Willets Point Community Board Drama On Tape!

If you watch just one Community Board Meeting video this summer, make it this one. Willets Point property owners who've been passionately protesting Mayor Bloomberg's controversial $3 billion plan to rezone the area (to make way for a hotel, convention center, offices and retail stores) have put together this video showing how the sausage gets made over at Community Board 7. Their gripping featurette focuses in on a contentious committee meeting that yielded a yes vote for the city's proposal, despite serious reservations voiced by board members.

Be sure to have the popcorn ready around the seven minute mark when Committee Chair Chuck Apelian (to be played in the Hollywood remake by John Turturro) gets the split-screen treatment, showing him betray his own promises made at the previous committee meeting! Flared tempers, mass confusion, rude interruptions, and scheming of Shakespearean proportions await...

Thanks to Queens Crap, who has a whole lot more where that came from.

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By John Del Signore in News on September 5, 2008 3:56 PM

Comments [rss]

Roxanne

why do we need community boards? I think they don't help in anyway.

handsomedevil

Meh. It's actually not the most compelling presentation - the 21 people who voted in favor could have fully understood the disparity between the previous demands and what they got and still voted yes.

From the out-of-context clips in the beginning, it appears that some discussion did follow the reading of the letter (that's all that stuff about "strong-arm tactics" etc.) so somebody apparently got the opportunity to express disapproval. It was probably pretty obvious what was going on.

If anything, the chairman looks like a dick for being so adamant about the conditions in the first place, but I suspect that leaders at the local level tend to lack nuance.

Såkandulæredet

But where will I take my urban wasteland photos for my blog?

longacre

On one hand, I feel bad for the business owners. On the other, it's a disgrace that there's nowhere to hangout outside of two of the city's premiere events venues. How awesome would it be to be able to stop at a bar on your way to or from Shea/CitiField or the Open and get a beer, the way you can outside Yankee Stadium or Wrigley Field? Why shouldn't that area be redeveloped from the shithole it is?

At the end of the day, these guys are going to get paid, their land is not being stolen. Most of them can move and be successful somewhere else. Some will not, some will retire.