Opinion
A Look at the Petco Park Battle, Part I
This is the first post in a series that will take a look around the country to see what development efforts have taken place in other cities with new ballparks. I’ll do my best to find out what exactly was done in each instance and how things are working out in each of these cities today.
Petco Park and its Surroundings
The first stadium I want to examine is Petco Park, the still-relatively-new home of the San Diego Padres. In this particular instance, the main difference with the current situation in Queens is that the Padres needed a new stadium as well as a new location. Unlike the Mets, they did not build the new park on land they already occupied.
Some of the early history of Petco Park and the redevelopment of the East Village neighborhood of San Diego can be found at signonsandiego.com. I’ll denote in boldface some of the similarities to Willets Point.
City of San Diego officials entertained a Padres overture to be a partner [in building the new stadium]. The clincher was the opportunity for a ballpark to serve as a catalyst for downtown redevelopment.
Although it was not his first choice, Moores agreed to a site along L Street in the blighted East Village, a historic warehouse and industrial district…
That November, nearly 60 percent of San Diego voters approved Proposition C, giving the city and the Padres permission to redevelop 26 blocks in the East Village with hotels, apartments, condominiums, retail space and offices, with a ballpark at the center.
Sounds pretty similar so far. I’ll continue a series about Petco Park, its surroundings, and the before and after effects of the development that went hand-in-hand with the construction of the new baseball stadium.
Opinion: Daily News Says “Junk the Junkyards”
In a reaffirmation of its position on Willets Point, The Daily News ran the following today:
Junk the junkyards
The city Planning Commission vote Wednesday to rezone a forlorn corner of Queens will help create housing and jobs for a city in desperate need of both. The City Council, which votes next, has no excuse for not also approving the plan.
The area in question is Willets Point, a 62-acre collection of junkyards and auto chop shops amid permanently flooded streets and toxic contaminants. It’s hemmed in by the Whitestone and Van Wyck expressways and the Shea Stadium parking lot. And no one lives there.
The redevelopment, approved 11 to 1, envisions 5,000 units of housing and thousands of jobs, with new retail and office construction, along with parks and a school. What’s there to oppose?
Ask a City Council claque, led by local member Hiram Monserrate. In a move close to extortion, Monserrate is threatening to block the project unless businesses and landlords get paid enough, in his opinion, to move.
This is not a philosophical disagreement over eminent domain. Monserrate is okay with eminent domain - as long as he is the one deciding that the price is sufficiently high.
On a more acceptable level, Monserrate and his allies believe that more than 20% of the housing should be reserved as affordable. That’s a fair negotiating point, and Council members can haggle over it with the Bloomberg administration for the next 60 days.
But when it’s time to vote on Willets Point redevelopment, the answer must be yes.
It seems like the editorial boards across the city are calling for this project’s approval. I wholeheartedly agree.
News: Queens Tribune Sings Praises of Willets Point Plan
The Queens Tribune runs a great, concise editorial singing the praises of the Mayor’s plan for Willets Point. It briefly discusses Bloomberg’s overall record as Mayor and his ups and downs with his major development projects throughout the city.
The editors point out,
We believe the mayor’s true mark would be taking the blighted area of Willets Point and converting it into a vibrant community space with affordable housing, commerce, parks and quality schools.
And goes on to conclude with,
Mr. Mayor, the city’s most dynamic borough deserves this and we ask you to make Willets Point happen.
This is the kind of language I love to hear, especially coming from a paper that speaks to the people of the borough of Queens. What they’ve written has been said before, but I really like to see it published. Hopefully, people get behind an editorial like this and voice their support to the Mayor.
Spin: NYT Sympathetic to Business Owner
Well, it’s not the first time I’ve seen it in the NY Times, but it’s the first time they’ve run a story in this spirit since DWP started a few weeks ago. Writer Susan Dominus paints a picture of Gordhandas Soni, who owns an Indian food company in Willets Point. As you might expect, the piece focuses on the development of Mr. Soni’s business: how it was formed, when it moved to Willets Point, and the unexpected discovery that Willets Point basically has no sewer system.
The story makes mention of a few things of interest. Mainly, it highlights the fact that Mr. Soni’s business and several others have put together a lawsuit against the city claiming that the city has intentionally neglected Willets Point for years in order to make it more ripe for development.
There’s a major problem with that argument. I wouldn’t have a problem with the lawsuit if it had been filed at any other time in the past. But the present claims against the city seem like nothing more than a last resort effort to stop the Mayor and the EDC in their plans to develop Willets Point. Had the business owners been making noise and filing a suit for all these years in which the streets have resembled the remnants of a war-zone and sewage was nonexistent, I think they’d have a little bit more of a case.
I firmly believe the fate of a commercial area can rest heavily upon the shoulders of the business owners. I’d believe that these businesses cared about the conditions of the streets and sewers had they acted at any time in the past.
And if Councilman Monserrate, the lead opponent of the project, goes along with the line that the area has been neglected by the city, perhaps there has been some failure on his part to address these conditions as the representative of this area in the Council. The business owners should certainly express some dissatisfaction with Mr. Monserrate if it intends to blame the city for neglect.
Back to Mr. Soni - the EDC has already made a down payment on an alternative site for his business in the Bronx. Hopefully things work out for Mr. Soni and his business, whatever the future may hold for them. But articles with a slant like this make me disappointed that I hold the NYT in such high regard.
Welcome to Develop Willets Point
