The Eminent Domain

With the credit markets still more frozen than a dead moose in Wasilla now hardly seems like a moment for an optimistic take on new housing development in New York City. Yet new projections for the coming years from the New York Building Congress, the construction industry trade group, suggest that growth could be here to stay. For those of you out there unsure of the continued viability of inclusionary zoning, living wage and other policy strategies tied to growth and development, pay close attention to the Building Congress numbers — leave out the spikiest years of the real estate boom, from 2003 to 2007, and New York remains on an upward trend.

As the Times noted yesterday, a new “Construction Outlook” from the Building Congress predicts that New York City’s development boom will peak in 2008, at an anticipated 35,700 new housing units to be completed by the end of the year. As the report itself notes, that spike is partly explained by a rush to pour foundations before new affordable housing production requirements kicked in for many developers benefiting from the 421-a tax credit.

Projecting two years ahead, the Congress sees production plummeting to about 18,000 housing units a year. Sounds grim, right? Well, only if you think of the past few years as anything like normal. The last time NYC produced 18,000 units a year was 2002 — at that time, the highest number seen since the Great Society pumped billions into subsidized housing development in the early 1970s. The Building Congress admits that seeing beyond the next two years is impossible, given the uncertainties of new government interventions in the credit markets. But it stresses optimism for future growth.

The New York Building Congress may be trying to put a brave face on a very bad situation. But 18,000 new housing units a year, for a city that urgently needs them, is much more than nothing — and it’s as important as ever to make sure they’re built in a way that works for New Yorkers and their neighborhoods.

The City Planning Commission just voted 11-1 in favor of the Willets Point rezoning proposed by the Bloomberg administration (dissenting vote was Karen Phillips, the appointee of Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum).

It’s now up to the City Council to set some strong terms on how development goes forward. So far, a majority of councilmembers have followed the lead of Queens member Hiram Monserrate and demanded greater commitments and accountability from the City on assistance for displaced workers and the creation of affordable housing as a condition of approving the rezoning. With term limits looming, some councilmembers may not be enticed by any promises the administration may dangle in exchange for a yes vote on Willets Point…while others will desperately need the mayor’s support as they run for their next office. It’s hard to predict yet which way the Council will sway.

Did I say “how development goes forward”? That’s so very 2004. Let’s see: the City sweeps away some 1,800 jobs, spends hundreds of millions (it’s right there in the city budget) to prepare this polluted swatch of land for development, and…and…? There’s a little credit crisis exploding right now that could well leave northern Queens with a great big model airplane field — and, like Hanky Paulson, Bloomberg could be committing huge sums of money to a retro fantasy that’s no longer viable.

It’s sold out, but see if you can sneak in: Tonight the Municipal Art Society is hosting “Coney Island at the Crossroads,” a panel discussion on the fate of one of New York City’s great public spaces.

Like many New Yorkers, I’m mourning the demise of Astroland, the heart of Coney Island’s gloriously cacophonous amusement area. And like other commentators, such as the Village Voice’s diligent Neil deMause, I’ve been wondering why the loss of Astroland sparked such a tepid reaction? Where’s the New York moxie? The outrage?

Well, one reason, of course, is that Deno’s Wonder Wheel park next door remains open, featuring similar attractions and the all-important Coney Island energy.  Though they won’t admit it outside the anonymous forums of the Daily News website, a lot of post-Giuliani New Yorkers also fear and loathe a public space where teenagers who live in housing projects dance on the streets late into the night.

But I think there’s also another reason for the mournful silence around Astroland’s dismantling — an attack of cognitive dissonance about what government’s role ought to be in city planning. For several years, many New Yorkers who care about the shape of the city’s future have been fighting massive development projects by standing up for the small property owners who are being pushed aside. From Manhattanville to Atlantic Yards, grassroots groups seeking the preservation of beloved neighborhoods have coalesced around the absolute support of property rights, in the face of government’s power of eminent domain.

But in Coney Island, preservationists faced the exact opposite problem. The owner of Astroland, Joseph Sitt, has done exactly what property owners are supposed to do — exercise their rights, within the zoning and other codes, to do what they want with their property. City planners and economic development officials are now twisting themselves like contortionists at the Coney Island Sideshow to accommodate Sitt’s dreams of condos by the ever-encroaching sea while carving out some space for the rest of us. And while a few hardworking activists are demanding more aggressive action, it’s hard to ask the mayor for a heavy hand by the sea after years of decrying incursions by the City to advance big projects. New Yorkers have to demand, loudly, that the Bloomberg administration — this time — push a lot harder.

As the Bloomberg administration begins to consolidate its legacy of reshaping New York City’s landscape, labor and community groups are moving to set precedents for the future, and nowhere more aggressively than in Willets Point.

The rezoning of industrial Willets Point into a new hotel, convention center, housing and retail complex — developer yet to be determined — is proceeding, with the blessings of labor unions and Community Board 7, which on June 30 approved the city’s plan 21-15. The Central Labor Council and NYC Economic Development Corporation agreed that construction and security jobs will pay prevailing wage — the highest industry standard — while retail will pay at least $10 an hour. Community Board 7’s vote in favor came despite the presence at its meeting of hundreds of protestors from groups that included the Willets Point Industrial Realty Association, New York Immigration Coalition, ACORN, NAACP, and Centro Hispano “Cuzcatlán,” demanding affordable housing and stronger protections for some 1,700 workers at Willets Point’s existing businesses, many of whom will lose their jobs as a result of the area’s redevelopment.

Said Pastor Lancelot Waldron of Queens Congregations United for Action, “The mayor’s plan is not adequate for Queens. There isn’t enough affordable housing.” EDC has committed to make 20 percent of the apartments affordable, under the widely used “80-20″ federal tax exempt bond program. Maximum income for that program is $61,000 a year for a family of four, meaning that the new “affordable” housing will likely be unaffordable for more than half the families in Queens.
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If you’re wondering why you haven’t heard from us in a few weeks, it’s because The Eminent Domain has been part of a major citywide effort to bring New Yorkers together around a shared agenda for how development should proceed in areas like Willets Point — with affordable housing, living wage jobs, and careful attention to what amenities neighborhoods need.

One City/One Future is a collaborative venture between dozens of community, labor, environmental, civic, immigration and other organizations around New York City, including many we’ve been covering here on The Eminent Domain, to set the course for New York City’s future economic development. One City/One Future is based on four basic goals:

• Create and maintain good jobs for a strong economy.
• Make and keep housing affordable.
• Grow the city greener.
• Strengthen local quality of life, neighborhood character, and diversity.

This fall, the One City/One Future Blueprint for Growth will outline strategies that can make those goals a reality in Willets Point and in all of New York City’s development decisions, following models that have proved successful elsewhere. The Eminent Domain will provide a space for discussion of those policies and the possibilities for making economic development work for New Yorkers. We’ll also continue to take a close look at development policies in action and ask tough questions about who wins, who loses and how development could be done better. For more information on One City/One Future, contact Sadaf Khatri at NY Jobs with Justice, sadaf@nyjwj.org.

The Eminent Domain extends a huge thank you to volunteer Danyelle King, who reported this summer from Willets Point, Coney Island and other hot spots undergoing redevelopment. She’ll be returning to Brown University this fall, where she’s majoring in urban studies.

New Look Planned for Pier at South Street Seaport (NY Times)

Still Opposing Plan to Develop Willets Point, One Business Decides to Sell (NY Times)

High Line Designs are Unveiled (NY Times)

Sweet & Lower (Architect’s Newspaper)

High Court Won’t Hear Appeal on Atlantic Yards (NY Times)

On Monday night, mermaids and freaks ranked among the demonstrators urging the Department of City Planning to preserve Coney Island more or less the way it is. But while tattooed performers and the Rev. Billy got plenty of attention, they were part of a much broader spectrum of views voiced at Lincoln High School about the fate of New York’s ocean playground.

Monday’s event was a hearing on the city’s draft Scope for rezoning 27 acres of Coney Island as historically preserved public land. Department of Planning Brooklyn Director Purnima Kapur addressed the audience last night, elaborating on the city’s initiatives as they have changed since the last scoping hearing, in February; mainly, the expansion to 27-acres of amusement area, up from 9, and the movement of indoor amusements toward the southeast extending from Steeplechase Plaza.

If City Planning gets its way, developer Thor Equities, which owns much of the land, will have to scale back its plans to build condo towers on the site. Yet the city proposal still retains much of Thor’s vision, including “indoor amenities,” like big-name retail, and adding 2,700 new housing units, on what Kapur calls “vacant and sparsely utilized” land.

Read the rest of this entry

Board 3 Unanimously Approves Rezoning for East Village/ Lower East Side (The Villager)

The Past and Future of Sustainability (Gotham Gazette)

A Coney Island Strip Mall? (Brooklyn Paper)

Coney Island: Rides or Shopping? (NY Times)

Promised Brooklyn Community Center May Not Open (NY times)

Public Housing Residents Face Loss of Their Community Centers (NY Times)

Car-free Manhattan Boulevards on August Saturdays (Gothamist)

Upper East Side Tower Plan Significantly Scaled Back (New York Sun)

Brooklyn has changed tremendously over the last few years. With the building of condos and the closing down of stores that have been around for years, it’s no wonder that the folks who were here before are different from who is moving in.

I love Brooklyn. This is my home. This is where I’ve lived my entire life. It’s where I went to school from pre-K to 12^th grade. Brooklyn is dying a slow and terrible death, where she is silenced by the tearing down of her walls and the demeaning voices of developers and gentrifies are engulfing her and the rest of us. It kills me to know how money has overpowered the integrity of my borough and my community and what’s good just seems to be falling to the wayside.

FUREE’S been working so hard to do something, anything to help the people living here, since we are the ones directly affected by this change. I don’t live in squalor. I’ve do well at school, help my community, am active in many events to help my community members and my school and yet, I’m being displaced with many other community members. Why should I struggle so hard to find a job, to get into college, to live in my community and to keep my home when others take it so easily from me and mine?

It seems that there is nothing being done to provide what’s really needed in Brooklyn, especially in Brooklyn schools. Many neighborhoods are deprived of bare necessities and education is one of them. How is it that the city and developers have millions of dollars to build condos that are still empty, yet school buildings in my neighborhood and in the surrounding neighborhoods where poor people of color live, are falling apart? Why are school books more than 10 years old? Why are there teachers teaching subjects they didn’t go to school for and aren’t qualified to teach? Why are schools throwing away massive amounts of food every day when there are shelters near with hungry people?

I love Brooklyn. It’s my home. But it’s changed and it’s not for the better. Hopefully as a student entering college, I’ll be able to make even more change in my community.

Saturday, May 17^th, was FUREE’s 5^th Annual Convention. This year was the best convention ever. We had a good turn out with nearly 300 people in attendance, and we had our politicians show up as well: Charles Barron, Hakeem Jeffries, Latisha James, Joseph Lentol, Valmanette Montgomery, and a representative from Governor Patterson’s office.

The convention is a yearly community forum where we invited elected officials and others that can help members of the community with the issues they have.

We heard testimonies about how our communities are not given enough attention by the local officials, but specifically what I liked was the youth representatives who were there.  The youth at FUREE conducted a survey over 6 weeks with more than 300 youth, from 14 different high schools, who answered questions about issues that are important to us.

Clayton, a member of FUREE’s Youth Organizing Initiative, presented the findings and youth demands, went up there and told the politicians what youth wanted:

• Job opportunities
• College preparation
• Safety in schools
• and more after-school programs

We came out to make sure that the youth demands were heard loud and clear by politicians and our community.

Clayton says: My experience at the FUREE convention was a good experience because I was able to go on stage and speak for the youth about lack of jobs, safety in schools, college preparation and police brutality. What I learned from this experience is that this battle we are in is just getting started.

We will win this war for Brooklyn. We will change Brooklyn back to the old ways and if not we will develop Brooklyn into a community that’s affordable, beautiful and meant for all the people of Brooklyn.

– Nahyshene Molina and Clayton Williams, Youth Activists

I just had the pleasure of discovering Amy Lavine’s valuable blog on Community Benefits Agreements across the nation. She’s been covering New York’s highs (the Kingsbridge Armory campaign) and lows (Yankee stadium), along with a comprehensive array of noteworthy developer-community deals from coast to coast.