Hell's Kitchen Online 12/30/98

[Hellskitchen]

Hell's Kitchen Online                                    12/30/98
                 "All the News the Times Won't Print"
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In this issue...

* CSDC Sues Rudy over Eighth Avenue Rezoning
* Debate Covers A (Hell's) Kitchen Sinkul of Issues 
* Reader comments on 2 Columbus Circle

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Rezoning Goes to Court
Clinton Group Files Suit Against City
Chelsea Clinton News, Dec. 10, 1998
BY Jill Grossman

In the hame of preserving the character of Clinton, the community based organization responsible
for spearheading opposition to the city's Eighth Avenue rezoning plan early this year filed a
lawsuit against the city on Monday.

Naming Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the Department of City Planning, the suit, issued by the Clinton
Special District Coalition (CSDC), claims that the city's negligence in compiling an adequate
formal environmental impact statement violates both city and state environmental laws.

"It's preposterous on its face," state Assemblyman Richard Gottfried said of the city's argument
that moving hundreds of square feet of development rights will not have an effect on development
in the neighborhood.

"The rezoning encourages new development and renovations of buildings that could throw thousands
of Clinton residents out of the neighborhood." Gottfried is the only elected official named as a
plaintiff in the case.

The Eighth Avenue rezoning plan was passed by City Council in August to allow landmarked theaters,
of which there are 25 in the designated 50-square-block district, to sell their air rights to
developers. The plan was devised, the city said, to raise funds for the theater industry.

Representing the Clinton community in the case is attorney Antonia Bryson, a 19-year veteran of
city government, Bryson left her post at the city Department of Environmental Protection in 1995,
because, she said, "The work was not challengin under this administration... This administration
is not implementing environmental policy."

A former employee of the city Law Department, Bryson has sat on the other side of the bench,
defending the city on similar environmental cases. She supervised the appeal of the case to stop
the Coliseum redevelopment at Columbus Circle.

In arguing her latest case, for which her services were requested by John Fisher of the CSDC on
Halloween, Bryson explained that the city's environmenta1 analysis was "fairly irrational." First
she said, the City looked at the district as it would be if the Eighth Avenue rezoning amendments
had not been passed and found that the zoning capacity would be greater than the demand to build.
"They decided passing the zoning amendments would be OK because they wouldn't be used anyway," she
said. "They need to look at the effects as if it [the Eighth Avenue rezoning] had been utilized...
They need to make other, more realistic hypotheses because there could be more development."

The lawsuit requests that the rezoning amendments be declared null and void, since, she said, the
process was faulty. The votes by the City Council should be overturned by the court.

Pointing to a lawsuit which stalled and killed a proposal to construct a convention center over
the Hudson River at 44th Street in the early 1970's and, more recently, a suit which killed past
proposals for the development of the Coliseum, Gottfried said he is optimistic about the prospects
of this case. "It is entirely possible that this litigation will scuttle the Eighth Avenue
rezoning and force the city to come up with a sensible alternative, such as eliminating the west
side of Eighth Avenue from the rezoning plan, he said.

The Department of City Planning would not comment on the substance of its environmental analysis
of the rezoning plan.

The case is expected to be heard in the Supreme Court of New York County in early January.

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Debate Covers A (Hell's) Kitchen Sinkul of Issues 
Five Vying for Duane's Council Seat Square Off 
Manhattan Spirit, December 10, 1998 
By Brian Mackle 

When Council member Tom Duane announced his candidacy for November's State Senate election, five
people expressed an interest in the position he'd vacate.

Since Duane's announcement, those five, Aubrey Lees, Christopher Lynn, Carlos Manzano, Bill
Murawski and Christine Quinn, have all been jostling for any advantage in the election that's
expected to be held in February or March.

So when the Clinton Special District Coalition held a forum called "The Kitchen Debates" for those
vying for Duane's seat (to be vacated in January), all five candidates were on hand. In the end,
after deciding not to offer an official endorsement, the Clinton Special District Coalition voted
for Quinn as its "preferred" candidate.

At the debate, which focused on the Hell's Kitchen, all the candidate's expressed concern about
affordable housing, with prostitution and noise receiving equal attention. But the prospect of the
Eighth Avenue rezoning project loomed large over the entire evening. With the proposal that was
passed by City Council, residents are concerned the effects it will have upon the protections
afforded to the Clinton Special District.

After a year of opposition, the Clinton Special District Coalition has brought a lawsuit against
the city over the rezoning, and each candidate expressed support for the suit at some point in the
debate.

Members of the Coalition raised concerns about what is probably the most important issue to
residents of Hell's Kitchen: Development. All the candidates were asked if they had or would ever
accept campaign contributions from real estate developers, with only Lynn saying he had: "From a
personal friend, who builds low-income housing."

In fact, each of the candidates managed to separate themselves without ever quite disagreeing with
each other. Quinn stressed her hard-working ethic, political connections and familiarity with the
Council process. Lynn stressed his experience (former commissioner of the Taxi and Limousine
Commission and the Department of Transportation), as well as a proposal for a quality-of-life bill
of rights.

Lees said she would bring new solutions to the table and tried to distance herself from
"business-as-usual." Manzano pushed a non-partisan appeal, noting that "compromise is the art of
politics." Murawski, who ran unsuccessfully against Duane in the 1997, pointed out that he was the
only candidate who hailed from Clinton, adding that he had been a vocal critic of Community Board
4, having recently sent 17 letters requesting the resignations of 17 members.

The election for Duane's seat had already turned into a contentious one as the candidates have
tried to separate themselves from the pack. When Quinn, the executive director of the New York Gay
and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, who served as Duane's campaign manager in 1991 and as his chief
of staff until 1996, announced her candidacy, she immediately received Duane's endorsement. But
Duane's support of Quinn, as expected as it was, has become an issue in the campaign itself.

Recently, some residents of Greenwich Village have gone so far as to say that Duane has made
exaggerated claims of crime and violence in the Village just to get Quinn's name in the public
eye. After years of falling crime in Greenwich Village, a number of high-profile incidents
coinciding with cuts in the area's police force have led both Duane and Quinn to warn against an
impending crime wave.

Concerned that less cops on the streets will translate into a return of criminal activity in the
Village, such as anti-gay violence and prostitution, Duane has begun publicly urging Mayor Rudy
Giuliani, Police Commissioner Howard Safir and District Attorney Robert Morganthau to replace the
officers who have been transferred out of the 6th and 13th precincts in his district.

Duane's office points to the high-profile crimes that have taken place as proof that the rising
crime in the Village is real. "There were four murders in Greenwich Village over the summer, three
of them within three weeks," said Andrew Berman, Duane's chief of staff. "I can't see any reason
for such a diminishing of the number of officers, it really only invites more of a problem."

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READERS COMMENTS ON 2 COLUMBUS CIRCLE

Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1998 11:09:18 -0500
To: Hellskitchen <kitchen@hellskitchen.net>
From: Ken <g3415@gte.net>
Subject: Re: Rally and Press Conference to preserve 2 Columbus Circle

I've been recieving the newsletter for a few months and it seems like Hellskitchen.net opposes
*every* proposed development plan on the West Side.

Overdevelopment is horrible, but perhaps our battles should be chosen more carefully.  New York
has a shortage of hotels, while we have many, many museums.

Hotels are going to be built -- we should do our best to ensure that they are located to provide
minimum impact on traffic, high tax revenues, and value to visitors.   Trump seems to be proposing
a fairly small hotel, that will be located near the Midtown business district, subways, and Times
Square theatres.  If there must be another luxury hotel, this seems like a good place for it.

Perhaps efforts could be better focused on making sure that Trump pays a fair price for the site,
pays his fair (i.e. high) share of taxes, and provides some good jobs for New Yorkers at the
hotel.  We should also make sure that he builds a beautiful building on the site instead of an
eysore.


To which HKO responded:

We're against "inappropriate" development that does not fit in with the character of the
neighborhood or that can cause damage to the residents. For exapmle, a major television studio
wants to construct an eight story location on 11th Ave. We support it (with a few revisions such
as street storefront retail space). It brings activity to an somewhat desolate area and hopefully
employs residents.

The "shortage" of hotels is debatable, but even so, that's a larger debate on whether NYC should
move to a strictly tourist economy. It's moving away from the "FIRE" industries -- finance,
insurance and real estate -- to tourism. Tourism is great to an extent, but now it's out of
control and creating real displacement, traffic nightmares, etc. NYC is continuing to lose it's
light manufacturing and mercantile base -- things that made this town. The west side had a large
part of that and could reclaim that.

When considering promoting or opposing development, you need to measure what can be lost. 2
Columbus Circle, even though some dislike the building, is a worthy building to save.

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Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 09:12:46 -0500
From: rosem@nyo.coudert.com (Michael Rose)
Subject: Re: Rally and Press Conference to preserve 2 Columbus Circle

I am always supportive of the extradinary effort this group makes in preserving our neighborhood.
I agree that more skyscrapers at Colombus Circle is a a huge mistake paricularly when the
development is by Trump. However, I strongly disagree with using your slender resources to save a
building that should have never been built in the first place and is an architectural joke. Its
present use as a homeless encampment seems fitting to the hideousness of this structure.