Bklink: Eminent Irony

“Affordable-housing activists in Brooklyn, N.Y., are proposing eminent domain be used to seize a prime piece of New York real estate from Pfizer Inc. Pfizer is the same company that inspired economic-development plans in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood of New London after the pharmaceutical giant started building its Global Research & Development headquarters there nearly a decade ago.” In other words, the famous Kelo case.–theday.com

Public Comments About Underground Railroad Houses

Yesterday was the last day for public comment in the (redone) eminent domain proceedings for a variety of properties in downtown Brooklyn. We got a copy of the comment submitted by Phil De Paolo of the New York Commmunity Council and thought we’d share a couple of short excerpts:

We see a gross injustice taking place on Duffield St…There is a long oral tradition of the buildings on Duffield St being part of the Underground Railroad, and while it is certain that a family of abolitionists, the Truesdells, lived at 227 Duffield Street, that venerable building is scheduled to go under the wrecking ball, along with 231 and 233 Duffield Street, to make way for a parking lot that would serve a hotel now under construction nearby…A city funded report that denies any Underground Railroad activity along Duffield Street isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. The report, issued in April by AKRF, said that 227 Duffield St., as well as neighboring buildings, was not used to spirit 19th-century slaves to freedom. The city and the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership are simply trying to hide the inconvenient truth of Duffield Street’s Abolitionist history. It would be a terrible shame to tear these buildings down, there needs to be more research, an archaeological study.

The city’s conclusion that there’s no evidence of Underground Railroad history is fundamentally flawed and, therefore, cannot form the basis for the destruction of what many believe to be an Underground Railroad station where abolitionists helped runaway slaves hide and escape to freedom…our environmental review process is being corrupted by biased and incompetent consultants who prepare environmental impact statements that are framed in a way that take us away from reality.

(All of the comments submitted were directed to a gentleman named Jack Hammer, which is utterly fascinating in the case of controversial potential demolitions.) The city was moving ahead with the eminent domain process before it was forced to stop and go through the hearing and public comment process again.

Eminent Domain Redux: Downtown Hearings Held (Again)

The city held another hearing yesterday on its plans to seize property for development–including the Underground Railroad homes on Duffield Street–via eminent domain. The repeat hearing was held because the city had to withdraw its original findings because it “mistakenly” failed to enter a blight study into the public record during original an original hearing held in May. In addition to the controversial seizure and planned demolition of homes believed to have been part of the Underground Railroad, the city would also evict 40 families living in rent-stabilized apartments, business with 100 employees, an arts venue and a parking lot. In all, 21 properties are involved on three different blocks.

The epicenter of the controversy is the block on Duffield Street where the Underground Railroad homes would be leveled for an underground garage for 700 cars and a street-level park and plaza known as Willoughby Square. Several major hotels are planned for the block including a 500-room Aloft Hotel and Sheraton and a 22-story hotel called the Indigo. The massive Albee Square development with at least 900 units of housing would also be nearby.

Of the hearing, Sarah Ryley wrote in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle that:

City Councilwoman Letitia James said after the hearing, which she called “just procedural in nature,” that she suspected the blight study was created recently as the result of a legal challenge to first ruling in favor of eminent domain. “I did not see a blighted study in 2003,” she said, referring to when City Council was given the opportunity to consider the Downtown Brooklyn plan, including the use of eminent domain to realize that vision.

The new public comment period on the use of eminent domain runs through November 5.

Links:
Brooklyn redevelopment faces Underground Railroad conflict [amNY]
City Gives Downtown Brooklyn Eminent Domain Hearing Another Try [Brooklyn Daily Eagle]

New Downtown Brooklyn Eminent Domain Hearing on Monday

There’s another hearing today on the use of eminent domain in Downtown Brooklyn, including the taking of the Underground Railroad House on Duffield Street that advocates believe should be preserved. The hearings were announced very quietly, in a small ad in the New York Post on October 17, and Duffield Street Underground blog says that owners of the buildings on Duffield Street weren’t even notified. The hearing is taking place because the Department of Housing Preservation and Development withdrew its original eminent domain findings earlier this month. Opponents of the seizure of the Duffield Street buildings and of their demolition are taking the opportunity to hold a press conference at 9:30 AM, before the 10:00 AM hearing at City Tech Auditorium, which is located at Jay Street and Tillary in Downtown Brooklyn. The press event will include Congresswoman Yvette Clark, Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, State Senator Velmanette Montgomery, City Council Members Charles Barron and Letitia James as well as “over 50 community members, preservationists and Black historians.” Here’s a bit from the press release we got in on our email:

As a result of legal challenges by Downtown Brooklyn advocates, the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development withdrew its eminent domain findings for Downtown Brooklyn earlier this month. The City’s withdrawal was an acknowledgment that it had no basis in the record for its use of eminent domain. This abuse of the powers of eminent domain would have proceeded if the City hadn’t been sued…HPD announced the new hearing in a small ad in the NY Post on October 17, 2007, yet they scheduled this new hearing without notifying the owners of the condemned properties.

The full press release is available at Duffield Street Underground and at No Land Grab.

Seizures Coming for Underground Railroad Buildings

The Department of Housing Preservation and Development has formally approved the seizure via eminent domain of a number of buildings in Downtown Brooklyn, including the Underground Railroad Buildings on Duffield Street. The formal HPD action was reported by the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. A total of 21 properties were actually approved for seizure on different blocks, including one in the BAM Cultural District on a property for which there are no current development plans. The city wants the the Duffield Street buildings in order to building an underground parking garage. Last week, the Bloomberg Administration announced $2 million for a project to commemorate abolitionist activity in Brooklyn, which supporters of saving the Duffield Street buildings suggested was a way to sugarcoat the impending seizures and demolitions. In the meantime, Duffield Street Underground reports that one of the city’s seizure letters, for 227 Duffield Street, went to a dead property owner.

Eminent Domain Opponents Gather at City Hall

More than 100 opponents of what they call “epidemic abuse of eminent domain in New York City and New York State” gathered at City Hall yesterday to mark the second anniversary of a critical Supreme Court decision. The group included property owners, tenants, advocates and elected officials.

“We haven’t seen this level of eminent domain abuse in New York City since the days of Robert Moses,” said No Land Grab’s Lumi Michelle Rolley, whose blog serves a clearning house for eminent domain-related stories. “Mayor Bloomberg’s policy has been to threaten the use of eminent domain to force property owners to sell and to thwart every effort towards legislative reform both in Washington and Albany.”

The Supreme Court decision in Kelo v. City of New London allowed government to seize private property on behalf of private developers and is a symbol of “abuse” of government’s eminent domain power, which was traditionally used for public projects. Since the Kelo decision, 38 states have enacted eminent domain reform legislation. New York has not done so.

Locally, a great deal of controversy about the Atlantic Yards development has revolved around the planned taking of property from owners that do not want to sell to Forest City Ratner. “The abuse of eminent domain is an abuse of our fundamental constitutional rights and must be opposed like all other attempts to violate constitutional rights,” said Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn’s Daniel Goldstein, who is fighting the attempt to take his home. His apartment sits roughly at what would be mid-court at the Barclays Center. “Our government has no business forcing us to sell our properties to benefit their developer friends,” he said.

Groups from around the city, including Willets Point in Queens, Downtown Brooklyn and West Harlem were represented at yesterday’s rally.

[Photos courtesy of Jonathan Barkey/pbase]

City Hall "Rally Against Eminent Domain Abuses" Tomorrow

While the focus has been on the big eminent domain issue surrounding the Atlantic Yards development, the are many, many such cases around Brooklyn and all of New York City right now. And so, the “Rally to Fight Eminent Domain Abuses” on the steps of City Hall tomorrow (6/27) at 1PM will provide everyone with a sort of who’s who in the world of people trying to avoid having their property taken by the government. The rally is being held to mark the second-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Kelo v. New London, which gave the nod to the City of New London to use eminent domain to take homes for a private development.

“Eminent domain abuse is an abuse of our civil rights,” says Lumi Michelle Rolley of No Land Grab, which chronicles eminent domain news locally and from around the nation. “New York State has a reputation of being one of the worst abusers of eminent domain in the nation. In New York City, it’s reaching epidemic proportions. We haven’t seen this level of eminent domain abuse since the days of Robert Moses. With eminent domain abuse as policy it is no surprise that New York is one of only a handful of states that has failed to reform its eminent domain laws since the infamous Kelo Supreme Court decision two years ago.”

“The Bloomberg Administration’s policy has been to misuse and abuse eminent domain, with the support New York state and this policy has gone too far,” says Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn’s Daniel Goldstein, whose condo would have to be seized in order to allow the Atlantic Yards project to move forward and who has become the public face of the opposition to the project. “We’re taking a stand, not just for ourselves, but for all New Yorkers who believe in the American dream and the importance of homes and businesses.”

Among the participants: Home and business owners, and tenants from Prospect Heights, Brooklyn; Duffield St., Brooklyn; West Harlem, Manhattan; Willets Point, Queens;
Councilmembers Tony Avella and Letitia James. Also, activists from: Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, No Land Grab, Willets Point Business Association, Historic Districts Council, New York Community Council, Society for the Architecture of the City, Harlem Tenants Council, Coalition to Preserve Community, West Harlem Coalition
550 Riverside, 55/69 Tiemann Pl. Tenants Alliance, Duffield Street Block Association
Green Party of Brooklyn, Park Slope Greens, United Neighbors for Brooklyn, Atlantic Avenue Betterment Association and the Brownstone Revival Coalition.

You can find more on the rally here at DDDB and at the Historic Districts Council Newsstand Blog.

Another Effort to Save Duffield St. Underground Railroad Houses

There are more developments to report in the ongoing saga of the very threatened Underground Railroad buildings on Duffield Street. As reported on Brownstoner and in amNY yesterday, a lawsuit has been against Mayor Bloomberg and the city–which want to take the buidings via eminent domain in order to building an underground parking garage–alleging they failed to fully examine the history of the site. Today, City Council Member John Liu (who represents Flushing among other Queens neighborhoods) is holding a press conference at 1PM. The release says “Experts to Dispute City Report Denying Existence of Underground Railroad Site.” It reads in part:

On Juneteenth – a national celebration that commemorates the end of slavery – elected officials, historic preservationists, and local residents will rally at Duffield Houses to challenge the conclusions of the City’s Economic Development Corporation report, which denies the existence of a historic Underground Railroad site at this location. Many of the nationally-renown expert witnesses who worked on this report will directly repudiate the City’s conclusions – which will now allow a private developer to demolish the Duffield Houses and build a parking lot at the site.

On January 7, 2004, Duffield Street residents found notices taped to front doors informing them that their historic houses would be taken by eminent domain and demolished to make way for a new parking lot. A growing number of historians, archaeologist, and Underground Railroad experts are outraged at the concocted conclusion of the City’s report by a consultant firm unqualified to make such an analysis. Many consider this Underground Railroad site to be hallowed ground and a
vital cultural treasure that should be preserved. The Underground Railroad was the network of people and places in which fugitive slaves sought refuge when escaping from the plantation system in the South.

The event takes place from 1PM-1:30PM at 227 227 Duffield Street (between Fulton & Willoughby).

Related Post:
State Historic Preservation Office Never Contacted About Underground Railroad Houses

Things Get Curiouser: Underground Railroad House Up for Sale?

The tale of the houses on Duffield Street in Downtown Brooklyn said to have been part of the Underground Railroad, has taken another very, very curious turn. One of the homes–the one in which Joy Chatel, one of the leaders of the fight to stop the seizure of the buildings via eminent domain and to prevent their demolition, resides–is apparently on the market for $4.5 million.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle’s Sarah Ryley reports on the listing:

The “Downtown Brooklyn Prime Location” — an eight-bedroom, four-bathroom, semi-detached home with a store and the right to build up to 20 stories high — has been listed with RE/MAX for three weeks, and was updated this week with a photograph. But nobody seems to agree on who put the property up for sale.

The home’s occupant, Joy Chatel, has spent the last three years of her life trying to prove that the residence was once a stop along the Underground Railroad in the hopes of saving it from the wrecking ball, and dozens of activists and elected officials have joined in.

Chatel says she wants to turn her home into a museum, but the city’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC) has plans to put an entryway for a parking garage in its place. The city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development held a hearing Tuesday on the property and 20 others on three blocks in Downtown Brooklyn.

Chatel doesn’t own the home she’s been living in for over a decade, which would make it difficult for her to fight an eminent domain ruling. She signed the deed over to her mother in 2004, and her mother, Arnelda Monroe, gave outside investor Errol Bartholomew 50 percent ownership of the property the following year to stave off foreclosure proceedings…Chatel said last week that her attorney, Angelyn Johnson, listed the property without asking, and suggested that Bartholomew was involved…

Johnson, who maintains a law practice on Court Street, was charged in February by the Queens District Attorney’s Office as part of a six-person deed fraud ring, and is still under investigation for other frauds she may have committed, according to the office.

We’d say that the story couldn’t possibly get any more bizarre, but something tells us that it will.

Eminent Domain Fun: Rockwell Place Firm to Get the Boot?

The focus at Brooklyn eminent domain hearing on Tuesday was the Underground Railroad Houses on Duffield Street, but Brooklyn Daily Eagle reporter Sarah Ryley reports another pending taking of property that would otherwise fly under the radar screen. In this case, the city would like to seize property at 95 Rockwell Place and clear the property, although there are no plans for the site. The business that is currently there employs 150 people.

Ms. Ryley writes:

Another lesser-known condemnee is Track Data Corporation, a financial service company six blocks from Duffield that employs 150 people and provides real-time financial and market data. The building, surrounded by parking lots, is within the BAM Cultural District, an area the city wants to turn into mixed-use developments and cultural centers orbiting the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

“Given the fairly small footprint of the building, what could you possibly want here more than a high-tech firm that pays salaries, employs 100 people [onsite] and has been here for several decades?” said Track Data spokesman Rafi Reguer. “What is it that you could replace it with that would be more valuable to the borough?”

The answer was nothing, at least for now.

According to information provided by the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, there is no development in any planning or approval stage that would replace Track Data. A spokesman for the partnership said it’s a normal part of the redevelopment process to clear everything through eminent domain to ensure that all existing property owners or lease holders are vacated when it comes time to build.

Eight lots that were on the eminent domain list yesterday are within the BAM Cultural District, and four have planned developments. A theatre for Danspace and 350 residential units are in the planning process; the Theatre for a New Audience, a 350-seat theatre, is in the approval process; and a small park is proposed atop one of the parking lots.

Read the rest of Ms. Ryley’s coverage. It’s fascinating stuff in a bizarre government taking of land for no apparent good reason kind of way. Urban renewal, anyone?