WILLETS POINT UNITED ASKS CITY’S ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION TO DISQUALIFY PROJECT BIDDERS

WILLETS POINT UNITED ASKS CITY’S ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION TO DISQUALIFY WILLETS POINT PROJECT BIDDERS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(December 7, 2009) Willets Point United, Inc. – a group of more than 20 property owners in Queens, NY, fighting to keep their land despite the city’s desire to condemn it and turn it over to a yet-to-be-named private developer – believes the NYC Economic Development Corporation’s (EDC) approach to improving Willets Point is inappropriate, and we will oppose it in every way. Today we have notified the EDC via letter of the very disturbing track records of certain developer firms likely to respond to the EDC’s Request for Qualifications (RFQ) by today’s deadline and asks that these firms be disqualified from future consideration for receipt of a Request for Proposals (RFP).

Shamefully, the City of New York and EDC have conspired to supplant us, and to convey our properties to one or more developer firms that will be selected in secret by EDC and the Project Team. Then, ironically, once we have been forced to depart Willets Point, the City will lavish upon the area all of the services and infrastructure that have been denied to us, despite our payments of City taxes during the past decades.

One candidate, TDC Development, committed more than 4 years ago to redevelop downtown Flushing’s Municipal Lot 1, but as of this day the Chinese-based real estate and development company has failed to even break ground. This project is 1/12th the size of Willets Point. To entrust a firm such as TDC with the proposed Willets Point redevelopment is to direct that project toward the same fate as the now-infamous proposed redevelopment in New London, Connecticut. To quote Councilman and Comptroller-elect John Liu, “*TDC+ seems to think it doesn't need to deliver on the promises it made two years ago. That's at best a woeful miscalculation and at worst just pure greed.” It should be noted that years ago TDC was determined by EDC to qualify to receive an RFP and no more than an expression of continued interest in the project is now required for TDC to remain under consideration.

TDC, plus Briarwood Group, Ciampa Organization, J&K Pi Foundation, Mattone Group, Muss Development, Nash Builders, Palaus, Sokolowski & Sartor and RAMAH, comprise the membership of Flushing-Willets Point-Corona Local Development Corporation. This organization is incorporated under Section 1411 of the New York State Not-For-Profit Corporations Law, which explicitly prohibits FWPCLDC from attempting to influence legislation. Although FWPCLDC is prohibited from attempting to influence legislation, it has lobbied in favor of the proposed Willets Point redevelopment, and is presently a registered lobbyist. The apparently unlawful activities of FWPCLDC are financed and/or otherwise supported by TDC and the other eight above-identified developer firms. This should disqualify all of them from participating in the Request for Proposal (RFP) process.

In addition, the city’s plan to use eminent domain to acquire property for private development is itself controversial, but will become much more so if NYCEDC attempts to forcibly acquire properties from their present American owners via condemnation and convey those properties to a non-American entity. To prevent that unconscionable specter, NYCEDC and the Project Team must ensure that fundamentally American firms are exclusively entitled to receive the RFP.

While NYCEDC's RFQ may be intended to elicit responses from developer entities which affirm their qualifications and promote their accomplishments, we submit that this letter – concerning potential developer candidates' lack of qualifications – should be considered equally significant by NYCEDC and the Project Team. We believe that all of the developer firms identified herein are unqualified to participate in the proposed Willets Point Redevelopment, and that they must not receive the RFP.

Call Governor Paterson today!

Friends:

This week, New York Governor David Paterson committed to ordering an impartial and thorough review of the Atlantic Yards project. As we e-mailed you about last week, New York’s highest court upheld the condemnations of privately owned homes and small businesses to make way for developer Bruce Ratner’s massive Atlantic Yards project.
It is critical that the governor intervene to stop these condemnations immediately.

Please call Governor Paterson right now at 518-474-8390 and thank him for his commitment to ordering a review of the Atlantic Yards project. Ask him that he stop the entire process while the review goes forward, particularly the condemnation of private property. Stress that in the middle of the state’s fiscal crisis, it doesn’t make sense to give a private developer $100 million for a wildly unpopular, pie-in-the-sky project. Remind him of the barren fields in Fort Trumbull – that could be the future of Brooklyn.

Christina Walsh
Director of Activism and Coalitions
Institute for Justice
901 N. Glebe Road, Suite 900
Arlington, VA 22203
www.ij.org
www.castlecoalition.org

Joe Ardizzone: "last man standing"

From the Queens Chronicle:

Call him the last man standing. Joe Ardizzone has lived in Willets Point all his 77 years and says he’s not about to leave now.

Ardizzone remembers growing up in a virtual wildlife sanctuary, with the thrill of watching migrating birds every year and frogs, quail and pheasants as regular sights. “I haven’t seen a frog here in 40 years,” he said.

His father built a couple of houses but the neighborhood never took off as a residential area. The factories and auto shops came after the 1939 World’s Fair. “I stay here by choice,” Ardizzone said. “I like the people around me. They are hard-working.”

He is angry over the way the city has forced the project on those who work in Willets Point. “It’s strictly a dictatorship, not the American way. They are taking property from us and the people are paying for it.”

Ardizzone vows to continue the fight. “The city should not be in the real estate business,” he said. “I’m not moving. I’m fighting for democracy and for all those who lost their lives fighting for it.”

Supporting him are members of Willets Point United, business owners who are fighting to keep their properties. Jerry Antonacci, owner of Crown Container, a waste transfer station there for 33 years, is one of the group’s spokespersons.

“It’s discouraging to live in a city where they don’t care about people’s property,” Antonacci said.

Jake Bono, whose family has owned a sawdust business for more than 75 years, most of the time in Willets Point, said the outcome in New London, “goes to show it’s just wrong to take people’s property. The city failed and they destroyed lives,” Bono said.

He considers what happened in Connecticut “a victory, not a loss” for Willets Point businesses that want to stay. “It shows clearly that eminent domain doesn’t work. It fails,” he said, referring to the Supreme Court’s decision in Kelo v. City of New London, which upheld the city’s use of eminent domain for private redevelopment. “What happened in New London made 43 states change their eminent domain laws to only allow it for a true public purpose.”

Antonacci and Bono believe time is on their side and the city will stall on the project because it doesn’t have the funding. “The city has no money and no plan,” Antonacci said. “It will be delayed for years and years.”

“We’ll fight, but nothing is going on now. We’re just waiting and still intend to continue,” Antonacci said.

Columbia decision news roundup

Columbia University failed to work out a deal with Nicholas Sprayregen, above, who owned four Tuck-it-Away Self Storage buildings in the area. [NY Times]

Court puts brakes on Columbia's, NY's West Harlem property grab [NY Post]

Court deals blow to Columbia U. expansion plan [Crains]

Court Deals a Blow to Columbia’s Expansion Plans [NY Times]

State Court Rules Eminent Domain Use for Columbia West Harlem Campus Unconstitutional [Updated] [NY Observer]

Court Decision Puts Halt On Columbia Expansion [NY1]

No eminent domain for Columbia University expansion: court [Daily News]

Appeals court rules for property owners and against Columbia University

From the NY Observer:

In an unexpected major decision, a New York appellate court has overturned the use of eminent domain to create a new West Harlem campus for Columbia University, ruling the action unconstitutional.

The cases were brought by the defiant owner of a set of storage warehouses in West Harlem, Nick Sprayregen, and the owners of two gas stations in the footprint for the 17-acre campus, called Manahttanville. Mr. Sprayregen sued to block the land takings in January, after the use of eminent domain was approved by the state's development agency, the Empire State Development Corporation.

Columbia had said it needed eminent domain to establish a full, contiguous campus, and then build a large, interconnected underground facility throughout the area. Thus all the property owners needed to be removed from the mostly industrial district.

Warner Johnston, an ESDC spokesman, said the state intends to appeal the action.

The ruling has also caught the eye of a set of business owners at Willets Point in Queens, where the city seems likely to use eminent domain.

"We look forward to the same kind of vindication if the city coerces eminent domain on Willets Point," business owner Jake Bono said in a statement.

Daily News editorial draws comparison between Willets Point and New London

N.Y., learn from New London: It offers a critical cautionary tale on the use of eminent domain

BY Richard Lipsky

Monday, November 30th 2009

There were two major developments in the use of eminent domain this month. Now the question is which of the two will be more influential in determining the future use of this controversial power in New York.

The first landmark was the shocking decision that the Pfizer drug company was abandoning New London, Conn., taking 1,400 jobs with it. This came just over five years after the pharmaceutical giant was being hailed as the linchpin of a new economic development project that would revitalize the financially strapped town. In that effort, Pfizer and New London were aided and abetted by the use of eminent domain to force evictions of home owners and small businesses, including one named "Kelo," who unsuccessfully fought them all the way up to the Supreme Court.

As a result of the deal's collapse this month, the city is now not only stuck with a huge vacant parcel, but a $78 million bill for all of its wasted efforts.

The second development was last week's 6-to-1 ruling by New York State's highest court throwing out a lawsuit against the Atlantic Yards development and strengthening the state's hand to condemn swaths of land as blight and initiate eminent domain proceedings here. This will likely pave the way for the start of that long delayed mega-project - and more broadly, city and state officials will no doubt be emboldened, taking the court decision as their cue to employ the power ever more aggressively.

Rather than running with their court-blessed authority to condemn and take property, Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Paterson should instead be looking to the Pfizer-Kelo mess. It offers a much more relevant real-world warning on the dangers of zealous use of the eminent domain authority. The New London fiasco serves as a cautionary tale, particularly in regards to the expansive and massively expensive project over at Willets Point, in Queens.

At Willets Point, the city is reserving the right, and gives every indication that it will employ the use of, eminent domain to relocate hundreds of businesses and workers. Friday, a federal court ruled for the city's proposed project and against those businesses, saying that their rights are not being violated.

But just because the city can use eminent domain doesn't mean it should - and under close scrutiny, the economic promises of the city simply do not add up.

In order to successfully advance a 9 million-square-foot retail and housing development in that disparaged community, the city will have to - on spec - spend hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, to prepare the land. Just to buy all of the property owners out will cost, based on the Economic Development Corp.'s public disclosure of existing sales that have already been negotiated, close to $700 million. And this is all before the cost of providing necessary infrastructure to the area, including sidewalks and sewers, that the city has neglected to provide for well over 80 years.

In addition, it's estimated that the provision of adequate transportation into this peninsula - with an additional estimated 80,000 vehicle trips including 2,500 truck trips entering or leaving Willets Point every weekday - will run into the billions of dollars.

The city is very good at touting the collateral benefits of many of its large retail development projects, but it is understandably reticent about highlighting what can be seen as the collateral damages. Given the Pfizer debacle, in which New London's big promises and massive investments went up in smoke, it is crucial that Bloomberg and his economic development team now give a full and detailed accounting of all the predevelopment costs that will have to be absorbed even before a developer is selected.

The further lesson of New London and Kelo is that a locality needs to be scrupulous before it embarks on utilizing the eminent domain tool. Property rights should not be relegated to a constitutional sidecar. The real brunt of such decisions is borne by business owners whose property will be taken, albeit with compensation, and others who will be displaced.

With the prospect of tax hikes and service cuts hanging over the heads of New Yorkers, now is not the time for the kind of risky investment that cost our Connecticut cousins millions of dollars.

The city needs to take a step back on Willets Point, fully examine the costs as well as the benefits, and ask the simple question: Can we afford this kind of publicly subsidized real estate speculation in the current economic climate? In the aftermath of New London, the answer should be a resounding "no."

Richard Lipsky is a lobbyist representing clients who are fighting the Willets Point development.

Judge dismisses WPIRA lawsuit

Judge Korman of the federal court in Brooklyn issued a decision in the case against the City that Willets Point Industry and Realty Association brought in 2008 for lack of services. The lawsuit was brought with the hopes of proving that the City intentionally neglected the area for decades so that they could use the blight argument for condemnation purposes. Damages were sought. The judge dismissed the lawsuit, finding that the City acted "rationally, and within its discretion" in refusing to provide municipal services to the area. He also said plaintiffs should have sued 10-20 years ago. The next step would be an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, should the plaintiffs choose to go that route.

It should be made clear that this is not the Article 78 that Willets Point United filed to stop the redevelopment project, as several news outlets are reporting. But it is still a blow to property owners who are intentionally neglected by the City because it has "bigger plans" for their property.