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February 6, 2011
Blighted Area? These Business Owners Beg to Differ
New York Times
By Charles Bagli
Damon Bae, the owner of a commercial laundry, is discovering firsthand what New Yorkers have learned from the Atlantic Yards fight: Your property is not safe once the government decides that it's better for a well-connected developer to have it.
But Mr. Bae, and more than a half-dozen other small-business owners in this neighborhood bound by Second and Third Avenues, from 125th to 127th Streets, are waging an uphill fight to hold onto their property. The Bloomberg administration has so far moved successfully in the courts to condemn six acres on behalf of a big developer for a $700 million East Harlem Media, Entertainment and Cultural Center.
“I think that the city is going to take away our properties and businesses so they can make another developer with deeper pockets a lot of money,” Mr. Bae said.
...
Many of the business owners knew that a large stretch of the area was included in a 150-block urban renewal effort that was approved in 1968 but never quite materialized. But property owned by at least three of the businessmen was not included in the renewal zone, at least not until 2008, when the Bloomberg administration added those parcels to the mix.
At the time, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg hailed the creation of jobs and housing, and the city justified taking the private property by declaring the area “blighted” — a description that Mr. Bae and the other business owners found galling.
The city owned most of the land, allowing it to sit fallow for decades while turning down Mr. Bae and other business owners who wanted to buy parcels to expand their operations.
“It’s artificially manufactured blight,” Mr. Bae said.
Posted by steve at February 6, 2011 7:58 PM