By Stephen Stirling
TimesLedger Newspapers
11/15/07
A group of Willets Point business owners and the city have been locked in a legal arms race over the last two months, anticipating a potential fight as the city moves toward the start of the approval process for a multibillion-dollar redevelopment of the area known as the Iron Triangle.

Both the city and the Willets Point Industry and Realty Association have each recently retained the services of high-profile environmental attorneys who are expected to clash swords if any legal questions arise from eventual publication of the Environmental Impact Statement for the redevelopment of Willets Point. Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the plan in the spring.

Bloomberg hopes to transform the 60-acre swath of land into a mixed-use community that includes thousands of housing units and millions of square feet of retail and commercial space designed within an environmentally ambitious framework. Any redevelopment would be fraught with obstacles as the area is barren of most basic infrastructure, such as paved streets and sewers, and is littered with widespread environmental contamination expected to cost millions to remediate.

WPIRA, a group of the 10 largest businesses in Willets Point that combined own about 50 percent of the land on the site, have enlisted the legal services of Michael Gerrard, an environmental attorney who represented CableVision against Bloomberg’s failed attempt to construct a football stadium on the West Side Rail Yards in Manhattan.

WPIRA spokesman Dan Scully said Gerrard will challenge the city if the environmental impact statement does not adequately assess the effects of replacing the 1,300 industrial jobs currently at Willets Point with the primarily retail and commercial work force called for in Bloomberg’s plan.

“No one ever talks about all the jobs that are going to be lost. The net gain here could be nothing,” Scully said. “This plan is really just a pie in the sky. It looks great on paper, but the fact is [the city] hasn’t done their homework.”

WPIRA has also retained the services of a attorneys specializing in condemnations, rezoning, constitutional law and has been receiving the legal counsel of former Council Speaker Peter Vallone Sr.

On the other side of the coin, the city has hired attorney David Paget to serve as legal counsel during the public approval process, expected to begin in February. Paget, a member of the Sive, Paget & Riesel law firm, has a long and successful history of guiding large projects through the approval process. In recent years, Paget has overseen the approval of the new Yankee Stadium, Brooklyn Bridge Park and the expansion of the United States Tennis Associations facilities in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

The Economic Development Corporation, which is administering the Willets Point redevelopment plan, also said it has hired the Wall Street law firm of Carter, Ledyard & Milburn to litigate any eminent domain cases that could arise, a controversial practice the city said is a last resort but is not afraid to utilize.

Carter Ledyard & Milburn, which employs more than 100 attorneys, has a solid track record defending New York state’s eminent domain law, recently winning a condemnation case for Blumenfeld Development and Forest City Ratner involving their East River Plaza development in Manhattan.

Reach reporter Stephen Stirling by e-mail at Sstirling@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 138.