[NYtenants-online] Brooklyn residents/tenants to picket Gifford Miller

[Tenant]

NYtenants Online/TenantNet                                4/18/05
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In this issue...

1. Not so fast Gif Miller!
    Brooklyn tenant/community residents to demonstrate against Gif Miller

2. BROOKLYN 80/20 BILL WOULD BE "A BAND-AID ON A GUNSHOT WOUND!"

Under a questionable claim of seeking affordable housing, Assemblyman Vito 
Lopez and others are promoting 80/20 luxury towers in Williamsburg and 
Greenpoint (Brooklyn) that, along with the city's rezoning plan, would 
virtually guarantee neighborhood-killing towers and a net-loss of 
affordable housing. Like a magic trick, they would end up building a little 
in order to create the impression the elected officials are delivering, but 
in the end, much more affordable housing is lost.

Not mentioned in the article is that the 421-a plan would likely benefit 
some of the not-for-profit development organizations affiliated with Lopez.


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NOT SO FAST GIF MILLER!

Despite the charade created by Council Member and Speaker wannabe Christine 
Quinn and Michael McKee that Gifford Miller is "the tenants' candidate," 
there are plenty of tenant advocates and renters in NYC that don't see it 
that way. Among other things, Miller is the one who put a landlord's 
darling, Madeleine Provenzano on as Chair of the Housing and Buildings 
committee. And while he is now claiming leadership in the fight against 
lead paint poisoning, advocates had to picket Gifford Miller's office a few 
years ago in order to get the lead paint bill to move out of committee.

Consider what's happening in Brooklyn:

DEMONSTRATION AND RALLY at GIFFORD MILLER'S
MAYORAL CAMPAIGN OFFICE

TUESDAY, APRIL 19
HIGH NOON

The communities of Williamsburg and Greenpoint are facing one of the most 
aggressive rezonings in NYC history.

This Tuesday, April 19th, at noon, the Williamsburg Creative Industries 
Coalition -- representing more than one-hundred local tenant, community 
groups and businesses -- will rally at Gifford Miller's mayoral campaign 
office to declare, "We need a hero!" and to ask Miller to help them save 
their neighborhood.

City Council Speaker Miller was a no-show at the April 4th public hearing 
where hundreds of community members testified against the Bloomberg 
rezoning scheme. Miller later removed the chair of the zoning committee, 
Tony Avella -- the only community representative who listened to community 
concerns at the hearing -- from closed-door negotiations over the 
Williamsburg/Greenpoint rezoning. Tenant and Community groups have had 
difficulties scheduling meetings with Miller or the other figures involved 
in talks that will seal the fate of their neighborhood. In order to be 
heard, they will gather outside of Miller's office Tuesday.

The Creative Industries Coalition supports local Community Board 1's 
development plan which preserves the architectural character of the 
neighborhood, protects the 4,000 jobs that would be lost under the 
Bloomberg plan, allows for park development and access for all community 
residents, creates affordable housing, and still provides reasonable 
returns on investment for developers.

The Bloomberg plan would allow the construction of up to twenty-two 
40-story luxury condominium towers (taller than the Williamsburg Bridge) on 
the Williamsburg/ Greenpoint waterfront, permanently destroying the 
architectural character of the neighborhood, blocking light from hundreds 
of other buildings, drastically raising rents for local residents and 
businesses, eliminating the light industrial manufacturers in the area, 
overburdening an already over-taxed subway line, with no restoration of 
Engine Company 212, and causing other deleterious effects for the local 
community and New York City generally.

For more information about the community's plan, including the 197-a's 
proposed by the Community Board, a schedule of upcoming events relevant to 
the rezoning debate, a list of involved organizations, and more see: 
www.communityplan.org

Come for the "Tug of War" outside Miller's office with community members in 
Flower costumes on one side, and Tower costumes on the 
other.  Demonstrators will carry cardboard shovels, pick axes and road 
signs, to symbolize that the community should be involved in the 
development of our neighborhoods. For more information, call 347-200-2353

Directions to rally:
1 block east of Broadway and a little north of Fulton
Just south of City Hall Park, between Ann and Beekman

Subways:
4/5/6/2/3 to Fulton/ Bway Nassau OR
R/W to City Hall OR
J/M/Z to Brooklyn Bridge/Chambers


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THE 20% SOLUTION: STATE LAWMAKERS IN THE ZONE
By Reed Jackson
April 14, 2005
http://www.greenpointstar.com/StoryDisplay.asp?PID=3&NewsStoryID=1025

In the latest salvo of the Greenpoint-Williamsburg rezoning debate, a trio 
of state legislators are attempting to bring the law into play. Assemblyman 
Vito Lopez, State Senator Martin Malave Dilan and Assemblyman Joe Lentol, 
who together represent the entirety of the GPW in Albany, have introduced 
legislation that would require developers to devote a certain percentage of 
all new residential units to affordable housing, by making an incentive 
into strict reward.

The move comes at a time when the future of the Greenpoint-Williamsburg 
waterfront hangs in the balance. Under a proposed blueprint cooked up by 
the city's Department of City Planning, the barren, fallow scrubland along 
the East River waterfront would be rezoned to allow high-rise residential 
complexes and a smattering of open space and parks, including a 
much-vaunted esplanade. But the plan has encountered stiff resistance from 
activists, residents and even elected officials, who contend that the 
rezoning would dramatically contribute to the economic stratification of 
the neighborhood, raise rents and push the poor and working class denizens 
out of the rapidly gentrifying area.

While the plan rests in the hands of the City Council, North Brooklyn's 
state legislators are attempting to get their hands in the game by setting 
up a tax abatement exclusion zone along the waterfront, in which developers 
who did not price at least 20% of any new residential units as affordable, 
would not receive an exemption from paying property tax. Known as a 421-a, 
the tax abatement excuses the owners of newly built buildings from paying 
property tax for a certain amount of years, saving hundreds of thousands of 
dollars.

Currently, most of the developers of the waterfront receive the abatement, 
which was created in the city's more blighted era to encourage development 
in run-down precincts. Because of the enormous amount of money the 
abatement can save developers, and due to the lucrative potential in the 
increasingly popular Williamsburg land market the bill's supporters believe 
that it will essentially guarantee a portion of affordable, on-site housing 
in any new development.

"I believe [the bill] will pass the Senate and pass the Assembly and it 
will guarantee affordable housing," Lopez asserted at a press conference. 
"Without affordable housing, there will be no working poor or poor people 
on our waterfront...we have a crisis," he said. Lopez has found a valuable 
ally in his quest, powerful southern Brooklyn Republican Marty Golden, 
greatly aiding the bill's chances of passing the Republican-controlled 
Senate. The legislation has also drawn the support of housing advocates in 
the North Brooklyn community. "This is the key to making sure than working 
class and senior citizens have a place on the waterfront," said Father Jim 
O'Shea, the leader of Churches United for Fair Housing.

Some think however, that the tax abatement itself should be jettisoned 
instead of modified. "That law was obsolete in 1984, and it's obsolete 
now," declared former Bronx borough president and current mayoral candidate 
Freddy Ferrer, during a press conference in which he announced his 
disapproval of City Planning's blueprint for the GPW waterfront.

Phil Depaolo, a prominent neighborhood activist, agreed. "In the '70s, when 
no one was developing, it was a wonderful plan," he said. But now, he 
feels, the incentive has been "bastardized," used as "a come-on" to entice 
prospective buyers of luxury units. At Schaeffer's Landing, a tony 
Williamsburg development with 40% of its units priced as affordable that 
Lopez has frequently cited as a model of responsible development, "people 
get 23 years of almost no taxes," Depaolo remarks. "Someone who paid 
$775,000 for a condo gets to pay $18 a month in taxes for two decades, 
while I'm a homeowner getting soaked," he complains. "[The abatement] is a 
crutch for developers," he contended that costs the government millions in 
tax revenue, dollars badly needed to improve the area's increasingly 
overloaded transit system and fund community amenities.

A representative from Lopez's office sees things differently. "We're not 
satisfied with inclusionary zoning," said Nina Englander in a phone 
interview. "This bill will make affordable housing a more viable alternative."