Economic Development Projects Deflect Public Attention from Issues that Matter By Hezi Aris

YONKERS, NY -- Yonkers Tribune, with the help of acid-tongued bloggers, has been able to connect the dots regarding pertinent, not well known aspects regarding economic development plans specific to SFC Yonkers’ $3.1 billion Phase 1 Project, the mission statement of the New Main Street Land Development Project, and the use of Eminent Domain Law.

 

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Development plans for downtown Yonkers have been proposed, scuttled, morphed, and realized to some extent. The jewel to rejuvenate the Yonkers economy has for years initially centered about Chicken Island, from the most simplistic of plans for a minor league baseball stadium, to those that today eclipse those embryonic stages of development. Since those early days various renderings have been drawn; each evolution garnering detractors and proponents alike, bringing us to the present, where allegiances and agendas have been drawn, for one reason or another. In the background, spokespeople for SFC Yonkers have been conducting an audio visual, question and answer, “dog and pony show” that has devolved from being most informative at its very beginning and arriving at a more contentious demeanor and less informative portrayal today, all the while exhausting the populace in the process. Yonkers was soon to be admonished to move more quickly on the projected development, specifically with regard to the TIF (Tax Incremental Financing) aspect and to ascribe to the aesthetics daylighting the Nepperhan River would create in drawing people to Yonkers as a destination point. Despite the salient issues before Yonkers residents, City Hall would deflect Yonkersites’ attention as if the public could be toyed with as in a cheap novella. Concerns over gentrification, a politically incorrect issue, have been deep-sixed; instead, we were deflected to discussing the incendiary issues of eminent domain. Lines in the imaginary sand would be drawn to that end.

Harking back to pre- Yonkers City Council Presidents Chuck Lesnick, and Richard Martinelli, to the days of Vincenza Restiano, the issue of eminent domain came to the forefront. From the onset, City Hall was alleged to have arrogantly told all the store owners along New Main Street, those between Nepperhan Avenue and Getty Square, that they need vacate their premises within 90 to 120 days or be thrown out under the use of Eminent Domain Law.

Those who remember or may have read about Robert Moses, New York’s master builder, know of his conduct in such projects as the Cross Bronx Expressway in which he commandeered private property for “the public good,” will recognize the founding principals espoused by the Eminent Domain Law, that is, to permit government to acquire land for use for the public good. Eminent Domain Law became an acceptable legal argument decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in 2005, in a 5-4 vote over the Kelo v. City of New London  case. More recently, in Keystone Coal Co v. Jacksonville Port Authority (JaxPort), a case whose gist concerned itself over whether a government entity may seize property from one private enterprise and thereafter turn it over to another, the circuit court ruling found for Keystone Coal Co and against JaxPort.

“Jaxport can take private property through eminent domain, but it does not have the right to take an owner’s bargain or the economic advantage away secured by the owner in free enterprise,” said Prince Brigham, Esq., Keystone’s legal counsel.

Initially, the baseball park imprint was situated within the parameters drawn from New Main Street, onto Nepperhan Avenue, and School Street. The project would require the use of eminent domain to force the storeowners off of New Main Street. Hearing of the storeowners plight Restiano suggested the baseball imprint recede northward behind the stores, mitigating the need for the use of eminent domain. City Hall would not hear of it.

Almost a year ago, the SFC Yonkers Project, Phase 1, inheritor of the initial development project did move the imprint of its multi-story project behind the stores situated along the ribbon of New Main Street. Part of the SFC Yonkers Project evolution was to incorporate the daylighting of the Nepperhan River. Coincidentally, the Nepperham River runs under the stores along New Main Street. To clear them out of the equation, a $34 million daylighting fund, initiated in the last months of former Senator Nick Spano’s tenure was promised. When Andrea Stewart-Cousins won the election to the dismay of Senator Joe Bruno, he caused the funding to be halted, but not before $10 million had escaped his clutches. Those $10 million in funds came under the aegis of Jim Pinto, who ascribed the funds for the purpose of infrastructure.

The $24 million have yet to be coaxed out of Albany’s clutches. To that end, the New Main Street Land Development Corporation (NMSLDC) has been set up. Headed by Deputy Mayor Bill Regan, Chuck Lesnick, Yonkers Councilwoman Patricia McDow, Dennis Lynch, Esq., and St. Joseph’s Medical Center President Michael Spicer.  It is the mission statement of NMSLDC to use the $24 million to daylight the Nepperhan River. NMSLDC will eventually use Eminent Domain Law to take the store owners’ property for the public interest, that is to daylight the Nepperhan River.

In Phase 1, the C.H. Martin store is excluded from the threat of daylighting, but all the stores east of C.H. Martin, yet west of Nepperhan Avenue will be taken in order to daylight the Nepperhan River.

What is apparent from the very inception of this project, in all its permutations, is that City Hall economic development “experts” had a bare-bone concept of what they wanted to develop, that lacked the complexity and exactitude of forethought and planning.  Do they expect the Yonkers City Councilmembership to vote for the project immediately and “tweak” any abnormalities later? Should the Yonkers City Council me entrusted to vote upon all the complexities of this project? Are they up to the task? Are they studying the issues or towing an agenda replete with promises the like of the now being investigated Forest City Ratner Project at Ridge Hill?

Is there a conflict of interest over Lesnick and McDow sitting on the NMSLDC? Aren’t they supposed to judge whether the SFC Yonkers Project is appropriate for Yonkers and not simply facilitate the project forward without further scrutiny? It does seem as though they are for the project prior to deciding whether it is of benefit to Yonkers.

One must wonder why it has taken City Hall so many years to arrive at this final plan, eclipsing the most emotional legal issues and meeting the needs of the developer and the project on one plane. Is City Hall so inept, that they bungled their way to a solution that eluded them all these years or are they manipulative suits who do not mind wasting everyone’s time to exact vindication upon all who do not jump high enough to their ill-conceived plans?

Tomorrow, the promise of tax incremental financing; and how to maintain its positive attributes from biting us on the bum.

Comments

good analysis -

Hezi, yes, sometimes the loyalty games around here can drive one crazy. Gotta practice that jump or else?

Hezi, I suspect it's a little of both.

Apicella of SFC applauded vigorously when a community member demanded that the 24 million be used for daylighting and daylighting only - not land acquisition. Could there be a rift between SFC and the administration? What's up?

rift? of course there is.
SFC will not spend a dime to aquire property or improvements.
watch.

[YE]

Wasn't Peter Klein quoted in the JN that they would not buy "overpriced" property in the downtown? Does that mean only SFC is entitled to make a "big enough" profit? What about people who have owned property for years? Are they going to be "eminent domained" or bought out on the cheap?

Didn't he pay $3.5 million for Alexander street from the Alexander St Development Corp.? an IDA creation???

Was that overpriced????

Oh my, what is poor Ang, the Clock, going to do after waiting all those yrs.

" biting us on the bum." you got that right. That's all that will happen here.

i wonder what the current rate of exchange is for the 3.5M mentioned earlier?