The WIRE's 20th year

April 15, 2000
Supplemental coverage

Joan Christianson's Deposition in RIRA's
Intervention in Southtown Cases

SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
COUNTY OF NEW YORK

ROOSEVELT ISLANDERS FOR RESPONSIBLE SOUTHTOWN DEVELOPMENT,
by its President STEPHEN MARCUS, LEE EDELMAN, LINDA HEIMER, NURIT MARCUS, STEPHEN MARCUS, JOYCE MINCHEFF and MARGARET SMITH,
Petitioners,

- against -

ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION,
CITY OF NEW YORK, THE NEW YORK CITY
DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION,
THE RELATED COMPANIES, L.P., and THE HUDSON
COMPANIES INCORPORATED,
Respondents.

ALTERNATIVE SOUTHTOWN DESIGN COMMITTEE,
Petitioner,

- against -

ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION,
Respondent.

STATE OF NEW YORK
COUNTY OF NEW YORK

JOAN CHRISTIANSON, being duly sworn, deposes and says:

  1. I am First Vice President of the ROOSEVELT ISLAND RESIDENTS ASSOCIATION (hereinafter "RIRA"). I submit this affidavit in support of RIRA's motion to intervene in the above-captioned proceeding and to permit movant to fully participate on the merits. I have personal knowledge of the facts set forth herein.

  2. RIRA is the official representative body of the residents of Roosevelt Island. Each resident of Roosevelt Island over 18 years of age is a de facto member of RIRA. Biannually, on state-wide Election Days (and in the same polling place where such state elections are held), the residents elect a President and Vice President Island- wide, plus individual representatives by building to the Common Council, which is the governing body of RIRA. There are 28 permanent Council seats from 9 buildings, plus 5 Board Member seats from the Roosevelt Island Council of Organizations.

  3. RIRA has been formally recognized by, first, the Urban Development Corporation,, then Division of Housing and Community Renewal, and, upon its creation by the New York legislature in 1984, by the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation as the duly elected representatives of the residents of Roosevelt Island. RIRA is also so recognized by Community Board 8, and by each of our City and State representatives. Several Presidents of RIRA have sat on the Board of Directors of RIOC, as does our current President, Mr. H. Patrick Stewart. Mr. Stewart was an appointee of the Mayor of New York to this position in 1999.

  4. I have been a resident of Roosevelt Island since 1977. I have been an active member of RIRA since that time, and in November of 1998, I was elected First Vice President of RIRA, and thus of the Common Council.

  5. RIRA seeks to intervene in the two pending Article 78 proceedings because of its overriding interest in maintaining the integrity of the organic documents that have controlled development on the island since its reincarnation as a new, and planned, community. These documents, the Master Lease and the General Development Plan ("GDP"), call for the construction of a Southtown, as a second community on Roosevelt Island, a project that RIRA enthusiastically supports. However, the plan for Southtown that was approved by RIOC in September of 1999 (the "1999 plan"), and that is under attack in the present proceedings, violates the Master Lease and the GDP in two very significant ways. First, buildings to be constructed in Phase I of the 1999 plan, and a building slated for construction in the final Phase of that plan, will encroach upon the six acre Blackwell Park, which is an open space area expressly designated by the GDP to separate Northtown from Southtown. Second, the 1999 plan will violate the mandated mixture of affordable to market rate housing enumerated in the GDP.

  6. The two petitions before the court seek to nullify the September 1999 adoption of the 1999 plan, a goal shared by RIRA. That the 1999 plan violates the Master Lease and the GDP is an argument espoused by the petitioners, but as is evident from their initial pleadings, their concern is not to maintain the integrity of these organic documents as a fundamental tenet of all development on the island. Thus, by intervening, RIRA calls on this court to reaffirm that the Master Lease and the GDP control any development on Roosevelt Island, and to hold that RIOC must either amend the 1999 plan so as not to violate the GDP, or must go through the statutorily required processes for amending the Master Lease and GDP themselves.

  7. After the RIOC Board voted to approve the 1999 plan, which was significantly different from the Southtown development plan that had been previously approved by the RIOC Board in 1990 (hereinafter "the Ramati plan"), members of the Common Council, and I personally, undertook extensive research into the history of Roosevelt Island, the various amendments to its Master Lease and General Development Plan since 1969, and the promulgation and approval, by the Board of Directors of RIOC and by the Board of Estimate of the City of New York, of the Ramati plan.

  8. The Master Lease contemplates that the island is to be developed according to the General Development Plan, which is attached to the Lease as Schedule 2, in an alternating configuration of town areas and open space areas, anchored to the north and south by two municipal hospitals which were to remain in operation on the island. The GDP called for a six-acre buffer of open space between Northtown and Southtown, known as Blackwell Park.

  9. Annexed to the Master Lease and GDP as they were originally adopted were maps of the existing land uses, and of the proposed town and open space areas, as Appendix I and II respectively. The map contained as Appendix II to the original Master Lease reflects Blackwell Park as a six acre buffer separating the two contemplated new towns.

  10. The GDP has been amended several times since 1969, when the Lease was executed. In 1972, it was amended to raise the maximum height of residential buildings in Northtown and Southtown from 12 to 21 stories. In 1973, it was amended to provide for an aerial tramway to the island instead of an elevator to the Queensboro bridge. In 1977, the Appendix II map, showing town and open space areas, was amended to substitute a new map showing the addition of the Northtown Phase II area. None of the text or map changes in any way modified the six-acre Blackwell Park buffer. The requirements for Master Lease and GDP amendment were observed in each case, with approval being granted by the then Mayor of New York, and the then current Chairman of RIOC.

  11. In 1984, the Legislature passed the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation Act (L. 1984, C. 899) (hereinafter the "RIOC Act"), by which RIOC was created and succeeded the Urban Development Corporation as the operating entity for the island and as party to the Lease. The RIOC Act changed the procedure for amending the Lease and GDP, requiring the approval of the New York City Board of Estimate.

  12. On May 10, 1990, RIOC proposed a series of amendments of the GDP to the Board of Estimate. The Board approved eleven of the thirteen proposed amendments on August 17, 1990. Three of these amendments are at the heart of the controversy between RIRA and RIOC over Southtown.

  13. Amendment #3 proposed that:
    "Paragraph 2 of Section 1 of the General Development Plan is hereby amended to read as follows: The housing in the Southtown area will be provided approximately as follows: (a) 10 to 20 percent for persons and families whose incomes do not exceed 50 percent of the prevailing median income in the New York City Metropolitan Area and for persons and for persons and families whose incomes do not exceed 80 percent of the prevailing median income in the New York City Metropolitan Area; (b) 30 to 40 percent for persons and families whose incomes do not exceed 120 percent of the prevailing median income in the New York City Metropolitan Area and for persons and families whose incomes do not exceed 148 percent of the prevailing median income in the New York City Metropolitan Area; and (c) 40 to 60 percent for persons and families who can afford conventionally financed and fully-tax paying units or market-rate units. For the purposes of the Lease: (i) Subsidized Housing includes all units occupied by any person or family in categories (a) and (b); and (ii) Conventionally Financed Housing includes all remaining housing units."
    This amendment was approved by the Board of Estimate. Upon information and belief, RIOC has approved a plan that provides for 80% of all housing in Southtown to be conventionally financed market-rate housing, which clearly violates this provision of the GDP.

  14. Amendment #9 proposed that:
    "Paragraph 4 of Section 2 of the General Development Plan [which describes Blackwell Park] is hereby amended by deleting the word "six" from line 6 and substituting in lieu thereof the word "three."
    This amendment was not approved by the Board of Estimate, which rejected "a reduction in the size of Blackwell Park." It is RIRA's position that the proposed plan for Southtown cannot be built without encroaching on the six acres reserved for Blackwell Park.

  15. Amendment #13 proposed that:
    The General Development Plan is hereby amended by substituting the attached Appendix II in lieu of Appendix II referred to in Paragraph 7 of Section 2 of the General Development Plan and by substituting the attached Appendix III in lieu of Appendix III referred to in paragraph 4 of Section 3 of the General Development Plan.
    This amendment was approved by the Board of Estimate.

  16. The substituted maps, both as they appear in the Appendixes submitted by RIOC to the Board of Estimate, and as they appear in the GDP following the Board of Estimate action, clearly show six acres of land between Southtown and Northtown as open space area. The Appendix II map as RIOC submitted it shows Blackwell Park as a rectangular area occupying the same space denominated as Blackwell Park in the original GDP. Readily discernable in the RIOC submission map is the existing playgrounds and road net within the park. The Appendix II map that the Board of Estimate annexed to the GDP, following its rejection of Amendment #9 and its acceptance of Amendment #13, is the development map for the Ramati plan. That map preserves a six acre Blackwell Park, fully separating Northtown from Southtown, with some of the acreage included in the "Commons" open space. This map thus modifies the rectangular dimensions of Blackwell Park – and the dimensions were never included in the GDP – and preserves both the size and buffering nature of Blackwell Park – the two aspects of the park that are memorialized in the GDP. Thus, the incorporation of the Ramati plan map by the Board of Estimate gives effect to the Amendments to the GDP as they were enacted, and binds all future development unless there are further changes in the GDP.

  17. RIRA insists that the language of the Master Lease and the GDP controls RIOC today, and thus that the 1999 plan, which calls for two Phase I buildings and one last phase building to be built within the six acre Blackwell Park, must be nullified. RIRA does not insist that the Ramati plan building footprints be followed with precision, although they are an example of Southtown development that preserves Blackwell Park as a six acre buffer between Northtown and Southtown. But RIOC cannot build in a way that eliminates the six- acre park, and eliminates the physical separation of the two towns by that park.

  18. I have been briefed by RIOC and representatives of the developers – The Related Companies, L.P. and The Hudson Companies, Inc. – regarding their proposed plan for Southtown. At meetings with RIRA on November 4 and 10, 1998, and on March 16, June 9, October 14, and November 10, 1999, RIOC and the developers represented that:

    1. The plan for Southtown consists of approximately 2000 residential units, in addition to retail and commercial space. The total plan for Southtown was shown to us on June 9, 1999, by David Wine of Related Companies, LLP;

    2. The initial phase of construction, which was approved by the RIOC board, consists of two buildings with 400 units of "middle income housing. The details of Phase I are described in a "Plan & Project" attached to the resolution passed by the RIOC Board on September 22, 1999 (hereinafter the "Sept. 22, 1999, Resolution");

    3. At the same time and through the same Resolution, the RIOC Board authorized a further 400 to 600 unit of housing as Phase II of the project. Only ground rates and infrastructure details are given in the attached agreements and other documents.

    4. According to the background documents which were distributed at the September 22, 1999 RIOC Board meeting, whether the Resolution was voted on the remaining units to be constructed in the entire Southtown development will be market-rate housing. It is emblematic of the lack of cooperation shown RIOC and the designated developer throughout the process that RIRA was forced to obtain these background documents through a Freedom of Information application in November of 1999.

    5. Under the 1999 plan, the two buildings to be constructed as part of Phase I, known as Buildings A and B, will be located directly south of where Main Street divides into two roads, and north of the Central Nurse's Residence (an abandoned structure whose demolition is contemplated as part of Southtown's Phase I development). RIOC and the developers have represented that they believe this location is within the boundaries of Southtown and does not encroach upon Blackwell Park. These buildings clearly encroach upon Blackwell Park as defined by the amended GDP and the substituted maps.

    6. At the June 9, 1999 RIRA Common Council Meeting, David Wine, representing Related, said that "he recognized the GDP as a legal document and that Southtown must follow its guidelines." That is all that RIRA seeks.

WHEREFORE, I respectfully request that RIRA's motion for intervention be granted, that the September 22, 1999 Resolution of the Board of Directors of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation be annulled, that the 1999 plan be declared void and of no effect, and that the matter of the development and construction of Southtown, in conformity with the Master Lease and the General Development Plan, be remanded to the RIOC Board for further action.

JOAN CHRISTIANSON

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