By Connor Adams Sheets
The Queens Borough Board approved Monday a scaled-back version of a proposal introduced February 2009 to relocate several Willets Point businesses to the College Point Corporate Park.
The original plan was to move five businesses, but it was whittled down to three after two of the companies hit snags with Community Board 7 and the city Economic Development Corp.
The plan, which was passed by a quorum consisting of seven council members, Borough President Helen Marshall and CB 7 Chairman Eugene Kelty, represents one small phase of the city’s vision of clearing the 62-acre Willets Point area of its existing industrial businesses to make room for a multibillion-dollar redevelopment project. The city said it has bought or is in agreements to buy 64 percent of the land in Willets Point.
The businesses being relocated will all be moved onto land the city will sell them for undisclosed amounts at the south end of the NYPD tow lot at the intersection of 31st Avenue and College Point Boulevard. They include Feinstein Iron Works, T. Mina Supply and Sambucci Bros. Auto Salvage, which was the first company in Willets Point to agree to sell its land to the city.
Flushing Towing and Mets Metals, which were slated to be moved into two separate lots further north in the park, were dropped from the proposal when the EDC said it could not implement deed restrictions requested by CB 7 at this time, according to Kelty. Those two companies’ futures will be re-examined in coming months, according to Kelty .
Kelty voted to support the project, which passed with a quorum of seven Council members, Kelty and Borough President Helen Marshall voting yea, but he said he was only “75 percent happy” with the plan because he wants to have greater recourse in case any of the business owners become major code violators or bad neighbors.
At a hastily scheduled, unadvertised meeting held last week in a trailer at the corporate park in College Point, CB 7 secured letters from the three business’ owners stating they will be respectful of the nearby homes in their new locations.
“They’re saying they’re going to be good people. I’m willing to go with that,” Kelty said. “We’re putting the trust in them to be courteous neighbors.”
But in the days since the meeting, he went on to ask the EDC to offer the name of someone with whom he can work in case of major complaints or problems with the business owners after they move since the community board has little ability to ensure enforcement on its own beyond simply calling the police.
The EDC offered a property development official to fill that role, but Kelty would rather be able to work with someone from the agency’s legal department, which he said is behind many of its decisions.
“My board does not have a good relationship with the EDC,” he said as representatives of the agency sat across the table at Queens Borough Hall Monday evening. “‘Legal’ seems to make these calls, but ‘legal’ is an unknown face …. That’s the person I’d like to see in this letter.”
The EDC said it is open to meeting regularly with local officials while the businesses’ new locations are being built in order to assuage any concerns they may have during construction.
“That should be fine,” said Scott Solish, a senior project manager at the EDC.
Reach reporter Connor Adams Sheets by e-mail at csheets@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4538.
