Yes, They Really Did Say "Half a Billion Dollars" for Remediation

A contentious point about the proposed Willets Point development has been the alleged need for remediation of the property. Willets Point United Inc. believes that during 2008, the City greatly exaggerated the alleged need for remediation in order to horrify the City Council and provide some basis to approve the land grab involving our property. That the City is now awkwardly backing away from its 2008 claim proves our point.

During a 2008 City Council public hearing, the cost to remediate the entire 62 acres of Willets Point, according to the City, was said to be between $470 million and $570 million – "half a billion dollars", as then-Councilman Hiram Monserrate put it – a large sum that implied a large amount of remediation was required. That a developer would foot such a bill was touted as a benefit of proceeding with the entire proposed project.

Now, five years later, the City's contract with chosen developers Sterling/Related anticipates the cost of remediating one-third of Willets Point (the "Phase One" area) to be just $40 million, or less.
Extrapolated to the full 62 acres of Willets Point, the cost would be $120 million – which is dwarfed by the original $570 million quoted to the City Council during 2008. Moreover, Sterling/Related now won't even pay the $40 million cost – the taxpayers will, by virtue of a grant of taxpayer funds to the developers to cover the remediation. The previously-claimed benefit to the taxpayers – that a developer would pay for and do extensive remediation – has been stood on its head.

A lingering question for the City is: What happened to the $570 million remediation program that was said to be necessary during 2008? What explanation is there, for drastically reducing the cost of remediation from $570 million, to $120 million (or less, per the contract)?

Incredibly, when the issue came up during a committee meeting of Queens Community Board 7 on April 11, 2013, NYCEDC's Tom McKnight tried to create the impression that people are mis-remembering the $570 million figure, and that $570 million somehow was never said. Strange that McKnight would do this now, as he was seated just feet behind then-Deputy Mayor Robert Lieber and NYCEDC President Seth Pinsky at the City Council during 2008 when the discussion of the "half a billion dollars" occurred.

For anyone who doubts this, here is a video clip that shows a portion of the City Council Q&A. At no time does anyone dispute the $570 million remediation cost that is discussed – only how it might be paid.



We emphasize that today, this cost is down to just $40 million for one-third of the site, with the taxpayers – not the developers – paying the bill. The need for remediation is nowhere near what the City Council was told during 2008; and in any case, the cost of paying for it has been shifted from the developers to the taxpayers, and is now a taxpayer liability instead of the benefit we were promised.

See Willets Point United Inc.'s Gerald Antonacci's explanation of this, in our YouTube video ("Willets Point Factual Update") beginning at 9:39 (9 minutes, 39 seconds).

Willets Point Factual Update

Willets Point United's Gerald Antonacci teaches a "master class" concerning the changes to the proposed Willets Point development since 2008, including the free give-aways of tax dollars and properties to developers Sterling Equities and Related Companies, the suspicious delay of the housing component that was previously said to be the linchpin, and the addition of a 1,400,000 square foot "Willets West" mall to be built on mapped parkland. Essential viewing for civic-minded Queens residents.

The Willets Point plan: a bad deal in every way

Queens Chronicle OP-ED:

The Willets Point plan: a bad deal in every way
by Benjamin M. Haber

Good and responsible government does not exist in the absence of transparency, and in particular when it involves land use matters which have been notorious in favoring real estate interests and those with political connections. Years ago Daniel Doctoroff, then Mayor Bloomberg’s economic czar, bragged before a group of real estate moguls that under the Bloomberg administration they received about 90 percent of all zoning requests they wanted.

When it comes to transparency the Bloomberg administration earns a failing grade. A case in point is Willets Point. For decades, and most of Mayor Bloomberg’s term in office, the city collected sewer rent from the owners of property in Willets Point, notwithstanding there were no sewers. It collected real estate and other taxes and did not spend any money on the area’s infrastructure.

A body and fender shop’s operations, which for the most part serve the needs of the poor and the middle class, cannot be as spotless as a Bloomingdale’s department store, which makes it all the more important government take care of the infrastructure.

As a coverup for his failure in doing so, Bloomberg declared the site a blight that must go, even though it would mean removing more than 200 small businesses, terminating employment for their 1,000 employees and causing havoc to their thousands of dependents. Cleanup of the so-called blight, which the city will pay for, for the benefit of a developer, could have been done for Willets Point businesses. But it will not be, since they are not real estate moguls with tentacles in the city treasury.

The cost to correct the area and repair the infrastructure, to alienate parkland, free of charge, and to provide subsidies, will be several hundreds of millions of dollars, all to be paid for by taxpayers for the benefit of a private developer. For Bloomberg to allow this taxpayer ripoff ignores his responsibility to be fair and above-board with the public. It’s unacceptable.

It was Bloomberg’s original plan to develop Willets Point into a huge shopping mall, with yet another convention center; luxury housing with a small portion of affordable housing for the middle class; a small park and a school. Building a school next door to LaGuardia Airport, the Mets’ stadium, the United States Tennis Association and a huge mall would be absurd, a feigned icing on the cake to make it appear the proposal was not a private commercial development, but a needed public undertaking.

Willets Point and its surrounding areas have automobile access only through the Van Wyck Expressway, Grand Central Parkway, Northern Boulevard and Roosevelt Avenue, private streets being out of the question. These arteries have been and are choked to capacity. Queens was ranked as having one of the most congested vehicular arteries in the country and there is no way — I repeat, no way — to increase their capacity to absorb the tens of thousands of additional vehicles the Bloomberg plan would bring.

Faced with a vehicular nightmare and unable to come up with a solution, Mayor Bloomberg has devised what can be described as the mother of all lack of transparencies. The original Willets Point plan has suddenly been split into two phases. His much-heralded original Willets Point plan is now relegated to phase two, which for all practical purposes will be on the back burner and probably not accomplished for decades.

The reason for the so-called split is not just the vehicular problem, but Bloomberg’s desire to help out his billionaire friend Fred Wilpon, the owner of the Mets, who have not being doing well financially. Phase one will allow Wilpon to move his parking lots — which are on parkland, as is Citi Field — to Willets Point and to construct a huge mall on the current Mets parking lots. Parking in Willets Point and the mall will not address the vehicular problem, but will destroy the small businesses on Northern Boulevard, Roosevelt Avenue and 108th Street, the malls in Rego Park and on 20th Avenue in Whitestone, and the shops in downtown Flushing. Were I in business in any of those areas, I would hesitate to sign a long-term lease. Unless these merchants and the public make known to the mayor, their City Council members and community boards their opposition, the mayor’s plans will be a fait accompli.

Former President Franklin D. Roosevelt once said he wished to be remembered for what he did for the poor and not for the rich. Notwithstanding some laudable philanthropic acts Bloomberg has accomplished as a private individual, as mayor he has viewed his constituents as the wealthy and powerful and not the poor and middle class. I do not believe he will leave a legacy as noteworthy as that of President Roosevelt.

Benjamin M. Haber is a civic activist and retired attorney who lives in Flushing.

Statement on the city planning commission's certification of the Willets Point project

Yesterday, the City Planning Commission certified the Willets Point/Willets West project. This does not represent an endorsement of the project. It simply means that the applicant has submitted all the required paperwork to start the public review process. There are many controversial aspects of the proposal as submitted, not the least of which that it hinges on the alienation of public parkland for commercial for-profit purposes. We will be exposing a myriad of issues with the plan throughout the public review process, and we encourage all members of the public who are concerned about maintaining quality of life to come out and speak at the public hearings.

WPU requests road repairs at Queens Borough President's budget hearing

Budget Hearing Testimony 2/20/2013 by

WPU member Joseph Ardizzone read the attached statement at the Queens Borough President's annual budget hearing. When the following passage was read, CB7 Chair Gene Kelty went ballistic, stating that it was inappropriate to bring up his board's role in the neglect of Willets Point over the years:

WPU is appalled that Queens Community Board 7 ("CB7") has not included any funding request for the repair of Willets Point roadways within its formal Budget Priorities and Requests for 2014 – despite CB7 having been clearly informed multiple times of the very obvious and dire need for roadway repairs via oral and written presentations by WPU during every CB7 meeting held between May, 2012 and February, 2013, inclusive. Instead, CB7 chose to prioritize such items as a "Horticultural Design Study" for some historic sites in downtown Flushing. With all due respect to horticultural designers, there should have been a place for desperately needed Willets Point improvements within CB7's 2014 budget priorities.

Perhaps next year, Mr. Kelty and his board will see fit to include new streets for Willets Point among their list of 25 priorities for the following fiscal year.

City likely owes us more than $1M

From today's Daily News:

Lawyers representing more than a dozen business owners of the gritty Iron Triangle are awaiting a judge’s decision on whether the city will be required to pay their legal expenses, which have surpassed more than $1 million.

Michael Rikon and Michael Gerrard both told the Daily News on Monday that once the city dropped its eminent domain bid last May in favor of a different development, it became obligated to reimburse their fees.

“The statute is very clear,” said Gerrard, who is seeking over $609,000 for work that his firm Arnold & Porter performed. “If the city abandons the condemnation, the parties whose lands were being condemned are entitled to their legal fees.”

The city decided to not proceed with its eminent domain bid. Instead, it announced in June a 23-acre development to be built by the Queens Development Group, a joint venture between Sterling Equities and the Related Cos.

The statute that Rikon and Gerrard are basing their case on is Section 702 of New York State’s eminent domain law, which states if the “procedure to acquire such property is abandoned by the condemnor ... the condemnor shall be obligated to reimburse the condemnee.”

The EDC was well aware that supplemental environmental reviews would be needed for the project, so they dropped their bid in May, court documents show.

When you play around with taxpayer money, it's taxpayers that get burned.

Further statement of Willets Point United concerning casino proposal of Sterling/Related

Source: ESPN.com

Last year, the New York State Attorney General determined that Claire Shulman's local development corporation – substantially financed and supported by the New York Mets, whose owners also own developer Sterling Equities, Inc. – illegally lobbied for approval of the proposed Willets Point development. Despite the clear findings of illegality, neither Shulman's group nor the Mets nor any other financier was ever prosecuted or held to account in any way. They all got off, scot-free. And the development they said they wanted, was approved by the City Council.

Now we finally see what their objective was: NOT any affordable housing or remediation of Willets Point property, which were supposed to be the main "benefits" of the proposed development – but instead, a monumental land grab to facilitate the construction of a 450,000 square foot gaming floor/casino on 30+ acres of public parkland property that is adjacent to Citi Field.

There should be red flags and sirens blaring, when the same people involved with illegal activity to gain approval of the project not only attempt to convert the project into a casino, but then are awarded the contract for the project.

Sterling/Related and the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) have exploited the classic formula used time and time again by seasoned developers to obtain project approvals: Present a project that appears to benefit the public, and that decision-makers will approve.

The supposed "benefits" of the Willets Point development – affordable housing, cleanup of property, job creation – were actually just window-dressing to fool the public into believing that the project is for them, while masking the real motive: The extraordinary waterfall of money that a full casino will put into the developers' pockets, as proven by the $630 million that the Aqueduct casino – without any table games – earned in just its first year of operation.

There is no greater cash cow than to be the sole full casino in New York City, and Sterling/Related know it. After their involvement in the Bernard Madoff ponzi scheme, developers Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz sought to rake in cash for themselves, and the public be damned.

A benefit to Sterling/Related of proposing to include a casino within the Willets Point development which they are already designated to implement, may be that Sterling/Related would somehow circumvent the bidding process which all other prospective casino operators will be obligated to undergo, in the event that the state government decides to authorize downstate casino sites. Neither Sterling nor Related apparently has any experience operating a casino, and therefore they could be at a disadvantage if required to bid against other firms that specialize in casino operations.

The Sterling/Related casino proposal is a supreme example of "bait-and-switch" and "smoke-and-mirrors". Would anyone have deemed it a good idea, to displace over 250 functioning Willets Point businesses off of private property owned by roughly 90 owners, and to use eminent domain to forcibly do so, so that their property could become a parking lot for customers of a Mets casino?

As outrageous as that sounds, that is exactly what Sterling/Related had in mind, as the City actually invoked eminent domain at Willets Point during 2011 for different stated reasons and imposed a black cloud of condemnation to intimidate land and business owners there.

No high echelon developer that is able to set the City's wheels of power in motion to take peoples' property, is entitled to finance illegal activity, fool the public and gain approvals of a project whose stated public benefits the developer has no intention to implement. Something is very wrong with our system, when a developer can get away with doing that.

This is exactly the type of victimization of the weak by influential parties that U.S. Supreme Court justices warned against, in their dissenting opinions in the infamous Kelo eminent domain case. The property owners of Willets Point United Inc. are prepared to challenge and prevent this wrongful preying of the powerful upon the weak. We have long said that the City's proposed Willets Point development is actually a swindle. We remain absolutely committed to keep our rightful ownership of our land, and we will fight in every possible way to prevent the abuse of eminent domain and the resulting discriminatory exploitation of the weak and minorities.