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March 28, 2012
Sweet charity: Domino builder gave $100,000 to pro-development W’burg groups
The Brooklyn Paper
by Aaron Short
Whoda thunk it? A developer buying off community groups? In Brooklyn?
The developer behind a plan to build apartments at the former Domino Sugar factory spent at least $100,000 courting Williamsburg community groups that later supported controversial plans to allow residential construction at the industrial site, The Brooklyn Paper has learned.
Community Preservation Corporation Resources — which is fighting to avoid foreclosing on the massive waterfront plot where it hopes to build 2,200 apartments and retail space — doled out donations of between $9,000 and $30,000 to organizations that subsequently backed the Domino project from February 2008 to December 2009, months before its campaign to rezone the site, court filings reveal.
The currently cash-strapped developer says the donations, which it calls “public reputation” money, simply prove that it is invested in the neighborhood. But attorney and civic watchdog Norman Siegel said the donations suggest an instance of quid pro quo.
...The money went to groups including Southside United Housing, a Williamsburg housing developer; Catholic Charities, a Diocese-affiliated social services organization; El Puente, a Williamsburg youth and activism institution; Churches United, a defunct religious social services outfit; and Keren Ezer, an Orthodox nonprofit. The developers also donated money to the Brooklyn Philharmonic, an orchestra based in DUMBO.
Each group collected a $10,000 check except Catholic Charities, which received $9,000, and Churches United, which brought in $30,000.
NoLandGrab: Well, at least all the groups were extant before the project was announced — which is not the case with all big Brooklyn real estate projects.
Posted by eric at March 28, 2012 11:01 PM