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June 16, 2008
EMINENT DOMAINIA: The Big Apple Bites!
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WILLETS POINT, QUEENS
The NY Times, City and Labor Leaders Reach Deal on Plan to Develop Willets Point
Taking a page from Bruce Ratner's landgrab playbook, the City is seeking to cut deals with favored stakeholders, to pressure property owners, the original stakeholders, to sell.
The Bloomberg administration has forged an unusual pact with labor leaders, promising that in exchange for their support of the city’s ambitious plan to transform Willets Point, a 62-acre enclave of auto repair shops and cinder block sheds near Shea Stadium, the project will provide union jobs and good wages.
Union leaders hailed the agreement as a template for similar pacts with city and state officials, even as the Real Estate Board of New York, the industry’s powerful lobbying arm, criticized it.
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But some local civic groups, property owners and elected officials have opposed the plan because it calls for displacing about 260 small businesses, possibly through eminent domain. Housing groups like Acorn and some union leaders have also pushed for more housing that would be affordable for low- and middle-income New Yorkers.
NoLandGrab: Yes, you read it right, housing group ACORN appears to be next on deck to strike a deal with the City.
WEST HARLEM, MANHATTAN
From MetroNY:
Posted by lumi at June 16, 2008 4:07 AM