Who's protecting Tommy Huang?

From the Epoch Times:

Epoch Times spoke with two real estate owners whose properties were allegedly damaged by Huang’s practices.

Neither would speak on record, yet both were concerned about what will happen to the Huang buildings still standing. What will happen, they each asked, when families move into homes built with potentially dangerous foundations?

Considering the hundreds of developments Huang has done in Queens since 1979, it’s a frightening prospect.

Tony Sclafani, spokesman for the DOB, said the department issued more than two dozen violations at the Queens Boulevard site, and issued several thousand dollars in fines. They have also had inspectors at the site and others owned by Huang.

Yet, the fundamental problem, according to Sclafani, is “the department does not have the authority to refuse the issuance of a permit based solely on past work history.”

Sen. Avella pointed out that Huang must be getting protection somehow. “Obviously, somebody has been protecting him. I don’t know who. Because I have been after the Department of Buildings for a decade to shut him down,” Avella said.

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The history of Tommy Huang

From The Real Deal:

Huang left his native Taiwan in 1974 at age 20 and settled in Flushing, Queens. A few years later, he married Alice Liu, heiress to Taiwan’s Haw Di-I Foods and Bull Head Barbecue Sauce fortunes and cousin to City Comptroller John Liu, a Democrat who is running for mayor.

While studying business at Queens College, Huang saw opportunity in Flushing’s many vacant properties and decided to go into the real estate business.

“I could not believe it,’’ Huang told the New York Times in 1997 of the empty land he saw around him. “How come nobody wants to buy it?’’

With the help of his wealthy father-in-law, Huang built seven high-rises and hundreds of houses. By the late 1980s, he had been credited with helping to revive downtown Flushing with projects such as the Golden Shopping Mall and Main Street Tower, a nine-story office building. In 1986, Huang paid $3.4 million for the dilapidated RKO Keith’s movie theater on Northern Boulevard in Flushing. Huang closed the landmark and began work on the site, with plans to develop it into a major shopping center.

Soon, Huang caught the eye of the Democratic political machine, which at the time was led by then-Queens Borough President Donald Manes. Working with Manes to encourage business development, Huang solidified his ties with the Queens political establishment, which helped him evolve into one of the most powerful real estate developers in the borough.

“They were grooming Tommy to be the fair-haired boy,” said Jerry Rotondi, a member of the Committee to Save the RKO Keith’s and a long-time critic of Huang.

“He was the symbol of the revitalization,” State Senator Leonard Stavisky told the New York Times in 1997. “But it was wrong to entrust so much of it to Tommy Huang.’’

It’s been suggested that Huang’s political ties with the city comptroller and others could partially explain the city’s inaction.

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When a lifetime ban isn't for a lifetime

From the NY Post:

A Queens couple pleaded guilty today for building and selling residential property, in violation of a lifetime ban they agreed to 14 years ago.

Thomas Huang, 59 and his wife Alice, 60, will pay $4.8 million to the state Attorney General's Office by Sept. 18 in exchange for avoiding up to four years in prison for their involvement in building the Broadway Towers in Elmhurst.

Despite the 1999 agreement to a lifetime condo and co-op ban, prosecutors today said the couple would have been OK to develop and sell condos and co-ops units, if they had reapplied for that right to the state AG’s office. ??????

The lifetime ban was the settlement of a state AG’s lawsuit, which had accused the couple of failing to use rental money they collected on important maintenance in buildings they owned.

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