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....June 22, 2:53 PM |
| Willets Point Update: City Begins Talks With Biz Owners, Yet Many Say They Refuse To Budge
By JAMES J. PARZIALE Anthony Fodera’s company sits in Willets Point, the 75-acre chunk of land now in the midst of the tug-of-war between local businesses and City legislators. The bakery ingredients provider – along with other businesses there – might be asked to leave the area because of the City’s Willets Point development plan that would breathe new life into the dilapidated region.
When asked if he plans on leaving anytime soon, Fodera posed the same question he asks anybody wondering what it is like to be in his shoes. “If it was your home, would you let them take it?” he asked. And so the debate waged on Tuesday night during the Willets Point Community Workshop at St. Mark AME Church in Jackson Heights. The gathering included area businesses, residents and legislators all trying to find common ground. Much of the discourse involved meeting the needs of these businesses that would be uprooted, their view on why the plan is flawed and what should be rectified. The City’s plan involves a slew of uses: 5,500 residential units, 1.7 million square feet of retail and entertainment, nearly 1 million square feet devoted to offices and a convention center, a 650-seat school, a hotel, a park and eight acres of open space. Undoubtedly, it would create a bustling hub. But is this massive, revenue-generating redevelopment of a neglected area – an eyesore to its neighbors – fair to the businesses in Willets Point? The future of the 250-or-so businesses and their employees in the area was the general outcry at the meeting. Public Outcry Though the workshop allowed members of the community to discuss solutions to the plan’s problems, the public’s resistance was prevalent. Many of the local business owners said they feel their civil rights are being trampled. Jack Bono, who owns Bono Sawdust Company, which has been in Willets Point for 74 years, has visions of passing the business down to his son, Jake. He said the Economic Development Corporation, which is overseeing the Willets Point project and is meeting with area businesses to help with relocation packages, can offer him “an island in the Bahamas,” but he would not move. “We don’t want to know about any monetary package,” Bono said. “We want to stay at what’s ours. They are doing a great injustice to our future by stealing our property.” Andy Charidemou and Charalambos Gorgiou, who have owned a Sunoco station on Northern Boulevard for 27 years, said they feel this sets a bad precedent for what the City could do in the future. “We’re talking about something that belongs to us,” Charidemou said. Later he got up and spoke to the crowd of close to 300 people and said: “What happens when [City officials say] they want to take your house? Will you let them do it?” Fodera, one of the first business owners to meet with the EDC, said little came from the meeting. No offer was made, and he wouldn’t listen if it was on the table. “My property is not blighted; it’s not polluted. It’s not environmentally destroyed. My partner and I spend a great deal of money up keeping the property,” said Fodera, who pays $165,000 in property taxes each year and has no sewers, no road and no sanitation service. “They never show my building when they make their presentations,” he said. “I wonder why? We all know the reason.” Daniel Sanbucci, president of Sanbucci Bros. Salvage Yards, said his clientele is located in Queens, so a move to another borough would torpedo his business. He would not be opposed to relocating if the he is given fair value for his land, but said the City’s plan to rezone the land after the current businesses move would shortchange whatever package is offered. “How do you take property from one private person and give it to another private person?” he asked. “It makes no sense.” Where They Work And Live Aside from removing businesses, other concerns were voiced at the workshop, primarily concerning the 5,500 units of housing. Affordable housing is already at a premium in Queens, and residents quipped that Willets Point will out-price most local people in need of living accommodations. Councilman Tony Avella (D-Bayside) explained why the current system, which uses the average median income of all of Queens to determine the cost of affordable housing, is flawed. It includes incomes from upper echelon neighborhoods like Douglaston, Forest Hills Gardens, Little Neck and Jamaica Estates while trying to site homes near poorer neighborhoods of Corona and Elmhurst. As Chairman of the City Council Zoning Committee, Avella contended that affordable housing should be calculated using the local median income, or the income from that zip code. That’s the only way to get “truly affordable housing,” and the only way he would vote for the Willets Point Development. In addition, if businesses relocated, most of the workers would lose their current jobs. EDC spokeswoman Yonit Golub said new jobs would be created because of the retail development. In addition, the EDC would offer job training workshops to assist people in getting new jobs. |
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