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| Brian Ketcham |
"The folks at Willets Point United hired me to investigate the traffic and transit implications of this project. I’m a transportation and environmental engineer with decades of experience. What I found was that the project would generate so much traffic that it would gridlock local access roads and surrounding expressways. I also found that the EDC environmental impact statement was replete with erroneous assumptions, bad data, and outright falsehoods.
The project has gone ahead nonetheless, and the EDC handed over the development rights — behind closed doors — to Sterling Equities, a $4.6 billion real estate company and owner of the New York Mets. Sterling Equities teamed with The Related Companies, one of New York’s richest and most powerful developers, to form the Queens Development Group, which became the final recipient of the development rights for Willets Point.
The project has required massive public subsidies: $250 million for 23 acres of land at the site; $35 million for sewer construction; more than $66 million for the construction of new highway ramps; almost $100 million in a grant of taxpayer funds to the Queens Development Group; $42 million in direct financial assistance to the developer-a total of $536 million ponied up by taxpayers.
Today, the threat of redevelopment and eminent domain seizure has already driven out many of the businesses that once thrived in the Willets Point neighborhood. Few of the displaced businesses have successfully relocated.
For this reason 33 owners of Willets Point businesses filed suit in February 2014 against the EDC, Sterling Equities, The Related Companies, and the Queens Development Group. The lawsuit alleges that “there was no lawful relocation plan for current commercial tenants,” that “the relocation assistance has been ineffective,” and that the city’s failure to implement a legitimate relocation plan is a violation of federal law.
Eliminating taxpayer support for a billionaire’s boondoggle like the Willets Point Project will not make much of a dent in the level of extreme inequality in New York City. But it would make a statement that it is time to take a stand and help the working poor defend against the depredations of the rich."
