Dejected Willets Point workers react after the City Council votes to approve the plan.
The votes are in and the plan to redevelop Willets Point has passed the City Council, 42-2. The only dissenters, as in the Land Use Committee’s vote earlier today, were Tony Avella (D-Bayside) and Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn.)
UPDATE: In the end, much of the anticipated drama surrounding the vote was swept away when Councilman Hiram Monserrate (D-East Elmhurst) reached an accord with the city yesterday and rallied the support of most of his colleagues behind him.
Though there was a heavy police presence in the balcony of City Hall, where dozens of business owners and workers watched as the votes were counted, the mood was more reminiscent of a funeral as they saw their future decided for them.
On the City Council floor, the atmosphere was decidedly different. Monserrate and members of the New York City Economic Development Corp. were showered with praise by fellow city officials, affordable housing advocates and labor leaders congratulating them on pushing through one of the largest and most complex projects in recent memory.
During the vote, several members of the Council took the time to explain their displeasure with the potential use of eminent domain and urged the city to reach negotiated agreements with the dozens of landowners who have not yet struck a deal. With the exception of Avella and Barron, however, each of them ultimately declared that the positive benefits for the city and Queens outweighed the specter of invoking the controversial practice and voted to approve the plan.
“While I would agree it isn’t perfect, this is the best possible plan as we move forward,” Councilwoman Melinda Katz (D-Forest Hills) said. “This is a great day for Queens.”
Councilman Peter Vallone (D-Astoria) — whose father represented many of the property owners as a consultant — implied that the city was partially to blame for letting Willets Point deteriorate.
“The environmental contamination there is awful and how it came to be that way is a travesty,” he said. “But that is not what’s before us today.”
Following the vote, Crown Container co-owner Jerry Antonacci left the chambers and solemnly peered over the railing surrounding a grand stairwell at the center of City Hall.
“We hope [the city] will do the right thing,” he said. “We hope they’re going to stay true to their word.”
Crown Container still does not have a deal with the city. His brother, David, wondered how they lost the support of the Council so quickly after 32 members signed a letter in August declaring their opposition to the plan.
“32 signed the letter and we got 2, so we lost 30. How City Hall works,” he said.
Others, like Jake Bono of Bono Sawdust and Supply Co. — who also does not have a deal — were more combative.
“I ain’t going nowhere, that’s all you’ve got to write,” he said.
Carla Fodera of Fodera Foods, who earlier in the day reached an agreement allowing the company to stay at Willets Point and eventually sell its land directly to the developer when selected — said she was happy an agreement was made, but it was bittersweet.
“It was hard to watch,” she said. “It’s sentimental. Not all of the guys have deals yet, so I can’t be completely happy.”
Altagracia Perez of Queens Congregations United for Action, who fought hard for affordable housing in the project, said the approval coupled with an agreement to bolster low-income housing was a testament to community activism’s merits.
“I’m definitely satisfied, we didn’t get everything we wanted but 35 percent affordable housing is great,” Perez said. “If we hadn’t been after them, they wouldn’t have taken us into account.”
Deputy Mayor Robert Lieber, who spearheaded the project as the head of the EDC and now as the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development, said the project was an incredible achievement for the city.
“It’s extraordinary,” he said. A lot of people worked real hard on this.”
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That’s it for me tonight. I’ll be back tomorrow with some more reaction and post-vote commentary, including a more in depth look at the situation surrounding Tully Construction, House of Spices and Fodera Foods. Stay tuned and thanks for reading.
Filed under: City Council | Tagged: Charles Barron, City Council, Crown Container, EDC, Fodera Foods, Hiram Monserrate, Robert Lieber, Tony Avella
Very nice. Almost Unanimous. Very nice.
Now cut some more deals so we can start up the Dozers.
This means all previous deals are finalized and the businesses can start their moving plans or take their check and go home.
The city shouldn’t have to wait for the developer to be selected.they need to remediate the land before handing it over anyway.
A sad day in the City of New York. These are the people that should have been calling for an end to eminent domain abuse. Instead they endorsed it.
Crappy- since you re such a hypocritical coward and chose to moderate out opposing viewpoints on your blog I’ll publish my response to your post here
I would suggest that you refrain from accusing elected officials of accepting bribes when you can offer no real proof. Suggesting people are committing crimes is defamatory and opens you up to potential legal actions.
No go back to your little closed society of like minded bigots.
First of all, I didn’t moderate out your comment, it’s on the website for the world to see.
It’s been widely reported that the Bloomberg administration offered council members sweet deals to vote for congestion pricing, term limits extensions and WP.
Categorizing them as bribes is within my first amendment rights as criticism of governmental actions.
Now go back to your little closed society of like minded tweeders (and learn how to spell while you’re at it.)
The fact that someone who quotes Jon Adams on their site moderates comments and deletes those they disagree with is disgraceful.
That said. This was not an Eminent Domain issue. This is and has always been a cleaning up and developing an eyesore issue.
Landowners will have to be real belligerent and dismissive of the process in order to ultimately be subject to ED. But I al sure the EDC and the City will do everything in their powers to move this project along as fast as fairly as possible.
crapper i know boggie smalls is a d–k but anyway this thing wont happen there are a bunch of law suits commin and it will hold willets point up for 20 years . and it is a sad day peoples right were taken from them there are at least 60 land owners that dont have deals and the city has no money what does that mean e.d. i hope deals could be maid for them will see but ill but you now tdc will get the contract to build w.p. because thats the mayor friend and they both will make a lot of money i guss this is worth more then rights this is things that pepole like biggie smalls dont under stand because they still live with there mom and dad and not in the real world .
my hart go out to the people in w.p.
Did you graduate the fifth grade?
Your writing certainly gives me doubt.
The good news yesterday is that the amount of taxpayer dollars to be placed in jeopardy for the land acquisition and remediation can now be reduced, as a result of the budget surplus because the City will not have to purchase the property of 3 big landowners: Fodera, House of Spices and Tully, who apparently will transact directly with the as-yet-publicly-unnamed developer.
Approx. $400 million taxpayer dollars have been budgeted for acquisition and remediation. Although the City would prefer to fully recoup the $400 million via the eventual sale to the developer, Leiber has admitted that the City may have to settle for accepting less than that amount from the developer, if necessary to close a deal. Therefore, since the taxpayer dollars to be spent are in jeopardy of not being fully recouped, it is in the public’s interest to minimize the dollars that are so jeopardized. Eliminating the necessity to purchase a significant portion of the propery using taxpayer funds accordingly reduces the amount of taxpayer dollars to be placed in jeopardy. The Council needn’t have approved $400 million, if $300 million will suffice, for example.
EDC may presume that it can now quietly credit the surplus toward overages that it is likely to encounter, but Comptroller Thompson and Public Advocate Gotbaum must now ensure that the acquisition/remediation budget is appropriately revised downward, to reflect the smaller amount of property to be acquired using public funds. Leiber must directly answer the question: What will the lower, revised budget be, now that public funds won’t be used to acquire Fodera, House of Spices and Tully?
I am glad you are finally coming around to admitting that this is NOT “Three billion dollars of taxpayer funds” being spent.
Glad to see you’re not disputing the essence of what I’ve written.
[...] First of all, Willets Point was, in fact, rezoned for commercial and residential uses last November when the City Council approved Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s vision for redevelopment by a vote of 42-2. [...]