Be Our Guest: A de Blasio administration can do the right thing at Willets Point

Frank Koester for New York Daily News

Willets Points community members and business workers protest plans that would force many businesses to shut down in favor or development of a massive shopping mail across from Citi Field.

Assuming that Public Advocate Bill de Blasio gets elected as New York City’s next mayor, what should he do about the development of Willets Point? We have some very good suggestions.

In the first place, the development at Willets Point was intended to be one of Mayor Bloomberg’s signature legacy projects – the “first green neighborhood,” and all that palaver. Instead, owing to the good work of the team assembled by Willets Point United, the original mega-deal was derailed and the current Rosemary’s Baby was given birth. Instead, of all the essential public benefits that were originally negotiated — affordable housing, a living wage and traffic relieving ramps — we have been given the city’s largest retail mall built on parkland. The property taken under the threat of eminent domain is now earmarked for a parking lot.

Make no mistake about it. When the original Willets Point deal was proposed by the city, there were over 30 council members who had signed a letter opposing the project — and one of the strongest bases for that opposition was the city’s threat to use condemnation to take away property that had, in many cases, been in families for decades.

This opposition was only overridden when the Central Labor Council negotiated a “historic” living wage provision — and the council negotiated a deal for 200 units of affordable housing. This was the linchpin of the compromise that enabled the council to overcome their strong objection to the use of eminent domain.

All of these promises have been tossed aside in the city’s current Willets Point proposal — along with the sworn assurances from Deputy Mayor Robert Lieber that the city would be compensated for the $ 200 million it paid for the property purchased under the threat of condemnation. Instead, the city is gifting the property to the developers for $ 1!

Making a bad deal that much worse is the fact that it has now been revealed by the Attorney General of the State of New York that the original compromise that led to the city council’s approval of the development in 2008 was advanced by an illegal lobbying scheme devised by the Economic Development Corp. and a local development group made up of real estate interests. The entire land use process was tainted by illegality.

Put simply, Public Advocate de Blasio, this is not your deal — as it is not a deal that has the best interests of the citizens of the city. In fact, when you voted to approve the original deal in 2008, you were played by the Bloomberg administration.

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