget, they loosened the workfare requirements so full-time college students could collect a welfare check while attending classes.

This month, Paterson unilaterally decided to use $140 million in deferal stimulus money (that’s supposed to create jobs) to give generous back-to-school bonuses to welfare moms, with no accountability and without even telling them what the money was for.

It's called tweeding.

Breaking News: Queens has a lot of chain stores

From the Daily News:

Attention, Queens shoppers: The nation's largest retailers are making it easier to shop in your own backyard.

The borough has 1,448 national chain stores - the second highest in the city, according to a new survey by the Center for an Urban Future.

It's only bested by Manhattan, which has a staggering 2,552 national retail stores.

"Queens has a lot more wealth [than some other boroughs] and it does have some really popular malls and established shopping districts," said Jonathan Bowles, executive director of the think tank.

"Up until five or 10 years ago, Queens was probably very underretailed," he said. "There were a lot of working- and middle-class people who drove out to the suburbs looking for shopping values and different options."

Dunkin' Donuts tops the list with 132 stores in the borough, followed by the Subway sandwich chain with 81 stores, Baskin-Robbins with 67 stores and Rite Aid with 63 stores.

Doorman: Let's bring Ratner to Sunnyside!

From YourNabe.com:

Gioia claimed Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner sold a “bill of goods” to the people to move ahead with the project and he was against it receiving more subsidies. He also suggested the NBA’s Nets move to Sunnyside, Queens.

Say what?