--- rob hollander <lesrrd@...> wrote:

> Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:07:28 -0400
> From: "rob hollander" <lesrrd@...>
> Subject: It wants to eat you
>
> 3) eviction graft, 2) eminent domain and 1) more bad
> news for Chinatown.
>
> 1) Actually, the worst news I've heard this year:
> Chic money --
> *Apothéke *cocktail
> bar* -- *has found Doyers Street*. *The end of
> Chinatown, for real: it'll be
> the next Ludlow&Stanton upscale nightlife
> destination.
>
http://nymag.com/daily/food/2008/08/apothke_will_bring_opium_back.html
>
> ** Why must the upscale uproot community and poison
> authentic New York?
> Because they can? Why can't they leave us alone?
>
> Answer: community provides their escapades the
> quaint backdrop of
> authenticity lacking in their glass venues -- for
> the brief moment before
> they destroy every unpretentious, human corner of
> community in sight and
> seek out another last refuge of New Yorkers to erase
> forever. Hip nightlife
> thrives on a diet of living communities. Guess what
> the dim communivore
> leaves behind. A vast desert of the pale fruit of
> its bowels. Dressed to
> kill.
>
> End of bitter rant.
>
> 2) Eminent domain just around the corner: hearing on
> the use of eminent
> domain in Columbia U's expansion, Sept. 2 & 4.
> Details and talking points
> below.
>
> 3) The eviction predator spreads its wings:
> "A state housing official from Brooklyn was busted
> for selling lists of
> rent-regulated tenants to builders so they could
> target properties for
> redevelopment," NY Post
>
http://www.nypost.com/seven/08232008/news/regionalnews/ny_staffer_arrested_in_re\
nters_for_sale__125698.htm
>
> *Eminent Domain hearing details (followed by talking
> points on the issues):*
>
> PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that a public hearing, open to
> all persons, will be held
> at the
> *Aaron Davis Hall of the City University of New
> York,
> West 135"' Street at Convent Avenue,
> **Tuesday, September 2,
> **from 1-4pm
> and from 5:30-9pm
> *and continued *
> Thursday, September 4,
> from 1-4pm
> and from 5:30-9:00pm*
> by the New York State Urban Development Corporation
> d/b/a Empire State
> Development Corporation ("ESDC") Pursuant to
> Sections 6 and 16 of the New
> York State Urban Development Corporation Act
> (Chapter 174, Section 1, Laws
> of 1968, as amended; the "UDC Act") and Article 2 of
> the New York State
> Eminent Domain Procedure Law ("EDPL") to consider:
> (a) the General Project
> Plan (the "General Project Plan") for the proposed
> Columbia University
> Educational Mixed-Use Development Land Use
> Improvement and Civic Project
> (the "Project"); (b) the proposed acquisition by
> ESDC, by condemnation or
> voluntary transfer, of certain property located
> within the Project Site
> (described below) in furtherance of the Project; and
> (c) the essential terms
> of proposed conveyances of property so acquired by
> ESDC to Columbia
> University in furtherance of the Project.
>
> *For those who wish to speak at the hearing, speaker
> registration will
> commence 15 minutes before each session on each
> hearing date at the Aaron
> Davis Hall.*
>
> Talking points on eminent domain (from Cooper Square
> Committee):
>
> EMINENT DOMAIN SHOULD NOT BE INVOKED ON BEHALF OF
> COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY'S
> PROPOSED EXPANSION FOR THE FOLLOWING REASONS;
>
> (1) THE COMMUNITY UNEQUIVOCALLY OPPOSES IT
> At every forum of the West Harlem Local Development
> Corporation and at every
> public hearing in the ULURP process, the community
> has been united in
> opposing the use of Eminent Domain as a first
> principle and most community
> members have demanded that the University take it
> off the table as a
> precondition for any negotiations with Columbia.
> The community seeks an
> integrated community, where private owners who have
> provided good-paying
> jobs to community workers can stay in their historic
> locations.
> Condemnation would create a "company town" solely
> for Columbia University's
> use and enjoyment. Columbia's "all of nothing"
> demand is unnecessary to
> their expansion, but not to their "fire-sale" land
> grab, and destructive of
> the neighborhood.
>
> (2) THIS PROJECT IS NOT "CIVIC" NOR "FOR THE PUBLIC
> GOOD"
> This proposed project would transfer private
> property to another private
> entity, which will use the property in
> public/private biotech business
> projects akin to Stanford University's research park
> (a development Columbia
> has sought to emulate since the 1960s). This is not
> an "educational" or
> "-"civic" use, despite the title of this hearing,
> but an income-producing
> use by a not-for profit entity which will not even
> pay real–estate taxes.
>
> (3) ANY "BLIGHT" IN THE EXPANSION AREA HAS BEEN
> CREATED BY THE PROPOSE
> BENEFICIARY OF EMINENT DOMAIN
> If it is true, as Columbia has repeatedly claimed,
> that the University owns
> 70-80% of the property in Manhattanville (a claim
> put into question by the
> list of properties which it seeks to have the ESDC
> condemn), any
> ill-maintained and unoccupied property has been the
> result of the
> University's own deliberate actions. It should not
> benefit from those
> actions. Availabl e industrial real estate is at a
> severe shortage in the
> City. Any vacant properties could have been rented
> immediately if
> maintained and truly offered for occupancy. The
> University has used the
> threat of condemnation, based on its own creation of
> blight, to threaten and
> intimidate landowners into selling their properties,
> saying "sell to use now
> or deal with the State later." Columbia has also
> emptied the area of
> commercial tenants like Reality House and the
> mechanics at 3150 Broadway and
> is in the process of removing long-time residential
> tenants and potential
> owners.
>
> (4) THE CONDEMNATION PROCESS HAS BEEN CORRUPT AND
> FULL OF CONFLICTS OF
> INTEREST
> The University has paid at least $300,000 to the
> ESDC to move the
> condemnation process forward (a payment
> unacknowledged by the University
> until an FOIL request uncovered it) while denying
> its role in the Eminent
> Domain process. There is an irresolvable conflict
> of interest in the condem
> nation process because the consultant AKRF was hired
> by the University to
> perform its Environmental Impact Statement for the
> ULURP process and at the
> same time created the "blight study" being relied
> upon by the ESDC as a
> basis for Eminent Domain. That conflict has not
> been resolved by the newly
> minted "blight study" by another consultant which
> uniformly mimics the AKRF
> study. Moreover, AKRF also drafted responses for
> the City Planning
> Commission in response to points brought up by
> Community Board 9 critiquing
> the "Draft Scope of Work" during the ULURP process.
> Thus it is seeks to
> serve three masters: the University, the City, and
> the State. That is not
> possible.
>
> (5)THE USE OF EMINENT DOMAIN AT THIS STAGE IS
> PREMATURE
> Columbia has never demonstrated its need for the
> entire proposed expansion
> area. We don't have even one set of completed plans
> for a building. The
> safety and economic-feasibility of its proposed
> "bathtub" basement has never
> been demonstrated and has served primarily as a
> rationale for the attempted
> acquisition of the entire footprint. Columbia has
> made no commitment to
> building the bathtub or developing the proposed
> expansion area within any
> designated time period. The footprint may sit
> fallow for years as the
> University struggles to raise funds in a depressed
> economy. Present
> businesses are already operating, paying wages to
> workers and taxes to the
> City.
>
> (6)EMINENT DOMAIN IS UNDEMOCRATIC AND UN-AMERICAN
> Property to be acquired by private developers like
> Columbia University
> should be bought through the market at market
> prices. Owners uninterested
> in selling should not be compelled to sell by the
> State.
>
>
>
>
> --
> Rob Hollander
> Lower East Side Residents for Responsible
> Development
> http://savethelowereastside.blogspot.com/
> 622 E 11, #10
> NYC, 10009
> 212-228-6152
>