“Great views of Flushing and the surrounding areas from the stadium- it faces west so you can see beautiful sunsets. Plus all around the stadium you get to see the chop shops and the train yards and the bay. You would think the Mets would try to visually temper these sights but surprisingly not.” So penned Jeffrey Jensen last April, though his initial impressions of the newly opened Citi Field might be somewhat altered when or if he reads the following item from the New York Times’ Sewell Chan (link swiped from Repoz and Baseball Think Factory)
A federal judge on Wednesday upheld New York™s $3 billion redevelopment plan for Willets Point, an industrial section of Queens dominated by car-repair shops and waste-management businesses, finding that although the city had neglected the neighborhood™s infrastructure for decades, the constitutional rights of the businesses there ” many of which will be forced to relocate under the plan ” were not violated.
The plaintiffs, who organized themselves into an entity called the Willets Point Industry and Realty Association, and who œhave established thriving businesses (notwithstanding the grossly inadequate infrastructure of the area) and employ hundreds of people, œare understandably aggrieved by the fact that the plan that the city is in the process of implementing has no place for them, the judge, Edward R. Korman of Federal District Court in Brooklyn, wrote. However, he ruled, it was not the place of federal judges to intervene in the dispute.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg™s redevelopment plan was approved by the City Council, 42 to 2, last November. It calls for new sanitary and stormwater sewers, more power lines and new roadways and bicycle lanes. It also seeks new mixed-use development ” including, possibly, a hotel and convention center ” but envisions sweeping away the current industrial uses through eminent domain.