Yesterday, members of the Penn Group Protection Fund (PCDF) filed a lawsuit in opposition to the State of New York in New York State Supreme Court docket in Manhattan. PCDF consists of neighborhood boards, good authorities teams, advocacy organizations, and anxious residents which are against the present plan to redevelop Penn Station.
The central declare of PCDF’s lawsuit is that the State’s environmental evaluate for the Penn Station grasp plan was illegally “segmented” and that the State sidestepped the Uniform Land Use and Evaluation Procedures by declaring the realm round Penn Station “blighted.” PCDF’s objective is that Empire State Improvement Company’s Basic Venture Plan is “declared unlawful and higher alternate options will be offered and debated by the general public using the right evaluate processes,” Sam Turvey, a coordinator within the PCDF and chairperson at ReThinkNYC, informed AN.
In a doc titled Dialogue Factors: Litigation Difficult the State’s Redevelopment Plan for the Properties Surrounding Penn Station reviewed by AN, PCDF aired its grievances. “New York State’s Empire State Improvement Company (ESD) has proposed to override the Metropolis’s zoning legal guidelines and grant the homeowners of eight websites surrounding Penn Station roughly 18 million sq. toes of growth rights—a 76 % enhance above present zoning,” the report acknowledged. (ESD is “the umbrella group for New York’s two principal financial growth financing entities: The New York State City Improvement Company and the Division of Financial Improvement.”) The argument continues: “The proposal is ostensibly meant to fund the growth and reconstruction of Penn Station, however its major goal is to counterpoint Vornado Realty, one of many largest contributors to Governor Hochul (and earlier than her, Governor Cuomo) and the proprietor of 5 of the eight websites that might profit from this plan. There’s near-unanimity — at the least, amongst those that don’t have a monetary curiosity on this mission — that it’s an abuse of state energy, grounded in self curiosity, and a usurpation of the Metropolis’s quintessentially native energy to zone. Nonetheless, ESD ploughs forward.”
PCDF claims that just about each transportation change the State has made for bettering Penn Station is only “beauty,” suggesting its transit methods don’t handle the core points that make utilizing the station troublesome. Furthermore, PCDF questions whether or not or not the “State really wants this deal so as to fund the reconstruction of the station,” suggesting that the settlement will largely enrich Steve Roth, CEO of Vornado Realty Belief, in change for his previous marketing campaign patronage. Moreover, PCDF acknowledged its intention to convey its lawsuit to federal courtroom as soon as the Division of Transportation has accomplished its personal Last Environmental Affect Assertion (FEIS), which shall be “at the least a yr from now,” the reviewed memo acknowledged.
Of their lawsuit, PCDF alleges that ESD has dedicated “segmentation,” which means that its Penn Station proposal is being deliberate individually from Amtrak’s Gateway Program (a multi-billion greenback initiative to ship a brand new 2-track rail tunnel between New Jersey and midtown), in addition to individually from the encircling space’s redevelopment plan by Vornado. This motion would violate the State Environmental High quality Evaluation Act and thus be unlawful.
PCDF’s motion additionally questions the language and reasoning that has been used to validate the State’s takeover of the realm round Penn Station, particularly the declare that the realm round Penn Station is “blighted,” because the State suggests. “The neighborhood comes nowhere close to assembly the definition of ‘blight,’ which it should meet so as to qualify as a correct Land Use Enchancment Venture underneath the [Urban Development Corporation] Act,” the report learn. “Actually, the realm is studded with affluent business towers — and historic buildings as effectively, a few of that are already landmarked.” The doc notes that staffers at Vornado Realty Belief don’t even imagine the neighborhood is “blighted,” citing an inner memo Vornado addressed to shareholders. “Day and evening, the Penn District is teeming with exercise,” the Vornado memo acknowledged. “Our belongings sit actually on prime of Penn Station, the area’s main transportation hub, adjoining to Macy’s and Madison Sq. Backyard. … The Penn District is our moonshot, the best development alternative in our portfolio.”
City Renewal 2.0
Whereas it’s usually thought that city renewal led to New York within the Nineteen Seventies, it continues at present, as New York Metropolis presently has 62 energetic city renewal areas. In recent times, there have been a number of landmark tasks constructed inside city renewal areas. For instance, SHoP’s Barclays Heart in Brooklyn, accomplished in 2012, was developed as a part of the Atlantic Terminal City Renewal Space, and the workplace’s tower in downtown Brooklyn presently underneath development is situated throughout the Brooklyn Heart City Renewal Space. Moreover, an ongoing 596-acre mission in Edgemere, Queens, and an 18-acre growth in Brooklyn Triangle are being developed utilizing the identical mechanisms as Barclays Heart, producing pushback from area people teams.
Officers shifting ahead with the Penn Station grasp plan leverage comparable mechanisms, albeit on the state stage. In 2018, ESD invoked Part 4 of the City Improvement Company Act to bypass native zoning processes after making the declare that Penn Station is “unsanitary,” and thus blighted. Part 4 of the UDC Act is the fundamental instrument that can doubtlessly permit the state to grab properties across the station by eminent area after declaring them blighted, utilizing language that remembers the racially charged verbiage officers used between the Nineteen Forties and the Nineteen Seventies to filter out non-white neighborhoods.
Within the midst of different growth initiatives, the redevelopment of the realm round Penn Station into THE PENN DISTRICT is among the most important campaigns within the metropolis. Superior by the State of New York, ESD, and Vornado, the mission stands to ship 18 million sq. toes of recent business workplace house at a time when demand for Class An actual property is at a historic low and whole workplace buildings all through Manhattan have stood vacant for years. A latest article discovered that solely about 47 % of New York’s workforce goes into their workplaces lately and that distant work may knock 39 %, or $50 billion, from the worth of New York Metropolis workplaces.
At this time, organizations just like the Metropolis Membership, ReThinkNYC, Group Board 5, Midtown South Group Council, Trains Earlier than Towers, Tri-State Transportation Marketing campaign, Human Scale NYC, PCDF, varied tenant and neighborhood associations, and most people await details about the megadevelopment. Already, McKim Mead and White’s Lodge Pennsylvania is wrapped in scaffolding and set for demolition after Vornado first bought the property in 1999. In the meantime, Vornado has topped out on a brand new entrance to PENN2, whereas additionally recladding the tower with new glazing. Foster + Companion’s PENN15, set to rise 1,270 toes above the road, is subsequent in line as a part of Vornado’s 7.4 million-square-foot PENN DISTRICT grasp plan.
Working alongside the PCDF is Charles Weinstock, a New York lawyer with expertise in land use disputes, who’s intent on sourcing solutions for the general public. On September 1, Weinstock filed a lawsuit on the Manhattan District Court docket underneath the Freedom of Info Legislation demanding, “that Empire State Improvement (ESD) launch information associated to the state’s negotiations with the developer Vornado, the biggest property proprietor affected,” in accordance with a latest article by The Metropolis. “ESD has been significantly zealous in concealing the central function performed by Vornado Realty Belief,” in Penn Station’s redevelopment, Weinstock mentioned. On the core of Weinstock’s argument is that “collusion between a state company [the ESD] and the personal firm [Vornado] that might be the mission’s major beneficiary” has taken place.
In his lawsuit, Weinstock claims that the state’s lack of transparency in what would be the most consequential infrastructure plan in New York is “an affront to open authorities.” Weinstock, nevertheless, isn’t alone in making these claims. Richard Ravitch, the previous chair of each ESD and the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) mentioned final July that “maybe essentially the most outrageous factor concerning the plan is how little we learn about it.” He continued: “The ludicrously low stage of transparency is cause sufficient to postpone the plan.”
In his submitting, Weinstock famous that the 3D renderings the State has proven the general public to signify the mission have been gravely inaccurate, suggesting that the visualizations have been deliberately deceptive. Each photosimulation within the Draft Environmental Affect Assertion has errors, in accordance with detailed evaluation by Brian Heagney of George M. Janes & Associates, an workplace of zoning specialists, who reviewed submittals from the State issued on November 3, 2021. In Exhibit C of Mr. Weinstock’s evaluation, Heagney summarized that “there are a number of various kinds of errors, however most have the identical bias: they systematically understate the scale of the proposed motion and decrease the impacts of the motion on the realm’s visible sources.” He discovered that “these errors are severe and render the conclusions drawn throughout the chapter unusable.”
Weinstock’s lawsuit emphasizes that Vornado Realty Belief is on the heart of this operation. Steve Roth, who’s the principle beneficiary behind the Penn District’s $1 billion tax break, has donated important sums of cash to Andrew Cuomo and Kathy Hochul’s bids for state-wide political roles. In 2015, Roth donated $69,700—the utmost allowable sum {that a} personal particular person can provide to a politician—to former Governor Andrew Cuomo’s marketing campaign for reelection. After Cuomo stepped down from workplace in 2021 due to sexual harassment costs, he donated $69,700 to Governor Hochul’s marketing campaign to stay in workplace.
At this time, many need to know what Steve Roth is getting in change for his monetary patronage. To this query, Weinstock claims that “Mr. Roth has gotten his cash’s price. Absolutely it was not a coincidence that ESD drew the boundaries of the mission space to incorporate 5 Vornado properties. Furthermore, because the [State of New York’s] Last Environmental Affect Assertion (FEIS) acknowledges, if ESD’s federal companions don’t go ahead with their still-uncertain plan to increase Penn Station to the block south of thirty first road, the mission would excise the three websites that Vornado doesn’t personal or management.” (Emphasis within the unique.) In describing these ties, an article by Politico mentioned the plan would be the “greatest windfall to a politically-connected personal developer in latest historical past.”
ReThinkNYC’s Sam Turvey echoed Weinstock’s frustration when describing the plan’s lack of transparency. Furthermore, Turvey mentioned that the present gubernatorial administration reveals little indicators of enchancment from the earlier one. “When Governor Hochul got here into workplace, she mentioned she can be way more receptive to, clear, and conscious of the general public about alternate options at Penn Station,” Turvey informed AN. (Turvey was additionally the organizer of a protest at Penn Station in August.) “But, in lots of respects, she is behaving worse than the Cuomo administration in that she retains claiming to be listening to the general public, however clearly she shouldn’t be,” he mentioned. “The native elected officers, neighborhood boards, and civic organizations, by a big majority, oppose this mission.”
Displacement Forward?
If the present plan strikes ahead, it stands to displace 1000’s of individuals from at the least 1,172 residences and tons of of small companies, a lot of which have known as the realm residence for many years. This would come with Steve Marshall, a 71-year-old retired electrician and musician who lives and works out of his studio on thirtieth road.
“I moved into my constructing in 1975 when Tommy Ramone and Steve Gadd lived right here. Lots of of musicians lived on this block, and many people are nonetheless right here,” Marshall mentioned in an interview with AN. Marshall famous that his constructing is the place a protracted record of well-known artists rehearsed, together with Simon Kirke from Dangerous Firm, Madonna, Billy Idol, The Rolling Stones, and even Carl Bernstein, the investigative reporter who broke the Watergate scandal. “I used to do Mick’s electrical work,” he mentioned fondly, referring to The Rolling Stones’ lead singer.
Marshall’s tone modified from nostalgic to outraged when describing the present plans for his residence. If the mission goes by means of, Marshall’s studio would fall by means of the wrecking ball, and like many artists from his era, he can be pressured out of Manhattan. “ESD is mendacity when it says my neighborhood is blighted,” he mentioned. “Now they’re utilizing forms and intimidation to maneuver us out. Think about somebody knocking in your door and telling you that they’re going to kick you out to make billions.”
“ESD has completely misrepresented their relationship with the neighborhood,” Marshall continued. “And when Governor Hochul goes on air and says, ‘the neighborhood needs this mission’—I need to know which neighborhood she’s speaking about, as a result of it’s not mine.” He was additionally pissed off with different civic officers, together with Corey Johnson, the district’s former councilman, who went on report in 2018 saying that the plan ought to be despatched again to the drafting board in a letter he penned with varied different state representatives like Brad Hoylman, Carolyn Maloney, and Jerry Nadler. However after stepping down from public workplace in December 2021, Johnson began a lobbying group, CoJo Methods, that has since been employed as an advisor to Vornado on the mission. That is ironic given Johnson’s assertion to voters from 2019 that “New Yorkers are fed up with our pay-to-play political system. They know that actual property builders and lobbyists have had an excessive amount of sway for too lengthy.”
Options and Showdowns
Past the actual property scandal, there may be widespread consensus that Penn Station wants severe enchancment. One resolution superior by RethinkNYC advocates for the relocation of Madison Sq. Backyard (MSG), as this step is important previous to establishing through-running service to attach Lengthy Island Railroad, Metro-North Railroad, and New Jersey Transit into an built-in regional transit system, very similar to what London and Paris have at present. Furthermore, implementing full through-running service at Penn Station would negate the necessity to construct a brand new terminal hub to service Gateway Program’s new rail tunnel, a sublime technique that might each stop the pointless demolition of the blocks surrounding Penn Station and unlock the chance to construct 1000’s of a lot wanted new properties by rising the frequency of service at commuter stations all through the area, thereby opening up suburban communities to higher-density growth.
At this time, the town faces the results of choices made a long time in the past when it teetered on the verge of chapter. One hurdle for the above enchancment can be convincing James Dolan, proprietor of the New York Knicks, to relocate MSG. The Dolan household hasn’t paid property taxes on MSG since 1982, when Mayor Ed Koch struck a deal so as to stop the franchise from shifting to New Jersey, an association that can proceed in perpetuity. It appears doubtless that the Dolans will maintain MSG at its present location (tax free) till one other provide seems.
There is no such thing as a scarcity of workable visions for Penn Station’s future, however the State is advancing one which occurs to learn a person who has financially supported latest governors. Can New York activists lean into the town’s lengthy, proud historical past of resistance and make a distinction? It’s too quickly to inform, however historical past has proven New Yorkers don’t go down with no struggle.
Dan Jonas-Roche is a lecturer at Kean College Faculty of Public Structure the place he teaches about ethics, ecology, and infrastructure. Beforehand, he was an editor at RethinkNYC.