From the Neighborhood Retail Alliance:
The team from Willets Point United met with the Federal Highway Administration in order to brief the agency about the complexity of the traffic impacts generated by the development at the site of the Iron Triangle-and the ramps that are supposed to mitigate said traffic. The FHWA, along with NYSDOT, need to approve these ramps if the the Willets Point project is to be able to go forward.
Now it is our contention that the entire review process should be subject to an independent evaluation under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Our rationale derives from the faulty and self serving traffic data submissions from the Economic Development Corporation and its hired guns from URS-something that we have already pointed out here, and here. EDC and its minions have proven to be-either through mendacity or inadequacy-simply not up to the task of providing quality data.
Now the glaring nature of this insufficiency is underscored by the discrepancies between the original EIS done for the ULURP application; and the subsequent report done exclusively for the ramp approval process (called an AMR report). Here's how consultant Brian Ketcham summarizes these inadequacies:
"1. Too many discrepancies between AMR and FGEIS for the AMR to be reliable assessment of ramps.
2. FGEIS reports severe traffic impacts even w/ramps; the AMR reports no problems.
3. Field observation confirms the FGEIS.
4. AMR greatly misrepresents future traffic growth.
5. AMR does not account for all Willets Point trips.
6. AMR shows that ramps make no difference.
7.Modeling shows the ramps are counter-productive for highway system, violating FHWA key criteria.
In the face of all of this, what choice is there? NYSDOT must disapprove the AMR."
These problems are also fatal when you examine what the federal highway guidelines are for the approval of ramps-as item 7 above highlights. Ketcham's work for WPU-and remember that Brian, as well as WPU attorney Mike Gerrard, were the young turks who brought down Westway-was damning enough to prompt the NYSDOT to spit back the first AMR to EDC for serious revision.
In fact, the glaring, and problematic nature of the city's work product, has prompted the following from the National Resources Defense Council-in a letter to NYSDOT and the FHWA "NRDC is not taking a position on advancing the Willets Point project or on constructing the ramps. But based on our preliminary review, we are concerned over the discrepancies in the study results, and also by the prospect that a project could impair regional mobility by disrupting a key highway like the Van Wyck."
And NRDC goes on to say that because of these discrepancies, "...we believe that the best course of action is for the FHWA and NYS DOT to undertake a full NEPA review of the access ramps and their impacts on traffic-including the Van Wyck-without undue reliance on the analysis performed by the City, the project's proponents."
Nothing less should be required here, because as we have seen with Columbia, there is alot of incestuous activity going on between the City and its hired guns-and the first victim in all of this is the truth. But the good news emanating from today's meeting is that the folks at FHWA believe that our (really Brian's) critique has serious merit-and it will be undertaking a comprehensive environmental assessment to determine what the appropriate course of action should be in the case of these ramps-taking the process out of the hands of biased, parochial interests.
The next step for WPU is to bring the message to the Queens civic groups so that they can see for themselves the traffic nightmare in their future if this Willets Point project is allowed to go forward. In the process, the self serving dealings of the city's lead economic development agency will be thoroughly hung out to dry for everyone to plainly see-from illegal lobbying and false city council testimony, to cooked traffic books; sunlight will be the best disinfectant.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Atlantic Yards opponents basically being held hostage in their own homes!
From Atlantic Yards Report:
Things are getting truly strange for Daniel Goldstein, spokesman for Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, who with his wife and child is the only resident left on Pacific Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues.
Goldstein lost his condo to condemnation last week and his street and two others were closed and made private.
Now that his street is closed to traffic--permanently at Fifth Avenue, and via guarded barriers at Sixth Avenue, anyone visiting Goldstein must provide advance notice, which means friends have been stopped by guards and kept him on the phone today with representatives of both Forest City Ratner and the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), which owns his property.
Goldstein on March 4 received a letter (below) from Charles Webb, ESDC Condemnation Counsel, informing him that "ESDC requires you to relocate by April 3, 2010 (thirty days after the date of this letter) so that development plans for the Atlantic Yards Arena and Redevelopment Project... may proceed."
Goldstein's attorney Michael Rikon responded forcefully, on behalf of Goldstein and other footprint property owners, calling Webb's letter "an attempt to intimidate our clients":
First, you have absolutely no right to inform anyone that they must vacate by April 3, 2010. You must understand that condemnees have the protection of New York's Eminent Domain Procedure Law. You cannot even suggest a vacate date until you comply with the requirements of the law.
Those requirements include a notice of acquisition and a good faith advance payment. Then the date to vacate would be set by the condemnation court.
He added that "no roadway or access to a street or highway may be interfered with."
Things are getting truly strange for Daniel Goldstein, spokesman for Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, who with his wife and child is the only resident left on Pacific Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues.
Goldstein lost his condo to condemnation last week and his street and two others were closed and made private.
Now that his street is closed to traffic--permanently at Fifth Avenue, and via guarded barriers at Sixth Avenue, anyone visiting Goldstein must provide advance notice, which means friends have been stopped by guards and kept him on the phone today with representatives of both Forest City Ratner and the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), which owns his property.
Goldstein on March 4 received a letter (below) from Charles Webb, ESDC Condemnation Counsel, informing him that "ESDC requires you to relocate by April 3, 2010 (thirty days after the date of this letter) so that development plans for the Atlantic Yards Arena and Redevelopment Project... may proceed."
Goldstein's attorney Michael Rikon responded forcefully, on behalf of Goldstein and other footprint property owners, calling Webb's letter "an attempt to intimidate our clients":
First, you have absolutely no right to inform anyone that they must vacate by April 3, 2010. You must understand that condemnees have the protection of New York's Eminent Domain Procedure Law. You cannot even suggest a vacate date until you comply with the requirements of the law.
Those requirements include a notice of acquisition and a good faith advance payment. Then the date to vacate would be set by the condemnation court.
He added that "no roadway or access to a street or highway may be interfered with."
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Blight is now a city planning tool
From City Journal:
In New York, this creative definition of blight is the new central-planning model. Consultants have also cited “underutilization” in West Harlem, where the city’s Economic Development Corporation wants to take land from private owners and hand it to Columbia University for an expansion project. Says Norman Siegel, who represents the owners: “A private property owner has the right to determine the best productive use of his property. It’s not a right to be ceded to any government.”
And in Queens, the Bloomberg administration is preparing a similar argument to grab swaths of Willets Point, an area adjacent to Citi Field that’s populated with auto-repair shops. The city’s recent “request for qualifications” from would-be developers drew a sharp response from the people who owned the land: “We . . . hold the most significant qualification of all: we own the properties. We are motivated to improve and use our own properties, consistent with the American free market system. We would have done so in spectacular fashion already, had the city upheld its end of the bargain by providing our neighborhood with essential services and infrastructure.” Instead, the city has done the opposite, letting streets disintegrate into ditches to bolster its blight finding. The perversity is astonishing: rather than doing its own job of maintaining public infrastructure and public safety, the government wants to do the private sector’s job—and is going about it by starving that private sector of public resources.
In New York, this creative definition of blight is the new central-planning model. Consultants have also cited “underutilization” in West Harlem, where the city’s Economic Development Corporation wants to take land from private owners and hand it to Columbia University for an expansion project. Says Norman Siegel, who represents the owners: “A private property owner has the right to determine the best productive use of his property. It’s not a right to be ceded to any government.”
And in Queens, the Bloomberg administration is preparing a similar argument to grab swaths of Willets Point, an area adjacent to Citi Field that’s populated with auto-repair shops. The city’s recent “request for qualifications” from would-be developers drew a sharp response from the people who owned the land: “We . . . hold the most significant qualification of all: we own the properties. We are motivated to improve and use our own properties, consistent with the American free market system. We would have done so in spectacular fashion already, had the city upheld its end of the bargain by providing our neighborhood with essential services and infrastructure.” Instead, the city has done the opposite, letting streets disintegrate into ditches to bolster its blight finding. The perversity is astonishing: rather than doing its own job of maintaining public infrastructure and public safety, the government wants to do the private sector’s job—and is going about it by starving that private sector of public resources.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
The Iron Man of the Iron Triangle
.
From Last Exit Magazine:
Situated in the shadows of Citi Field in Queens — the home ballpark of the New York Mets — Willets Point, aka The Iron Triangle, is a series of junkyards and auto body shops that has been neglected for over 75 years by the city of New York. Though all the owners pay a hefty property tax, the local government has refused to provide adequate sewers, street lights, and sidewalks. The extreme neglect by local officials has forced the area to become a blight making it eligible for eminent domain.
The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) has decided to move forward with its ten-year plan to buy up the entire property, whether the owners like it or not, in order to build luxury condos, a hotel, and a convention center—putting thousands of workers out of a job. Though the NYCEDC has offered educational classes, the pay rate associated with the degrees is insufficient as a replacement salary.
Joe Ardizzone was born here and remains the only resident and voting person in the district. After 76 years of residency in the house he was born in, he continues to fight for his rightful land and the lives of the surrounding workers.
From Last Exit Magazine:
Situated in the shadows of Citi Field in Queens — the home ballpark of the New York Mets — Willets Point, aka The Iron Triangle, is a series of junkyards and auto body shops that has been neglected for over 75 years by the city of New York. Though all the owners pay a hefty property tax, the local government has refused to provide adequate sewers, street lights, and sidewalks. The extreme neglect by local officials has forced the area to become a blight making it eligible for eminent domain.
The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) has decided to move forward with its ten-year plan to buy up the entire property, whether the owners like it or not, in order to build luxury condos, a hotel, and a convention center—putting thousands of workers out of a job. Though the NYCEDC has offered educational classes, the pay rate associated with the degrees is insufficient as a replacement salary.
Joe Ardizzone was born here and remains the only resident and voting person in the district. After 76 years of residency in the house he was born in, he continues to fight for his rightful land and the lives of the surrounding workers.
Ketcham: City's Willets Point EIS and ramp study don't jibe
From Crains:
The traffic engineer who helped kill Westway, the massive West Side highway project proposed during the Koch administration, now has his sights set on derailing the city’s redevelopment of Willets Point.
Local property owners fighting the project are banking on traffic engineer Brian Ketcham’s study that shows two proposed ramps would increase traffic on the Van Wyck Expressway and have made it a key element of their lawsuit challenging the project’s environmental impact statement.
The Bloomberg administration has argued that the ramps are necessary to prevent a traffic nightmare at the site.
The original environmental impact statement, or EIS, showed the massive Willets Point project would generate heavy traffic, but a recent report on the proposed ramps showed a much sunnier picture. The ramp study—an “access modification report,” or AMR, which is technical documentation to support federal and state decisions on whether to approve the ramps—is being redone after Mr. Ketcham used traffic data from the environmental impact statement to demonstrate that the ramps would make a bad situation worse. The entire redevelopment, with 9 million buildable square feet, is projected to generate 80,000 vehicle trips daily.
“Our problem is that [the ramp study] is so incredibly different from the environmental impact statement,” Mr. Ketcham wrote in an e-mail message. “The EIS reports Willets Point will create gridlock throughout community; AMR reports free-flow traffic. An incredible contrast.”
The access modification report was submitted last summer; Mr. Ketcham noted his objections in a letter last month.
Mr. Ketcham is being paid by project opponents, but his assessment that the access modification report underestimates the traffic impact stems from common modeling software that the state Department of Transportation trusts. The opponents see the department as a potential ally because the agency cannot afford to build all the new road capacity demanded of it.
The ramps require state and federal approval, and it is possible that without the ramps, the project would not proceed. Project opponents are meeting Thursday with the Federal Highway Administration and will ask for an independent review of the ramp report that is now being revised by a private consultant on behalf of the Bloomberg administration.
“We will be submitting a revised draft in the upcoming weeks that is responsive to the comments and issues raised by state DOT and the Federal Highway Administration, as well as those from Willets Point opponents,” said David Lombino, a spokesman for the Bloomberg administration’s Economic Development Corp., the lead agency on Willets Point.
“At the very least, we have put this off by six months,” claimed Richard Lipsky, the lobbyist for the property owners’ group Willets Point United.
The traffic engineer who helped kill Westway, the massive West Side highway project proposed during the Koch administration, now has his sights set on derailing the city’s redevelopment of Willets Point.
Local property owners fighting the project are banking on traffic engineer Brian Ketcham’s study that shows two proposed ramps would increase traffic on the Van Wyck Expressway and have made it a key element of their lawsuit challenging the project’s environmental impact statement.
The Bloomberg administration has argued that the ramps are necessary to prevent a traffic nightmare at the site.
The original environmental impact statement, or EIS, showed the massive Willets Point project would generate heavy traffic, but a recent report on the proposed ramps showed a much sunnier picture. The ramp study—an “access modification report,” or AMR, which is technical documentation to support federal and state decisions on whether to approve the ramps—is being redone after Mr. Ketcham used traffic data from the environmental impact statement to demonstrate that the ramps would make a bad situation worse. The entire redevelopment, with 9 million buildable square feet, is projected to generate 80,000 vehicle trips daily.
“Our problem is that [the ramp study] is so incredibly different from the environmental impact statement,” Mr. Ketcham wrote in an e-mail message. “The EIS reports Willets Point will create gridlock throughout community; AMR reports free-flow traffic. An incredible contrast.”
The access modification report was submitted last summer; Mr. Ketcham noted his objections in a letter last month.
Mr. Ketcham is being paid by project opponents, but his assessment that the access modification report underestimates the traffic impact stems from common modeling software that the state Department of Transportation trusts. The opponents see the department as a potential ally because the agency cannot afford to build all the new road capacity demanded of it.
The ramps require state and federal approval, and it is possible that without the ramps, the project would not proceed. Project opponents are meeting Thursday with the Federal Highway Administration and will ask for an independent review of the ramp report that is now being revised by a private consultant on behalf of the Bloomberg administration.
“We will be submitting a revised draft in the upcoming weeks that is responsive to the comments and issues raised by state DOT and the Federal Highway Administration, as well as those from Willets Point opponents,” said David Lombino, a spokesman for the Bloomberg administration’s Economic Development Corp., the lead agency on Willets Point.
“At the very least, we have put this off by six months,” claimed Richard Lipsky, the lobbyist for the property owners’ group Willets Point United.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Why using blight for eminent domain just isn't right
From the NY Post:New York's real blights today are government's fault -- like the old Deutsche Bank building at Ground Zero, owned by the city and state since 9/11, whose "deconstruction" is still underway.
Eminent-domain abuse is a symptom of a deeper problem: The belief that central planning is superior to free-market competition. To cure yourself of this notion, stroll around Atlantic Yards, past three-story clapboard homes nestled near corniced row houses -- "blighted" residences. You'll peer up at [Daniel] Goldstein's nearly empty apartment house, scheduled to be destroyed.
And you'll see how Ratner's wrecking balls have made the neighborhood gap-toothed. A vacant lot now sprawls where the historic Ward Bakery was.
Today, Prospect Heights displays what the state wants everyone to see: decay. But it's isn't the work of callous markets that left the neighborhood to perish. It's the work of a developer wielding state power to press property owners to sell their land "voluntarily." Meanwhile, true private investment has been choked off, since everyone knows the state's aiming to hand everything to Ratner.
Free markets aren't perfect, but they're better than the blight of arbitrary government.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
"Build these ramps, and Willets Point, Corona and Flushing will get screwed."
"Build these ramps, and Willets Point, Corona and Flushing will get screwed. And, as our modeling shows, so will every motorist traveling through north central Queens." -- Brian Ketcham, Traffic Engineer
On January 27, 2010, WPU members testified in opposition to federal recertification of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council (NYMTC).
NYMTC recently amended the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), to include the proposed construction of two new controversial Van Wyck Expressway access ramps. According to the City's own study, these proposed ramps will inflict severe adverse traffic impacts upon popular Queens roadways, and upon residents and commuters who rely on those roadways. WPU believes that NYMTC's amendment of the TIP to include the proposed Van Wyck ramps is an abdication of NYMTC's responsibility to ensure that transportation projects conform to accepted standards and do not harm the communities where they occur.
The New York State Department of Transportation now is considering whether or not to approve the proposed Van Wyck ramps, based upon a deficient report submitted by the New York City Economic Development Corporation which blatantly low-balls the traffic impacts, and contradicts the findings of the Environmental Impact Statement.
For in-depth information pertaining to the proposed Van Wyck access ramps, their severe adverse traffic impacts, and what you can do now to prevent their construction, visit: www.trafficnightmare.org.
Richard Lipsky:
"... the review of the ramp approval has been tainted ..."
Brian Ketcham:
"Build these ramps, and Willets Point, Corona and Flushing will get screwed."
Irene Presti:
"... a very serious error that harms the people of Queens ..."
Joseph Ardizzone:
"It's nothing but traffic gridlock."
Chris Petrizzo:
"... it's been negligently approved ..."
On January 27, 2010, WPU members testified in opposition to federal recertification of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council (NYMTC).
NYMTC recently amended the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), to include the proposed construction of two new controversial Van Wyck Expressway access ramps. According to the City's own study, these proposed ramps will inflict severe adverse traffic impacts upon popular Queens roadways, and upon residents and commuters who rely on those roadways. WPU believes that NYMTC's amendment of the TIP to include the proposed Van Wyck ramps is an abdication of NYMTC's responsibility to ensure that transportation projects conform to accepted standards and do not harm the communities where they occur.
The New York State Department of Transportation now is considering whether or not to approve the proposed Van Wyck ramps, based upon a deficient report submitted by the New York City Economic Development Corporation which blatantly low-balls the traffic impacts, and contradicts the findings of the Environmental Impact Statement.
For in-depth information pertaining to the proposed Van Wyck access ramps, their severe adverse traffic impacts, and what you can do now to prevent their construction, visit: www.trafficnightmare.org.
Richard Lipsky:
"... the review of the ramp approval has been tainted ..."
Brian Ketcham:
"Build these ramps, and Willets Point, Corona and Flushing will get screwed."
Irene Presti:
"... a very serious error that harms the people of Queens ..."
Joseph Ardizzone:
"It's nothing but traffic gridlock."
Chris Petrizzo:
"... it's been negligently approved ..."
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