New York City, under the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio, will grab 75,000 square feet of boardwalk property in Coney Island as part of a long-delayed economic development in the area.
The eminent domain seizure includes three beachfront properties and two smaller properties located on West 12th and West 23rd, which totals to 75,000 square feet. The city failed to strike a "fair-market" deal with the owners but managed to secure the seizure of a 60,000-square-foot land that once housed the famous "Thunderbolt" wooden roller coaster which was featured in the movie "Annie Hall" but was demolished in 2000. The said plot where the rollercoaster once stood is owned by screenwriter Peter Shaffer.
City officials said that they plan to create a new amusement park and other recreational facilities on the sites, but specifics of their plan are yet to be revealed.
Additionally, the eminent domain seizure will allow the De Blasio administration to provide New Yorkers with thousands of units of afforable and market-rate housing as mandated by the 2009 area rezoning of Coney Island.
Despite the government's intentions, residents and representatives of the community were taken by surprise by the eminent domain land grab and were not pleased by the plans.
"It's not nice to take people's property. We live in America. We're not communists here," said one entrepreneur who owns a business located along the Boardwalk.
Butch Moran, chair Community Board 13, claimed that he was not informed of the seizure.
The city, however, claimed that there is little opposition to the land grab and is optimistic that they could obtain the properties in a year's time. They pointed out that most of the properties that will be seized are owned by absentee landlords who have allowed their infrastructures and sites to fall into dilapidation.
City officials, community members and other concerned will meet in a public hearing slated on October 19 to be held at the Coney Island Hospital.
