A recent town hall over a proposed casino on the east side of Midtown Manhattan proved testy, as community members spoke in opposition to the casino — and spoke over the developers.
State Sen. Kristen Gonzalez (D-Manhattan/Queens/Brooklyn) hosted the Thursday evening town hall at the NYU College of Dentistry in Kips Bay, with more than 800 people signed up to attend. The hearing mostly focused on a casino proposal, led by the developer Soloviev Group, near the United Nations.
Elected officials at the meeting weren’t shy about their misgivings about gaming. State Senator Liz Krueger, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said she doesn’t like gambling, and Assemblymember Harvey Epstein said the legislators fought to mandate community input in the legislation that enabled the casinos to be licensed downstate.
New York State will be awarding up to three casino licenses in the downstate region, and as of now, nine casino proposals in the city have been revealed.
For each casino application, the state mandates the establishment of a six-member Community Advisory Committee (CAC) that would conduct open meetings with the public and eventually vote on the project — with a two-thirds majority needed for a proposal to make its way to the state’s Gaming Facility Location Board.
Each CAC will consist of representatives from the governor and mayor, as well as the local councilmember, the borough president and the respective state legislators. The state is likely to open the application period early this year.
Robert Gottheim, district director for Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), expressed a fatalistic view as he spoke to those in attendance, presuming that one of the casinos would be in Manhattan because “this is where the money is.”
When someone from the crowd said it was “blood money,” Gottheim responded: “It may be blood money, but the money is coming.”
“The reality of the matter is, it’s been approved by the legislature. We are getting casinos in New York,” he said. “I wish we weren’t getting casinos in New York. Casinos, they prey on the most vulnerable people spending their paychecks. It’s not what we should be doing. But we have to deal with reality.”
Five casino proposals have been floated in Midtown Manhattan, with two others in Queens, and the others in The Bronx and Coney Island, Brooklyn.
Representatives from the Soloviev Group went over their proposed development for the east side, an $18 billion project called the Freedom Plaza that would also consist of 1,325 apartments — 513 of which would be permanently income-restricted so-called “affordable” units complying with the city’s mandatory inclusionary housing system.
The proposal also includes a community fund that would invest in local initiatives such as quality of life improvements, with 2% of annual net profits and a minimum of $5 million. The project also includes retail, a food market, a hotel, a museum, and the gaming facility, which would be below grade and accessible from the FDR Drive.
Audience members raised questions about the idea that for affordable housing to be built on the land, it must be tied to the gaming facility, especially since the group had previously planned to build housing on the land in previous years. But the representatives stressed that the gaming facility would be the economic engine necessary to build the under-market-rate rentals.
“Without the casino, we would not be developing the affordable housing,” one of the Soloviev Group representatives said, adding that there is no mandate to do so on the project site and that there’s no tax abatement program right now for that kind of development.
The development group tried to assuage audience concerns about a host of issues that could emerge from the casino project — including clashing with the United Nations’ activities, especially during UN week where traffic comes to a standstill — and the impact the casino could have on public welfare and safety.
Audience members also raised questions about the city’s efforts to forgo the zoning gauntlet known as the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, or ULURP, which the city has argued is redundant with the CAC process. As THE CITY previously reported, those concerns have led to multiple community boards voting down efforts to do away with ULURP.
After the question-and-answer session, members gave their takes on the prospect of a casino in their neighborhood, with most expressing a degree of opposition. One person similarly voiced a sense of futility as Gottheim, calling the casino a foregone conclusion. But State Sen. Gonzalez refuted that notion.
“This is very much not a done deal, and that’s why we’re here today,” she said. “Because when we hear from all of you and organize, we are going to be informed if we get to the point that we have a Community Advisory Council.”