Rockaway has been stampeded into the ground by a herd of unscrupulous politicians for the past 50 years. Probably goes back a lot longer that that. In the late 50’s Urban Renewal was the ticket to corruption glory. There was never a need to destroy Rockaway by declaring such a big portion of it a blighted area. Our local politicians at the time were salivating to get their filthy hands on the federal money being doled out, all 10 million dollars of it just for starters. By hook or by crook they were hell bent on making Rockaway a blighted area and no one was going to get in their way. They did that knowing that Urban Renewal was for the purpose of building housing for the poor and the poor only. Just why do you think Arverne stood fallow for 50 years? Because there were so many politicians, city state and federal representatives buried up to their chins in a cesspool of corruption. Nobody make a wave. The city waited for most of them to die out before development could start. First the city swore to abide by federal law in order to get the money and as soon as they had the money in the bank they threw out the federal law and proceeded to use their own law to distribute the money. The federal law at the time to take property was - The Housing Act of 1965 Section 402 and section 402 states, No one has to surrender their property before a fair market price is offered. Well the city went ahead and condemned Arverne without the people knowing about it and each property owner had to sue the city in order to collect their money. The system the city used to settle with the property owners became a run away train. Section 402 was used only one time out of thousands of properties and that was by a local politician, Sal Weprin. The federal law was good for him and him only. Nichols on Eminent Domain states, If section 402 is not used everything is void. Using that law Arverne was never condemned and all the property owners are still the owners, but them too are all, or near all, dead. And now everyone, on with the luxury housing.
Posted on: Tue, 06 Aug 2013 23:28:36 +0000
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