EDC UnPhased

As the NY Daily News is reporting, NYC EDC is proceeding with its segmented development of Willets Point-still claiming, against all evidence and logic, that this mall intensive phase doesn't need the as yet unapproved Van Wyck ramps:

"The city has started its search for a developer to transform Willets Point from a gritty industrial zone into a bustling mix of retail, housing and hotel space.

The Economic Development Corp. issued a request for proposals yesterday inviting developers to submit plans to turn a portion of the 62-acre site - known as "Phase 1" - into a "mixed-use, sustainable community and regional destination."

Take a look at the description of this phase: "The plan for Phase 1 includes 680,000-square-feet of retail space, up to 400 housing units, a hotel and 2 acres of open space and parking, EDC officials said. The agency estimates that Phase 1 of the project will create 1,800 permanent jobs and 4,600 construction-related jobs."

So EDC is cramming more retail into this partial development than either of the Gateway Malls that Related has built in Brooklyn and the Bronx, but the traffic will be fine. How do it know? Well, it knows because that the same charlatans over at URS/EngWongTaub/AKRF say that it is so and everyone is well aware of just how righteous these folks are. After all, the ramp delay is a direct result of their stellar analysis.

All of which makes Wrong Way Ferreras's support of this Phase all the more comical. She knows what the traffic will be like but she chooses to ignore this so she can be rewarded by the mayor and speaker with a half loaf of bread, How sad that the people of Corona and East Elmhurst are represented by a marionetta.

But make no mistake about it. This Phase is an illegal segmentation and the "Technical Memo" used to support it is as bogus a document as EDC has ever utilized to justify its land grab-and that saying a lot if you have ever taken a look at the original ramp report.

What we are discovering from all of this sleight of hand is that there is nothing that this Blooomberg-data-driven mad-government will do to falsify stats for its own self service. A day of reckoning just might be coming for these frauds-as well as their liars for hire.