With an 11 to 1 vote yesterday, the City Planning Commission approved the redevelopment plans for Willets Point. The one vote of dissent was from Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum. I spoke with Gia Storms, a representative of her office who said that yes, she definitely was in favor of redeveloping the area, but that the plan presented yesterday didn’t include enough concrete information. Gotbaum said on her blog that those missing pieces were: confirmation of who will be responsible for the construction, what will happen to the business that have been there for decades, and how we are going to pay for everything.
Hope is not lost, however, for Willets Point business owners and residents as the vote moves to the city council. Everyone expected the plan to slide through the CPC, as those voting are all Bloomberg appointees. In fact, the only votes of ‘no’ by anyone for anything were those of Betsy Gotbaum against two parking garage items and the Willets Point redevelopment. In the city council there may be stiffer opposition to the measure, says the Iron Triangle Blog, a project of the Times Ledger newspapers. The Iron Triangle cites an August letter by City Councilman Hiram Monserrate (D-East Elmhurst) and endorsed by 32 other council members saying they would not vote for Bloomberg’s plan unless “significant changes were made,” stated the New York Times. One of these changes is the amount of low-income housing that is currently included–20% of the 5,500 homes. Because the area is mostly made up of businesses, my main question is more about the compensation for business owners than for potential residents. However, there is also a plan to include the areas residents as workers at the new hotel, convention center and ballpark–what we don’t know is how that is going to work and who will guarantee it.
It seems like there is also a bit of perspective missing on a national, economic level. We have one candidate calling to suspend the presidential debates because of an economic crisis that is the worst since the Great Depression. Baseball is a great game, the Mets are going to find their way into the playoffs this year, and everyone is excited about a new field–but let’s ask ourselves if we are maybe putting the cart before the horse on this one? If Bush gets his plan approved and my paltry savings account becomes a tiny piece of the band-aid for the open sore that is our sub-prime, collateral debt, banking-failure fiasco; then won’t I value incredibly cheap car parts in the future? And those billions of dollars to do all of this, where are they coming from exactly? Me as well? Hmm, maybe we can play baseball in the gorgeous new stadium and beautify Willets Point later, when oil is not at $120 a barrel and our economy isn’t nose-diving into the side of a mountain.
