Planning Commission Rubber Stamps Willets West: Morphs into the Board of Health

In what is really not a news story - when was the last time the City Planning Commission turned down a mayoral initiative? (Answer: Never) - the CPC approved the bastardized Willets West development with a lone dissenting vote. As the NY Daily News reports:“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.”

We got a big kick out of New York’s Burden - the chair of CPC - who remarked: “Willets Point is on its way to becoming remediated and ultimately becoming an active and inviting destination.”

From a woman famous for her own extreme makeovers, we weren’t surprised by the comment. Amanda Burden has had this sinecure for twelve years and the only thing that would bring more fresh air to the city than the mayor’s departure would be the removal of this toady from her sinecure. Burden gives a certain class comfort to the rubber stamp nature of the CPC - perhaps there will be a spot for her on the Board of Health in a new mayoral administration. After all, she has shown great skill in simply following orders.

There was, however, one dissenting opinion in this charade: “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.”


De la Uz was appointed by Public Advocate de Blasio and it raises questions about what a mayor de Blaio would do if he were asked to review this horrible crony capitalist bait and switch adventure. After all, the litany of the false promises and illegalities pave the road along the way to this mega mall project-and a new mayor is under no obligation to pony up $200 million worth of property and close to $100 million for “remediation” just to aggrandize Steve Ross and Jeff Wilpon’s fortunes.

The measure now goes to the city council where Speaker Quinn will have the opportunity to demonstrate her total obeisance to the agenda of Big Real Estate. There can be no other explanation-the absence of a public good here is blindingly glaring.

The Cornerstone of Deception

As the WSJ is reporting, some significant snags have been developing over alleged relocation plans to help the tenant businesses over at Willets Point:

“A cluster of several hundred auto-body repair shops and junkyards near Citi Field in Queens has proven resilient to changes that have transformed other parts of the city, but that too could soon come to an end.

About 90 tenants in the so-called Iron Triangle have received letters offering them a payment equal to a year's rent at their current location if they leave by the end of November to make way for the first phase of a more than 60-acre redevelopment of Willets Point that will eventually include a school, retail and housing.” 

The deal, however, is fool’s gold and is little more than a bus ticket out of town for these immigrant Hispanic business owners:

“City officials have long said that relocation would be necessary to realize the redevelopment vision. But some tenants have been pushing to relocate in a large group or groups and to recreate elsewhere in the city their unique ecosystem of shops that change tires, reupholster seats and repair mufflers.

Tenants said they fear the money is being offered in lieu of such a plan.”

And they are right, because EDC has retained (with no bidding of course) the Cornerstone Group to aid in the relocation effort:

“The city appointed Cornerstone Group, a real-estate firm, to help with individual and group relocation. The company has shown tenants about 140 sites suitable for one or multiple businesses.

But some tenants complained that those sites have been unsuitable. Many said their current rent is less than $1,500 a month, but rents for typical industrial sites are several times that.

"A $1,250, $1,300 rent—what would it help? Nobody wants to give us a $1,300 place," said Vijay Kumar, the 38-year-old owner E.T. Tires.”

As Yogi Berra might have said, this is déjà vu all over again. Cornerstone was assigned the task of relocating the wholesalers in the Bronx Terminal Market-and in the seven years since the eviction of the businesses very few remain in operation. Why? Because their success was predicated on their synergy-their ability to piggyback on each others’ customer traffic. Left alone, they went under. 

And history is repeating itself-the Willets Pointers should be aware of the tactic to get rid of their nuisance presence:

“To get the full amount, they would need to leave in four months, which they said doesn't give them time to find a site that could accommodate dozens of businesses, much like a large relocation of the Fulton Fish Market.

"In order to actually avail themselves of the funds they need to give up where they are currently operating and move to some fictitious place that does not exist," said Ted De Barbieri, an attorney at the Urban Justice Center who represents 55 businesses that want to relocate together.

Tenants said remaining together is essential to their continued survival because it will help ensure customers continue to frequent the group of businesses, which have become famous for offering below-market-price car repairs to customers that they say come from Queens, Long Island, upstate New York and even Pennsylvania.”

Let’s keep in mind that the city is giving away to the mayor’s cronies (Related and Sterling Equities) the land it had purchased for $200 million! That’s not all. The city is also ponying up an additional $99 million for “remediation”-all of this money was supposed to be put up by the eventual developer when the city council approved this development in 2008. So, once again, Related (and Sterling) get the goldmine, and small minority businesses get the shaft.

Put simply, the relocation is a fiction designed to remove the “eyesore” while pretending otherwise. Even the money is questionable-with CM Julissa Ferreras claiming credit for funds obtained five years ago by her former boss Hiram Monseratte:

“City Council Member Julissa Ferreras, who represents the area and is credited for helping to find the $3.5 million for relocation, has been a vocal advocate for group relocation. A spokeswoman said she remains committed to finding a site for tenants to move in large groups.

"I have always advocated for the EDC to relocate the Willets Point businesses as a group," Ms. Ferreras said. "There are ongoing negotiations to make sure that these businesses are given a fair deal by the EDC and any potential developers."

What does this actually mean? Will CM Ferreras urge her colleagues on the city council to vote down the project-one where affordable housing is a player to be named later? If Julissa really wants to take credit here she needs to show some real backbone and insist that this sham development be laid over for the next mayor and City Council Speaker to decide. Will she?

The plight of the tenant businesses-and at one point there were over 200 such firms and over 2,000 workers at the Iron Triangle-is just one glaring example of the mess that the Bloomberg administration has created at Willets Point.

The use of condemnation, illegal lobbying, fraud about the nature of the deal-the laundry list of deception is a long one. And now, the icing on the cake: the Cornerstone Group brought in- like Kabuki theater-to pretend to help the existing auto businesses when its actual goal is to make these struggling immigrants simply disappear.

Pratt Center’s Joan Byron Nails Willets Point Development Defects

Joan Byron of the Pratt Center for Community Development testified last year about the glaring defects of the city’s newly reconfigured re-development of Willets Point. Her comments should be heeded by a city council that was snookered by the EDC when it approved the deal in 2008.

As Byron pointed out, the city is looking at developing Flushing Meadows Park in a way that makes little planning sense and, by the way, will destroy the park for any recreational use by the nearby communities:

“We join with community representatives in calling for a full new Environmental Impact Study that will allow a comprehensive approach to this and other transformative projects now proposed within Flushing Meadows Corona Park. 

These projects represent both a threat and an opportunity for the communities of northern Queens, and for the City as a whole. Neither the threat nor the opportunity can be understood without a new, comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement that takes into account the City’s current understanding of economic and environmental reality – including the costs and challenges of remediating sites within the established Willets Point Special District, and the degree to which these conditions make it unrealistic to develop the project as proposed in the original EIS, and defers the construction of the promised housing units until at least 2028.”

Ah yes, the housing that was promised-a promise that all of a sudden has become uneconomical today when it apparently wasn’t in the midst of the economic catastrophe in 2008:

“The development of that housing, along with the schools, retail space, etc. that would create “a lively, mixed use district” – was presented in 2008 as a public benefit that justified the taking of private property, the disposition of public land, and enormous public investment in property acquisition, remediation, and infrastructure.

The City agencies who administer our laws, programs and regulations, the legislators who represent us, and above all, the people who live and work in the impacted communities, and the taxpayers of New York City, all deserve a full and up-to-date set of facts in which to ground our thinking about the development not only of the proposed “Willets West” addition to the district, but about the full set of projects being proposed within and around the borough’s flagship park.”

Or, in other words, the people of New York deserve the truth-something that the ethically challenged EDC is seemingly incapable of providing.  And Byron makes a strong case that the mall can’t be built without alienating the land as parkland:

“We do not accept the premise that a mall falls within the definition of “edification” or other activities permitted on this site without new alienation legislation. Even if that were the case, a decision about the future of a major site, in the heart of an area undergoing profound change, and facing serious shortages of open space, housing, schools, and community facilities, should not be made solely on the basis of administrative expediency. If this site is to be put into play, ALL potential uses, including housing, should be considered.”

Well, yes they should-but they won’t under this mayor and what passes for oversight under the present city council. That means that it is imperative for those council members to realize that they have an opportunity to act independently, and in the public interest, by sending Willets West back to a more intelligent drawing board.

Remember, the mayor called Willets Point the city’s first green neighborhood-and instead we have a mall that makes little public policy sense: “Less than a mile away another large mall, Sky View opened in 2010 and remains only partially leased up.”

The mall’s traffic generation would further mock the city’s efforts at sustainability-as Byron strongly demonstrates:

“A mall of this size generates thousands of car trips per day – tens of thousands on peak shopping weekends. And peak traffic to this mall would inevitably coincide with peak days for other destinations, including game days at CitiField and at the proposed soccer stadium, if it is built.

Though the Number 7 train is accessible, the 7 will continue to operate at unacceptable levels of crowding, even if new technologies allow for more frequent service. Mall shopping trips differ drastically from trips to traditional retail streets, and skew heavily toward driving. The proposed project contravenes the laudable goals of PlaNYC 2030, and the good work of the Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability, to reduce car trips and the concomitant greenhouse gas emissions.”

Can we imagine a lesser public interest than a mall and a parking lot? And a mall and a parking lot combined with a gift of $200 million and an additional $99 million in subsidies-partly and allegedly for remediation. Willets West is a catastrophe built on a scandal-and the city council should afford it the euthanasia it deserves.

Condemning the Garden Party

The NY Post is editorializing about the city’s effort to force MSG to move the Garden so a giant refurbishing of Penn Station can be done-and lurking in the background are the city’s Bobbsey Twins, Steve Ross (Related) and Steve Roth (Vornado), who want their companies to be able to cash in on all of this:

“Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Chris Quinn are no longer pretending: They want Madison Square Garden gone, so they can rebuild Penn Station. But they don’t have the guts to evict the arena the legal way — eminent domain.

“Madison Square Garden will have to move,” Quinn huffed, after the council recently voted for a permit limited to 10 years. The new clarity about ousting the Garden is a step up. For a time, the Bloomberg folks claimed they were OK with fixing up the transit hub and leaving the arena where it is. Now they’re at least being honest about wanting it to move.”

But they do have the guts to evict Nick Sprayregen from his storage company’s sites in West Harlem and the small property owners from Willets Point-beating up the little guys is a time honored tradition with the mayor. No, however, the former community organizer Chris Quinn is fitting smoothly into the methodology of the rich exploiters. But Jim Dolan is not someone that can be easily removed so the political class is trying this zoning permit end run:

“But revoking the Garden’s permit in 2023 is still sneaky. If Bloomberg, Quinn & Co. really seek to give MSG the boot, they should invoke eminent domain.”

The last time Dolan got involved in a political fight-over the West Side Stadium-the mayor got his ass kicked. And the Post implies that the little guy may not want a repeat beating:

“We know why: Resorting to eminent domain would make clear this is all about taking private property from its owner. That in turn would likely set off a political firestorm that wouldn’t reflect well on our political class — and might even backfire. 

Well, too bad. Abusing a permitting process to squeeze the Garden will only scare off other businesses. Besides, New Yorkers deserve the debate. If our pols want MSG out, let them use the proper tool and make the proper arguments.”

What this would mean is that we would get a public discussion about the city’s abuse of property rights-and that would be a good thing, The use of condemnation over at Willets Point has ended up by ceding other people’s property over to Related and Sterling Equities for a hill of beans ($1). This is not even close to being a public use. Every property owner in the city should know that their land is not safe if the Quinnberg regime is allowed to continue in office.

Never Hedging with Friends: Bloomberg Rewards Yet another Crony at Fresh Direct

For Mike Bloomberg it never gets old to reward his friends and billionaire cronies-and the award of huge subsidies to FreshDirect is justthe latest example:

“The city has delivered a sweet deal to FreshDirect. The Industrial Development Agency voted Tuesday in favor of the online grocer's controversial plans to relocate from Long Island City to the Bronx — thanks to $127 million in public subsidies.
The company has promised to use the money to build its new facility in the South Bronx, convert its truck fleet to green energy, and to hire local workers. A spokesman for FreshDirect told residents the move to Port Morris would create 1,000 new jobs over 10 years, a third of which were promised to go to borough residents.”

FreshDirect is run by a young man named Jason Ackerman, whose uncle, hedge fund guy Peter Ackerman, is a partner in some of the mayor’s political action ventures. Peter, a former associate of Mike Milken, is naturally a financier like the mayor and the subsidies for his nephew’s company is emblematic of what passes for economic development under the billionaire mayor. [Crains]

For his part, the mayor doesn’t shy away from the associations-and the $80 million dollars he gave to Ackerman’s PAC is just part of the patricianage that permeates his administration: “Well, I’ve always been a big supporter of Peter Ackerman and I’ve known him forever, and I put his wife on the board of Johns Hopkins, which she may still be on, as a matter of fact," he said during the question-and-answer portion of a press conference this morning at the Brooklyn Public Library's central branch at Grand Army Plaza.” [Capital New York]

As it turns out, Jason may be the head of FreshDirect in name only:

“Peter Ackerman is a co-founder, Director and the majority shareholder in New York City grocery distributor  FreshDirect. Jason Ackerman, co-founder and CEO of FreshDirect, is Peter Ackerman’s nephew. FreshDirect pays its warehouse and delivery drivers less than $9 an hour.When workers tried to unionize, FreshDirect fought against it.”

All of these subsidies will go to a company that is directly competing with brick and mortar grocery stores in neighborhoods all over the city. Making a bad idea even worse, is the fact that the company’s target markets are all upper income neighborhoods-so in essence the tax payers are subsidizing a company to deliver groceries to upper income New Yorkers-a fabulous idea in the rarefied world of the city’s richest man.

Which brings us to Willets Point where the city is handing over property to two billionaire real estate operators for a symbolic $1. The tax payers forked over $200 million for the land bought at the point of an eminent domain gun. $130 million for Fresh Direct, $200 million for Related and Sterling Equities. Are we able to see any patterns here?

As some shrewd urban planners have noticed, these development plans have done little to uplift the average New Yorker-but have done a lot for the mayor’s coterie of rich friends:

“These proposals are classic examples of the most troubling legacy of the Bloomberg administration’s approach to economic development. The city has approved dozens of real estate mega-projects on city- or state-owned land, or on property where the city has changed zoning rules to suit developers. They all promised “economic development,” but haven’t increased employment or reduced poverty."

Urban Planners Critique Willets Point Plan

Last week in the NY Daily News, three urban planners offered a blistering critique of the Bloomberg administration’s efforts to destroy Flushing Meadows Park-and the administration’s entire approach to economic development:

“Flushing Meadows-Corona Park is Queens’ crown jewel. But the busiest park in the borough is threatened on all sides… Recently, the tennis center was given another acre of the park. Then the Related Companies announced they wanted to build a 1.4 million-square-foot shopping mall and parking garage on the parkland-turned-parking-lot next to Citi Field. (The land is supposed to revert to recreational use now that it’s no longer needed by the Mets.)

Next, Major League Soccer set its sights on 13 acres of the park just past the huge silver globe called the Unisphere. Observers expect they’ll ask for stadium-size tax breaks, too. The plan would bulldoze the famous Fountain of Planets. Ironically, that area already hosts some of the 1,500 soccer games played in the park each summer—but they’re just teams of regular New Yorkers, not leagues owned by well-connected investors.” 

What’s clear is that the immigrant communities who are using the park are not high up on the mayor’s list of important people-and immigrants are only useful to him when he can use them as symbolic props for his vaunted immigration proposals.

But what the three professors take real issue with is how the economic development plan for the mall is emblematic of the way in which the Bloomberg administration approaches job creation in exactly the wrong way:

“These proposals are classic examples of the most troubling legacy of the Bloomberg administration’s approach to economic development. The city has approved dozens of real estate mega-projects on city- or state-owned land, or on property where the city has changed zoning rules to suit developers. They all promised “economic development,” but haven’t increased employment or reduced poverty.”

And, of course, the “historic” deal on living wage is still historic-if being relegated to the dustbin of history can be characterized that way. The original agreement negotiated to gain the city council’s approval in 2008, is now an artifact since the living wage was excluded from the RFP for the current development.

The professors recognize this deficiency-although perhaps not realizing that the living wage was originally included in the Willets Point development:

“If the city decides to continue offering subsidies to big-name deals, the next administration should make sure those subsidies include local hiring and wage requirements. Already, dozens of municipalities, from Los Angeles to Minneapolis to Washington, make sure their tax subsidies support projects that create living-wage jobs for city residents.”

When seen in this light, what’s apparent is that the Bloomberg economic development model is simply the aggrandizement of Big Real Estate-with little apparent benefit for the people who are looking for good jobs:

“The next mayor should also focus on industries that build the middle class. Instead of letting hotels and superstores encroach on manufacturing zones while providing low-wage and part-time jobs, the city should study the success of the Brooklyn Navy Yard and develop partnerships in industrial zones like Hunts Point or the Brooklyn Army Terminal to create better jobs.”

Given all of the deficiencies in the Willets Point economic development model, the three urban planners see little choice as to what the planning commission and the council should do with the proposed plans. They deserve the last word:

“With the next mayoral election just four months away, the candidates and other elected officials should stand up for good public space and smart economic development. That means opposing the projects in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.

It looks like community action will head off one of them, telling the soccer league to build their stadium somewhere other than a busy park. The City Planning Commission votes on another plan, the shopping mall and parking garage that targets land next to Citi Field, in just a few weeks. Voting “no” and bringing this land back to Flushing Meadows would mean parkland within walking distance for another 25,000 residents.

If we can’t all spend our summers at garden parties like Gatsby, we at least need the green of a great city park.”

Some Parks are More Equal than Others

As the city’s continuing effort to decimate Flushing Meadows Park winds its way through city planning and on to the city council, the lingering question is what will Speaker Quinn do. We know that one of the developers of the project, Related, has had an unusually close relationship with her. As Capitol New York has pointed out:

"Related Companies, part of whose massive Hudson Yards project was exempted from the Living Wage bill, has donated more money to Christine Quinn's campaign.

The most recent campaign finance disclosures, released today, show that executives from Related Companies donated $6,600 to Quinn's still-undeclared campaign for mayor, between January and July." 

We also are finding out that Quinn has a real affection for at least one park-even though detractors might call it a faux park. City and State has the story:

“The High Line is revered internationally for repurposing a post-industrial wreck into a refreshing aesthetic public experience. The park has also anchored an explosion of billions of dollars of high-end development in the Council-rezoned “Special West Chelsea District,” designed specifically around the High Line.

The organization that built and runs the park, Friends of the High Line, is dominated by a wealthy and politically connected coterie of real estate developers and property owners, which has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars, directly and as intermediaries, into Christine Quinn’s mayoral election campaign. Friends of the High Line, formed in 1999 as a tiny nonprofit by two civic-minded fans of urban decrepitude, has quickly become the richest park conservancy in the city, after the Central Park Conservancy.”

In spite of its ample funds, however, the High Line is treated with great deference by the city council and by Speaker Quinn:

“The City Council, first under Gifford Miller and then Christine Quinn, has doused the High Line with cash. Estimates of city funding for the High Line before it even opened range between $130 and $170 million: This money was only for improvement of an existing structure, because the rail line itself was donated to the city by the CSX Corporation. Since the park opened, despite the largesse of FoHL and its claims that 90 percent of park expenses are raised privately, the Council continues to make allocations to its expansion and maintenance, including a $5 million capital disbursement two years ago.”

What makes this problematic is not only that we have a well funded faux park receiving a great deal of public support when there are ample private funds to support it, but that the funding is inextricably linked with the city council’s “slush fund” scandal:

“When the City Council “slush fund” scandal was revealed five years ago, it turned out that the largest beneficiary of these improper disbursements was the High Line. The scandal, in which the Speaker’s office budgeted Council funds to shell organizations in order to dispense the money later to favored groups, resulted in $290,000 going to FoHL. The group has received yearly allocations of $75,000 to $100,000 from the Council since then.”

This at a time when local parks all over the city are being shafted by the current mayoral regime-raising the question of where the speaker’s priorities lie. Even more so since there appears to be a quid pro quo operating in this slushy environment:

“The real question is, why give money to the FoHL at all? They don’t need it. The organization is awash in cash from its board and corporate sponsors. The High Line floats in the center of billions of dollars of residential real estate that was built specifically around it. One of the highest paid staffers for the FoHL is a person listed officially as “Director of Food,” who makes more than $100,000 per year. It doesn’t seem like they would miss an annual five-figure disbursement if the Council decided to direct the money toward some other park.

Perhaps the Council’s little allocations are more like tribute than funding: annual tokens that the Speaker makes to the real estate and special interests to whom she owes so much. And they accept it because it affirms to them that here, here is someone we can trust, who will continue to do our bidding.”

And these interests in turn support her political aspirations. This brings us to Willets Point/Flushing Meadows, where a real park that is underfunded is being targeted for extinction-and there are no rich real estate interests that can be seen supporting the park and its maintenance. In fact, the rich real estate interests her want to destroy the park.

Speaker Quinn has a choice: to support the survival of Flushing Meadows, or the greed of the Related Company and its partner Sterling Equities. Quite a troubling choice for the champion of the middle class.