How does the Machine screw over Willets Point? Let us count the ways...

From Willets Point United:

The City Council, when we last checked, purports to be a deliberative body, but when you get really close to examine how it really functions you come to understand that it is deliberately obtuse when it comes to the interests of small businesses, and communities impacted by mega-development. Take the ULURP application for the slyly named Willets West-a project that emerged like Rosemary’s Baby from the failure of the original Willets Point development that passed under a false flag in 2008. If what we have seen so far is any indication, the council is preparing to roll over because of an inordinate obsequiousness to the interests of Joe Crowley and the Queens County Democrats.

In the first case, the initial hearing is scheduled for September the 3rd, the first business day after the Labor Day holiday. Acting like folks who want to remain inaccessible and perhaps even incognito, the notice for the hearing was posted on Thursday the 29th, leaving a single day before the holiday for the word to get out.

When it comes to the hearing itself, the Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises is signaling that it really doesn’t want to have a vigorous debate on a project that remains promiscuously controversial considering the illegal lobbying that drove the original council approval five years ago. It is doing so first by shutting down the request from Willets Point United to present a 20 minute power point that deconstructs the numerous erroneous assumptions from EDC - an entity that was forced to reconstruct itself after orchestrating the aforementioned illegal lobbying.

There’s really no excuse for doing this since WPU has been willing to forego the time of five or six of its testifiers so that the power point could be presented. The only conclusion an impartial observer can draw from this is that the committee is trying to tamp down the opposition’s ability to make its case. Will the committee limit the developers to 2 minutes? No, we don’t think so - and Chairman Weprin needs to explain why he needs to act as a homer for the developers.

In addition, the time being allotted to each speaker has been reduced to 2 minutes! - another example of favoritism since the developers, being the prototypical special interests, normally have fewer people coming to testify. Two minutes for some of the folks who stand to lose their businesses and their property if this corrupt deal is approved is the quintessential example of the stacked deck.

The committee is also showing its true colors by disrespecting the expected testimony of many of the Hispanic immigrant workers and business owners. No Spanish translator will be provided at this hearing – despite the ULURP application that is at issue requiring that 100+ businesses vacate the premises that are owned and operated predominantly by people who speak Spanish. The City previously failed to provide any Spanish translator at the eminent domain hearing which was widely criticized at the time. Apparently the City has not learned any lesson and is content to steamroll the 100+ immigrant businesses without hearing them at the Council. And why hasn't Julissa Ferreras, the home rule council member who has been working for years with the tenant businesses, demanded interpretation services for her constituents, or spoken out against the skulduggery being perpetrated by the City against Willets Point land and business owners?

The above points, taken all together, demonstrate the City Council's active contempt for public testimony about the proposed Willets West mall / Willets Point Phase One ULURP application. Speaker Quinn, Land Use Committee Chair Leroy Comrie, and subcommittee Chair Mark Weprin should be ashamed of themselves. These latest examples of bias come a year after the Mayor's Office and NYCEDC selected Sterling Equities and Related Companies, and their plan to expand the development from 62 to 108.9 acres including constructing a shopping mall on parkland, in a private process that shut out the Queens-based Willets Point Advisory Committee from the developer selection process, contrary to multiple written promises. The fix appears to be in; let the Council now show us - and all New Yorkers - otherwise.

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CPC also approves shopping mall on parkland

From the Daily News:

The City Planning Commission approved a plan to build a mega mall near Citi Field as part of a larger redevelopment of the gritty stretch of auto body shops.

The 13-member panel gave its overwhelming approval for the proposal — paving the way for a City Council vote within the next 50 days.

Board member Michelle de la Uz was the lone dissenting voice during the meeting.

She argued that there are a glut of malls already in Queens and said “questionable and weak” efforts have been made to relocate the immigrant shop owners working in the auto body shops.

The development group — a joint venture between Sterling Equities and the Related Co. — said Wednesday that they will begin “briefing Council members” on the “support the plan has received from local civic leaders.”

What civic leaders are those? Chuck Apelian and Paul Vallone?


New York City Planning Commissioner Michelle de la Uz explains her "NO" vote -- opposing the proposed Willets West mall / Willets Point development of Sterling Equities and Related Companies -- during the Planning Commission meeting on August 21, 2013. Commissioner de la Uz is appointed by the New York City Public Advocate. Her predecessor, Commissioner Karen Phillips -- who was appointed by the prior NYC Public Advocate -- similarly voted against the original proposed Willets Point development during 2008.

Copyright 2013 LoScalzo Media Design LLC. All rights reserved.

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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.

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Shulman, Ferreras, called out at Willets Point press conference

From A Walk in the Park:

Opponents of the Willet's Point West attempted land grab in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park gathered on the steps of City Hall on Wednesday and voiced their overwhelming opposition toward the mega-development project planned on more than 30 acres of public parkland.

Under the proposal a massive 1.4 million sq. ft. mall would be built in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park on parkland currently used for Citi-Field parking. The majority of the land for the $3 billion Willets Point project would be taken from the public parkland.

Critics of the plan argue that if the 40-plus acres being proposed for mall use are no longer needed for parking then it should revert back to its original recreational use.

The City and Bloomberg-preferred developer the Related Companies in partnership with Sterling Equities, the real estate firm controlled by the owner of the Mets - are attempting this without seeking State Alienation legislation as is required under state law to use parkland for non-park purposes.
Critics denounced numerous issues regarding the Willets Point redevelopment project including:

1. This was not the deal that the Council approved: The affordable housing component has been delayed and subject to escape clauses, and the agreed living wage provision has been eliminated;
2. No project - let alone a 1.4 million square foot mall - should be built on public parkland;
3. The City Administrative Code does not authorize or provide any legal basis for the construction of a mall on 30+ acres of parkland, in violation of the parkland Public Trust Doctrine;
4. No massive development should be built in this area without new access ramps being built to and from the Van Wyck Expressway before any other construction;
5. No private property should be taken to merely be paved over as a parking lot;
6. Developers Sterling and Related were selected via a process that excluded the Willets Point Advisory Committee and Queens officials – contrary to written promises made by the City administration in 2008;
7. The City must be compensated for the $200 million it has spent to buy Willets Point property;
8. No team of billionaire developers should be given said property as a $1 gift;
9. No developer who was part of an illegal lobbying scheme should be allowed to profit for engaging in the illegality;
10. No development deal based on an illegal lobbying scheme should be approved by the City Council

Press Conference Statement from Irene Presti, Willets Point property owner:

My name is Irene Presti and I own property at Willets Point that is threatened by the illegal and unethical deal that the Bloomberg administration has put forward to develop the Iron Triangle. 

That’s right, the entire development was promoted by a violation of not only the not for profit lobbying laws of New York State; but by the brazen violation of Federal law as well.

In order to promote this dirty deal the city helped to set up a phony not for profit local development group headed by Claire Shulman. The group, made up of rich developers with the names Muss, Wilpon, Mattone and TDC, was never anything but a not for profit but in name only-it was put in place to advance the special interest of its real estate company members.

Incredibly, NYC EDC forwarded $500,000 in tax payer funds to finance this illegal lobbying scheme.

Unfortunately, this LDC was barred from doing any legal lobbying from the standpoint of the NY State law on local development corporations. Don’t just take my word for it. In July of 2012, the NY State Attorney General cited the violation of the law but, shamefully, failed to do anything to sanction the illegal behavior.

Apparently, some people are considered to be above the law and the AG even failed to demand that the Shulman group refund the illegal contribution from EDC and the tax payers. So small property owners like myself were forced to fend off the big real estate companies who were publicly funded in the campaign to take away my property.

But it gets worse folks. When the Shulman group filed for tax exempt status with the IRS there are two important boxes it checked. The first was: Will you be doing any lobbying? The second was: will you be doing any economic development? The group, lying through its teeth, answered no to both questions-even though Shulman told the NY Times that the entire purpose of the group was to lobby for the Willets Point project.

Did the IRS act on this blatant violation of the federal not for profit laws? Not on your life. It was busy chasing the Tea Party and didn’t have the time to investigate and punish a clear violation of law. So on the state and the federal level, law enforcement is a partisan activity and justice be damned!

Now, however, it gets much worse. We see that Mr. Wilpon of the Mets-the prime mover of the illegal lobbying group- has been awarded the development rights to Willets West and $200 million worth of property for $1. And there is no one with the courage to step in and put an end to this criminal scheme. Who says crime doesn’t pay?

Not only that, but the entire original development deal has been changed in a breathless bait and switch that has eliminated the affordable housing and living wage pledges that were the heart of the approval in 2008. Instead of the “next green neighborhood” we have been given a huge mall and a parking lot. For this we are abusing the eminent domain process?

I am a proud member of Willets Point United. If my group had done what EDC, Wilpon and Shulman have conspired to do, we would be under arrest and awaiting trial. Instead, Shulman remains at large and Wilpon is poised to reap billions of dollars for evading the law and ripping off the tax payers.

Willets West is a scandal and the conspirators should not be rewarded for their illegal scheme. The city council must vote, No-and let the next mayor sort out this scandal.

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Illegal street parties at the Point

From the Times Ledger:

Residents of a serene North Flushing block spent six weeks tracking down the elusive source of blaring music — and were shocked to find it across a river and more than a mile away.

Peter Condiles lives in the leafy section of Flushing north of downtown where lawns, driveways and carefully manicured bushes are the norm.

It was a quiet place to grow up and live.

“At least it use to be,” he said.

On May 11, Condiles was awakened by loud music pulsating through the walls of his home.

When the racket returned the following weekend, he began walking around the neighborhood, thinking someone might be throwing a party.

But the sound seemed to be playing tricks on him.

Main Street? Linden Place?

Just when the lifelong Flushing resident thought he had cornered the source of his sleepless nights, the sound would vanish.

Condiles had been in contact with another neighbor also seeking the source of the pumping bass, Flushing activist Paul Graziano, and the two spent several evenings driving around, ears tuned to the night air. They went as far as College Point Boulevard before they agreed the sound must be coming from farther away, across the Flushing River.

After another unsuccessful venture into Corona, on June 21 Condiles stumbled upon hundreds of people congregated in Willets Point, a gritty area of junk yards and auto shops across from Citi Field and more than 1 1/2 miles from his house.

“There were between three and five cars or vans. Each one had its trunk or back doors open and maybe 20 or 30 speakers on the doors,” he said. “They were all playing the same thing.”

Condiles and Graziano believe the combined amplification power of the souped-up speakers had sent sound waves bouncing across the Flushing River, off of building facades and into their quiet enclave — and they want the parties, which have been driving neighbors nuts, to stop.

Deputy Inspector Ronald Leyson, commanding officer at the 110th Precinct, said police had already driven the pop-up parties — which may be organized through social media — from around Meadow Lake inside Flushing Meadows Corona Park several months ago.

Now that they have migrated to Willets Point, the precinct has started to do patrols and issue summonses.

Last Friday, officers confiscated a car, he said.

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DOB continues to harass Willets Point business owners

From the Times Ledger:

The city again shut down a group of Willets Point businesses that lie in the footprint of a $3 billion redevelopment project set to begin early next year, while talks about a detailed plan to relocate the auto repair shops to Maspeth have been stalled since October.

Inspectors from the city Department of Buildings, acting on reports from the NYPD, shuttered about 10 businesses citing unsafe construction conditions June 13, according to business owners.

“They want to kick everybody out this way,” said Marco Neira, a tenant in Willets Point.

The closings came on the heels of another round of inspections in May. Several shops were closed then near the corner of 37th Avenue and 126th Street, although the city offered to make repairs in that case.

The department characterized the latest round of inspections as routine, but business owners wondered about the timing.

The buildings housing the businesses have existed for decades, they said, but the violations are being issued about six months before developers hope to begin transforming 23 acres of the Iron Triangle into a new mixed-use neighborhood.

It's amazing that the DOB can spend so much time at the Iron Triangle - where no one called in complaints and issue vacate orders to businesses renting from the City - but doesn't have the manpower to resolve illegal conversions in residential zones.

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Columbia pushes for lots more development

From the Wall Street Journal:

In the coming decades, New York could confront a problem many cities would love to have: too many people and nowhere to put them.

The city is expected to add one million more residents by 2040, but there likely won't be room for hundreds of thousands of them unless a small city of new housing is built, according to a report by a Columbia University think tank.

The most logical location for all this new housing: the city's waterfront neighborhoods, including Long Island City and Willets Point in Queens, Red Hook in Brooklyn and the Financial District, according to the report by the Center for Urban Real Estate at Columbia University.

Whether residents want more apartments in their neighborhoods remains to be seen. In places such as Williamsburg where Bloomberg administration rezonings brought new residents, the result has been subway cars so packed that commuters wait for several trains to pass, lengthy kindergarten wait lists and promised parks that have yet to be delivered. The city has also yet to master the art of making tightly packed blocks of new glass towers feel like neighborhoods, rather than sterile enclaves.

Finding places for new people in the city isn't as simple as putting development in less-dense neighborhoods. More than a quarter of the city's housing is in single-family structures, meaning there's still plenty of room to go up to accommodate more people.

But in many of those areas prices aren't high enough to justify the cost of building new 40-story towers. It's unclear, for example, whether there's enough demand for the 10,000 to 15,000 units the report said could be accommodated along Queens Boulevard, a 12-lane thoroughfare through the heart of the borough.

That much of the development would be along the waterfront raises serious questions after superstorm Sandy, when residents in Lower Manhattan, Long Island City and Red Hook were out of their homes for weeks or months.

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City not required to build required Willets Point ramps

From the Times Ledger:

Developers of the $3 million Willets Point project are not contractually required to build affordable housing in part because the city wants to shield itself from a potential lawsuit.

The Bloomberg administration did not want to risk paying out legal damages to the developers — Related Cos. and Sterling Equities, the real estate arm of the New York Mets — should the city fail to build additional ramps off the Van Wyck Expressway, an essential precursor to constructing the housing component of the project, officials and the companies said at a recent meeting.

“If for some unforeseen reason [the ramps] didn’t get built, they didn’t want us to have a right to sue the city,” Glen Goldstein, president of Related Retail, said at an April 25 meeting with Community Board 7. “It was done so there would be no liability from the city to the joint venture.”

After passing the City Council with much fanfare over the affordable housing component of the project in 2008, the 62-acre project was subsequently split into two phases by the Bloomberg administration.

The first phase was then split into two more phases by the joint venture, which inked a contract with the city in August 2012 to develop 23 acres.

The first phase entails cleaning the historically contaminated soil. Then the Queens Development Group will build a hotel and small retail stores along 126th Street across from Citi Field, a temporary parking lot behind that and a 1.4 million-square-foot mall west of Citi Field in a parking lot leased to the Mets.

The housing component, including affordable units, is slated to be built on the temporary parking lot in the second phase beginning in 2024, but there is no guarantee that will happen. The ramps are required to start, yet the city is not required to build them.

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