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Willets Point zoning battle rages

By Ryan Chatelain, amNewYork Associate Editor | ryan.chatelain@am-ny.com

November 29, 2007

Citi Field, under construction next to Shea Stadium in Willets Point, Queens, will be the new home of the Mets starting in 2009. (Dave Sanders / November 28, 2007)

NEW YORK - Jake Bono doesn't want to give up the land where his grandfather opened the Willets Point business in 1933, amid the Great Depression, and is skeptical the company would survive a forced move elsewhere.

Bono Sawdust Supply Co. is one of about 250 businesses the city wants to relocate to make room for a 60-acre, $2.5 billion redevelopment project near Shea Stadium and the Mets' future home, Citi Field.

Bono and other Willets Point business owners are making a point to be at Thursday's City Council committee meetings where arguments will be made over whether to develop the area.

"My land is not for sale," Bono said. "I will not leave for any circumstance. This is nowhere near about money. ... If you take away my land, you're taking away what I learned to be America."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to build a new neighborhood, consisting of 5,000 housing units, a 400,000-square foot convention center, a 700-room hotel, a school, retail and office space and a park. But in order to do so, the land, now known as the "Iron Triangle," must first be rezoned from industrial to mixed use (commercial and residential). The review process is expected to begin in February or March and last seven to eight months.

If push comes to shove, the city might use eminent domain to seize the land from the businesses, which are mostly automotive related.

"Those businesses are very important to us," said Madelyn Wils, executive vice president of the city's Department of Planning and Development. "We're doing our best to communicate with them, meet with them and find them property."

Bono estimates that the area employees about 2,000 workers. The city says its plan would create 20,000 construction jobs and 6,100 permanent jobs.

The Bloomberg administration cites blight and pollution as its primary concerns about the current properties. But Bono, one of 10 business owners who formed the Willets Point Industry and Realty Association to fight the redevelopment, maintains the land is not contaminated and that the city itself is to blame for the blight.

At the heart of the business owners' frustration is a decades-long fight with the city over infrastructure. Streets in Willets Point are not paved, and there are no street lights or sanitary sewers.

Evan Stavisky, spokesman for an advocacy group pushing for continued development in Flushing, Willets Point and Corona, said that while there are many legitimate businesses in Willets Point, the area has been "a haven for chop shops and questionable characters."

"Willets Point represents generations of missed opportunities," Stavisky said. "Very few people could imagine looking at Willets Point and saying, 'Isn't it great what we have there now? Nothing should ever change.'"

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In the shadow of Shea Stadium, the Mets new home has risen.

More than 80 percent of Citi Field's structural steel was already in place earlier this month, according to the team's Web site. More than 70 percent of the tiered concrete structure that will support the stadium's seats has been installed. And entrance stairs from the 126th Street to the main concourse are complete.

The Mets will move into their new 45,000-seat home in 2009.