Do real estate developers control New York City's land use in the de Blasio administration ?

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A lack of democracy in New York City's land use process

"It's a lie anyway." To some progressive activists, seeing Mayor Bill de Blasio’s land-lease proposal to construct buildings on the property of the New York City Housing Authority following so closely on the sale of several NYCHA Section 8 buildings, with plans for further expansion of land-lease opportunities on NYCHA lands, amounts to a full-throttle assault to privatize large parts of NYCHA, essentially opening the floodgates for private real estate developers to stampede toward a land rush of city real property in exchange for the administration receiving credit for the construction a miniscule number of new affordable housing units. It seems like a huge price to pay for perhaps constructing an initial 500 new affordable housing units within a larger goal of creating 80,000 units over a ten-year span. These and other major city land use decisions are not being made with prior public input, much less without a specific mandate from voters. Although more and more tenants and activists are recognizing Mayor de Blasio’s pro-real estate agenda, what is missing is tenant and activist consensus about what to do about this. Some activists have been fighting the sale of public library branches to real estate developers, thinking that each sale is a singular transaction, independent onto itself, and not part of a larger, pro-real estate agenda by the de Blasio administration. Activists think that if they can just defeat the sale of one library, then the larger cause can be won. Efforts by developers and city planning officials to subject small fights to the arduous ULURP process, while sidestepping larger projects, has the impact of narrowing activists’ focus at the same time that they can be worn down. About the role of Community Boards in allowing the public to participate in New York City's land use process, the Brooklyn tenant activist Alicia Boyd said, “It’s a lie, anyway, but we know politically that the political machine needs that lie .... They need the lie. They need the lie, so that the people will not stand up and say, ‘Hey, wait a minute ! That means that we have no power ? There’s no democracy here ?’ They need the lie.” As activists look to hold the administration accountable to activists’ expectations for a course for a post-Occupy Wall Street city that was not aligned with big business, there are many issues to consider. Firstly, how do activists plan to educate each other on a complete and accurate picture of how much of the political landscape in the de Blasio administration has been influenced by the real estate industry ? Secondly, will activists reject Mayor de Blasio’s incremental and inadequate remedy to the affordable housing crisis, and, if so, what can the community demand in its place ? And thirdly, what should be done about the veal pen nonprofit groups, which willingly deëscalate calls for political, social, and economic reform, based on the messaging emanating from City Hall ? Other issues undoubtedly also exist, but organizing cannot take shape about where we want to go as a city until everybody first agrees on what is actually happening now.

RELATED A Special Investigation : A lack of democracy in New York City's land use process (Progress Queens) Michael Hayes, LMT, has practiced massage for more than 20 years as a licensed massage therapist in New York City.

Bill de Blasio voted for "poor door" before he was against it

Extell Development Company, the developer behind the building that won permit to operate segregated entrances based on tenant income, was the target of a subpoena of the now-defunct Moreland Commission.

Now that the U.S. Attorney's Office possesses the Moreland Commission's investigation files, will it expand inquiry into how Extell won approval for de jure segregation at its building at 40 Riverside Blvd. ? One of the wealthy real estate developers that was the target of a subpoena issued by the now-defunct Moreland Commission was Extell Development Company, a developer with notoriously close ties to the administration of Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY). Extell is also the developer of the controversial building in the Upper West Side of Manhattan that now segregates tenants to use different entrances, based on income. The use of the "poor door" was approved by the Democratic Party-controlled City Council in a 2009 vote. In a report in The New York Post, it was said that Mayor Bill de Blasio voted for the provision that allowed Extell to force low-income tenants to use the "poor door." During last year's mayoral race, Mayor Bill de Blasio reportedly accepted over $18,000 in campaign contributions from Extell, according to calculations prepared by Mayor de Blasio's rival, Sal Albanese. Mr. Albanese's calculations were published last year by Crain's New York Business. Last year, Extell became the subject of interest for Moreland Commissioners investigating the pay-to-play corruption in Albany. It was reported that Extell made over $300,000 in related campaign contributions to the campaign committee of Gov. Cuomo in the time leading up to when Gov. Cuomo signed into law tax breaks reportedly worth $35 million over a ten-year span for another of Extell's developments, the $2 billion super luxury condominium tower on West 57th Street known as One57. If the corruption-fighting investigators of the Moreland Commission were interested in the corrupt pattern of pay-to-play in politics that invited large campaign contributions to fix legislative outcomes, then will the way Extell won its de jure segregating "poor door" provision approved by the City Council merit the same kind of scrutiny as did the $35 million tax breaks signed into law by Gov. Cuomo ?

RELATED Bill de Blasio voted for luxury building ‘poor door’ (The New York Post) Sal Albanese Blasts Rivals For Accepting Corrupt Real Estate Donations (Crain's New York Business) In Mayoral Race, Attacking Real Estate Industry but Taking Its Cash (The New York Times) Extell, Silverstein, Thor hit with subpeonas over tax breaks (The Real Deal) Extell upped Cuomo donations during tax bill talks : State law granting One57 an abatement could shave $35M in costs (The Real Deal) Michael Hayes, LMT, has practiced massage for more than 20 years as a licensed massage therapist in New York City. Flatiron Massage offers gift certificates, and their massage studio is located in the Flatiron District of Manhattan.

The New York Times wakes up to a harsh reality about de Blasio's piling examples of selling out

PUBLISHED : WED, 08 JUN 2014, 01:46 PM
UPDATED : THURS, 13 JUN 2014, 19:35 PM

The NYTimes' Ginia Bellafante on Mayor Bill de Blasio : The absence of any real template for governing from the vantage point of economic liberalism

RELATED For de Blasio, Deals, Drama and (Maybe) Progress (The New York Times)

In today's Sunday edition of The New York Times, the columnist Ginia Bellafante examined new mayor Bill de Blasio's record of broken campaign promises and other compromises in his young administration. "For years since, you could get by calling yourself a liberal in New York State politics simply by loving pro-choice arguments and same-sex marriage as much as you loved Wall Street and real estate developers. That is no longer so, which leaves centrists moving toward compromises that look semi-noble, and liberals in the position of seeming to have settled for too little and sacrificed their souls too much." On the closure of Long Island College Hospital, Ms. Bellafante wrote that, "the sense that Mr. de Blasio exploited the issue, declared victory in the face of a loss and then moved on has clearly taken hold." Ms. Bellafante's observation is backed up by a column by Liza Featherstone in amNewYork : "Bill de Blasio betrayed his believers in Cobble Hill," in which the author of the column wrote : "There are signs de Blasio is willing to fight for ordinary New Yorkers. Additional paid sick leave and universal pre-K are nothing to dismiss. But when the interests of ordinary New Yorkers conflict with those of the real estate industry, which donated heavily to de Blasio's campaign, is Mayor 99 Percent setting aside his protest placards? Many in Cobble Hill think so." In respect of the de Blasio administration's plans to preserve affordable housing, Ms. Bellafante noted that there was a "mounting sense that he has reneged on promises to involve neighborhoods in decisions that intimately affect them." This is backed-up by the relentless postings on the Atlantic Yards Report blog, and you can begin by reading this post : "As de Blasio announces affordable housing plan, Atlantic Yards (delay, modular, lack of neighborhood planning) remains an awkward backdrop," in which the author of the blog noted of the mayor's affordable housing plan : "There was no mention of the planned affordable housing that he and others cited to justify their support for Atlantic Yards, likely because that housing has taken so long to be built--and perhaps because it recalls the absence of ground-up neighborhood planning." (emphasis added) With respect to Mayor de Blasio enabling Gov. Cuomo to lock up the Working Families Party nomination, Ms. Bellafante wrote : "When Mr. de Blasio recently facilitated a deal between the leftist Working Families Party and Mr. Cuomo to secure the organization’s endorsement of the governor for re-election, it pushed certain quarters of the left toward lamentation." This is backed up by one of numerous tweets in the aftermath of the WFP deal to endorse Gov. Cuomo, brokered by Mayor de Blasio, such as this one by Tom Watson : "Still some surprise/horror that progressive deBlasio cut a deal with Cuomo in the #WFP saga. Of course he did, it's politics." (emphasis added) Ms. Bellafante also provided a balance to her criticism, by noting some achievements in Mayor de Blasio's first five months in office. Taken as a whole, Ms. Bellafante's article is an indication that growing liberal disappointment with Mayor de Blasio is seeping into the pages of The New York Times, something that took 15 years to happen with former Council Speaker Christine Quinn's political career. This change is due to the impatience with which voters now express about political deals made between politicians that betray campaign promises, such as with the embarrassing Working Families Party endorsement, an observation that Ms. Bellafante herself made when she wrote, "What looked like a mayoral assertion of authority to some felt like abdication to others."

de Blasio's high poll numbers amongst minority electorate may sink, if the NYPD continue their racially-tinged, broken windows policing tactics

RELATED Mayor de Blasio’s Approval Rating Improves, Poll Finds (The New York Times)

A majority of Black and Latino voters said that they approved of the job Mayor de Blasio was doing, a new poll shows, The New York Times reported. But it is not clear that this new poll factored in the immense anger in the Harlem community in response to a shock and awe invasion by the New York Police Department to round up innocent young public housing tenants on trumpted up charges of conspiracy to commit gang activities. Already, the new poll shows that the new mayor has lost more than half of the support amonst whites. If the police continue their crackdown that targets people of color, it won't be too far long before the mayor loses support amongst his minority base.

Mayor de Blasio with Bill Rudin (twice) ; Remembering St. Vincent's Hospital and Dr. Brickner

• RELATED : Bill de Blasio and Bill Rudin Community Betrayal ? (NYC : News & Analysis)

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

From the Demand A Hospital listserv :

Dear All :

A news round-up, plus photographs of Mayor de Blasio kissing up to Bill Rudin and embracing Rudin lobbyist, James Capalino.

1. Remembering Dr. Brickner. Dr. Philip Brickner, who was chairman of St. Vincent's community medicine department, made house calls and set up a “free clinic” for people in need. He passed away on March 24 at his home in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. He was 85. (Remembering Dr. Philip Brickner, who made house calls to the vulnerable, dies at 85 * The New York Times)

2. Remembering St. Vincent's Hospital. Some say that Rudin Management, the builder of the new billion-dollar luxury condominium complex at St. Vincent’s footprint, was coincidentally former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s largest campaign contributor, and she didn’t do all she could do to save the hospital. Sadly, this article unfairly blames St. Vincent's for the economic consequences of making good on its own charity mission. Healthcare has taken a beating in Greenwich Village and Chelsea, and, citywide, the assault continues. (Remembering St. Vincent's Hospital * The Indypendent)

3. Bill Rudin breakfast. Mayor Bill de Blasio makes a "surprise" appearance last Wednesday morning at Bill Rudin's Association for a Better New York power breakfast. (Mayor de Blasio makes surprise stop at ABNY insider breakfast * The New York Observer)

4. Bill Rudin gala. Mayor de Blasio expresses support Thursday night for police crackdown as a way to jack up real estate values at Bill Rudin's Waldorf-Astoria charity benefit in this desperate Bloomberg public relations puff piece meant to help rehabilitate the Rudin family's tarnished image. See photo. (Mayor de Blasio kisses up to Bill Rudin at Waldorf-Astoria gala * Bloomberg)

5. James Capalino connection. Reminder that last year, then mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio literally and figuratively embraced campaigning with Rudin's corrupt ULURP condo conversion lobbyist, James Capalino. See photo. (James Capalino, a former Rudin lobbyist volunteers for de Blasio * Capital New York)

Thank you for all that you do.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Tell Gov. Andrew Cuomo to stop closing our hospitals : 1 (518) 474-8390

You can also tweet your concerns to Gov. Cuomo at : @NYGovCuomo

Ethan Geto defends corrupt real estate dealing by Melissa Mark-Viverito

It doesn't matter who becomes speaker, because lobbyists are always the winners.

Ethan Geto is another corrupt real estate lobbyist enabling Melissa Mark-Viverito's speakership. This is the same Ethan Geto, whose firm once represented Forest City Ratner. It's important to note that both camps fighting for the speakership are playing by the same broken "rules" of the corrupt political system. And nobody from the Left calls any of this out, because, according to situational ethics, you game the system when it's in your favor, and you denounce it when the other side does it. Am I saying that if Mayor Michael Bloomberg were still in office, would people be taking to streets over this ? Maybe, but to this bunch of "progressives," real reform is dependent on who's reaching for greater power. It doesn't matter if Ms. Mark-Viverito or if Councilmember Daniel Garodnick becomes speaker, because the real winners are the lobbyists, who will still get paid by developers. Let me repeat, it doesn't matter who becomes speaker, because whoever does become speaker will take the same coins it takes to pay off the speaker in campaign donations to ram through community crushing development.

This Week In Bill de Blasio Conflicts of Interest : Rafael Cestero

Bill de Blasio transition advisor may be creating conflict of interest : The New York Daily News

Dick Dadey, a Christine Quinn loyalist who never confronted Quinn's administration of the City Council over corruption, is now coming forward to charge that the incoming de Blasio administration is guilty of more conflicts of interest.

The affordable housing developer Rafael Cestero is vetting possible agency heads for the New York City Housing Authority and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, The New York Daily News is reporting, adding that, "Cestero's role creates the possibility that one day he might be lobbying or doing business with the appointees he's helped to select, creating a conflict of interest, experts said."

However, Cestero's role has been being hidden from voters and the media, and in the opaque shadows of developers and lobbyists controlling government leadership positions, the only thing that can result is corruption.

If the de Blasio administration doesn't do something to stop all these conflicts of interest, maybe we just have to wait for Cestero to rig development deals with NYCHA and NYCHPD, resulting in the kind of embarrassing scandals that will perhaps lead to reforms in how the mayor-elect will choose his deputies ?

Hard to forget how @deBlasioNYC's new deputy for dvlpmt okayed one of Giuliani's most blatant giveaways to a crony.. http://t.co/GwdDORSbzn

— Tom Robbins (@tommy_robb) December 23, 2013

How committed is Bill de Blasio to adopting progressive reforms ?

Bill de Blasio and Land Use : Liberal Mayoral Candidate Would Continue Many of Bloomberg's -- and Quinn's -- Policies

In the weeks leading up to Christine Quinn's defeat in the Democratic primary election, it came to be known that one of the slimy Rudin lobbyists responsible for influencing the City Council to approve the controversial St. Vincent's luxury condo conversion plan had already found a way to get access to Bill de Blasio, the presumptive leading mayoral candidate. Hosted on Scribd is an e-mail about the controversial lobbyist, James Capalino, that was exchanged between Donny Moss and I.

After a couple of weeks of careful consideration, I have produced a new YouTube video about this e-mail exchange.

One major reason that activists organised to vote Quinn out of office was because of how she sold out the community in favor of her campaign contributors and powerful big business interests. Real estate developers have enjoyed great influence over city government, so much so that voters have had almost no way of participating in important community decisions. For example, voters desired saving the zoning on the St. Vincent's campus for a replacement hospital, but big business interests were able to ride roughshod over voters because of their use of lobbyists and the outsized influence of campaign donations.

After the primary election, Bill de Blasio announced that he would not appear at fundraisers unless contributors could package together donations of at least $75,000. In addition to embracing lobbyists that helped Rudin privatise the former real estate of St. Vincent's, de Blasio was now embracing the out-sized influence of money in politics.

How could it be that activists, who carried the reform banner to organize and defeat Quinn in the mayoral primary, now turn the other way after de Blasio has now begun to adopt some the same tools of the broken political system as did Quinn ?

The concerns over who gets access to political candidates are serious. As some of you may know, when Andrew Cuomo was running for governor, some St. Vincent's activists approached his campaign people over the need for a hospital to replace St. Vincent's. Cuomo's campaign people told the St. Vincent's activists, "We'll see you after the election." After the election, what did Gov. Cuomo do ? Within days, he formed the Medicaid Redesign Team to continue the work of closing hospitals, and he appointed Stephen Berger to head the Brooklyn Working Group in an attempt to specifically close hospitals in Brooklyn. Similarly, some AIDS activists tried to reach out to the de Blasio campaign this year to determine if his campaign platform would include more ambitious goals to confront HIV/AIDS, but the AIDS activists were told by de Blasio's campaign people, "We'll see you after the election."

After all the community organizing, town halls, and protests in which activists have engaged to fight for a hospital to save St. Vincent's, just hearing the phrase, "We'll see you after the election," should activate a powerful recognition : that de Blasio means to make no public commitment to champion for the reforms that that many communities say they want to see brought about in the next mayoral administration.

Some activists, who participated in the movement to vote Quinn out of office, have been doing this work for over 22 years -- from the time when Quinn first arrived in the political scene in New York. It becomes too late to try to hold a politician accountable once the politician gets elected into office. Using Quinn as an example, she will have spent about 15 years in City Council spread out over 5 terms in office. During this time, in what direction has this city headed ? There was no way to hold her accountable during these 15 years, except to finally vote her out of office. That's the only way.

As challenging as it was to vote Quinn out of office, what lesson should we be drawing from this experience ? What wisdom is there to be had ? The reality is that Quinn was just a symptom of a broken political system. The root causes of the political system being broken still exist. In the last two years, our activism was influenced by important principles from the Occupy movement, and that is that inequality, corruption, and the undue influence of big business interests is what keeps our government broken and non-responsive to voters' needs. Knowing all that we know, do we wait for politicians to max out on term limits before they should be held accountable to voters, or should politicians be held accountable even before they win an election and are sworn into office ?

It all comes down to what you think, because it was you, who was made voiceless under the Bloomberg-Quinn administration. Our immediate contribution to push back against the broken political system was to vote Quinn out of office, but based on the messages that de Blasio is telegraphing to the community, voting Quinn out is not enough to bring about reforms. Now that she will soon be gone, what else do you need to do to reclaim your government ?

Please think about this, because the movement to bring about reforms is not over, yet. The movement needs you to step forward, because not everybody is fighting for reforms, and compromises are being made that may not serve your best interests. The only way for you to make sure that your best interests are being served is for you to step up and speak out. Your voice and opinion counts. Make it be heard.

2013-09-23 Rudin Management Company - James Capalino NYC Lobbyist & Client Search Result

Bloomberg funnels tax money to Hudson Yards project with no oversight

The Bloomberg administration secretly funneled more than $9 million in city property taxes to the Hudson Yards project in Manhattan on top of the $234 million the city already gave to the project, without informing the City Council, The New York Daily News’ Juan Gonzalez reports: http://nydn.us/ZfHyDu (via City & State).

Protest against Melanie Meyers and Samantha Rudin by St. Vincent's Hospital Activists

UPDATED : VIDEO OF PROTEST :

The Fried Frank lawyer Melanie Meyers and Samantha Rudin and her father, Bill Rudin, tarnish the legacy of Sarge Shriver.

Sarge Shriver's old law firm, Fried Frank Harris Shriver and Jacobson, have spent years representing the Rudin family's hostile takeover of St. Vincent's Hospital.

While the entire Lower Manhattan has no more Level I Trauma Center, the Rudin family (with Fried Frank's help) stand to make hundreds of millions of dollars from the luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's Hospital.

What would Sarge Shriver's family think about Fried Frank engaging in business that goes contrary to Sarge Shriver's legacy of public service and Progressive and humanitarian causes ?

St. Vincent's Hospital activists announce a protest against Melanie Meyers and Samantha Rudin.

Rudin Management Company are laughing all the way to the bank with all the money that they are making from the reckless luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's Hospital, and now they are gloating about it !  Join us for a protest this week :

Date :  Wednesday, 27 February 2013

Time :  2:30 pm - 3:00 pm

Place :  McGraw-Hill Companies, 1221 Avenue of the Americas (btwn 48th and 49th Streets), Manhattan

Executives from Real Estate Weekly Women's Form are gathering at McGraw-Hill on Wednesday to discuss how real estate executives can further their careers and discover new business opportunities. Among the many speakers are Melanie Meyers, the Fried Frank law firm partner who was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobby CB2 and the City Council, and Samantha Rudin, from Rudin Management Company.

Join us as we protest from 2:30 - 3:00 outside McGraw-Hill's offices at 1221 Avenue of the Americas.

Here is the specific entry on the day's agenda, which reveals how Ms. Meyers and Ms. Rudin plan to describe how Rudin Management Company succeeded in exploiting community resources for private profit :

2:35 PM :  The Journey of St. Vincent’s

A look into Rudin Management’s vision for the development of St. Vincent’s, the milestones that have been met to pave the way for the project, the twists and turns that had to be addressed in achieving them and what we can expect as the redevelopment takes shape. The recent land use approvals will allow the abandoned hospital to be converted into a new, primarily residential and environmentally friendly complex encompassing the adaptive reuse of six historic buildings and the creation of a new public park that commemorates the history of St. Vincent’s Hospital.

Melanie Meyers, Partner, Fried Frank
Samantha Rudin Earls, Vice President, Rudin Management Company

Notice how Melanie Meyers and Samantha Rudin are portraying St. Vincent's Hospital as having been "abandoned."

CORRECTION :  It was Rudin Management Company, Fried Frank, Christine Quinn, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and the city and state Departments of Health which abandoned St. Vincent's.

Please bring signs to protest the Melanie Meyers, Samantha Rudin, Bill Rudin, and Rudin Management Company.  Our community still needs a full-service, Level I Trauma Center to replace St. Vincent's.

Please RSVP on the Facebook Invite :  https://www.facebook.com/events/133601436814483/

2013-02-27 Agenda | Real Estate Weekly Women's Forum by