Angry exchanges over stadium plan

By Errol A. Cockfield, Jr. | Staff Writer

12:16 PM EDT, September 23, 2004

Supporters and opponents of the city's plan to redevelop the West Side of Manhattan clashed in angry exchanges this morning just outside of a City Planning Commission hearing on the project at the Fashion Institute of Technology along Seventh Avenue in Manhattan.

Unionized supporters of the plan, which includes a new Jets Stadium, disrupted a press conference being held by the New York Association of Better Choices, a group funded by Madison Square Garden, a subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corp., which has been campaigning to stop the project.

As New York State Assemblyman Richard Gottfried (D-Manhattan) began the news conference, the union members interrupted with shouts of "Jobs Now" and "We need jobs."

Within moments, activists from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform, or ACORN, and other advocacy groups responded with shouts of, "We need affordable housing." Security officers from FIT were called, but order was restored before they arrived.

Inside the meeting at the FIT auditorium, members of the city planning commission heard from leaders of city business groups who argued that the redevelopment on the far West Side would be a boon for the local economy.

The business leaders, including Kathryn Wylde, president and CEO of the New York City Partnership, and Richard Anderson, president of the New York Building Congress, argued that the city needs to create more commercial office space to prepare for the next cyclical upturn in the economy.

Today's public hearing was the only one planned by the commission. The commission will accept additional public comment and include that in a final environmental impact statement, which will take into account the development's effect on traffic, noise, air quality, and host of other quality of life considerations.

The plan under consideration involves the redevelopment of a sizeable tract of land on the far West Side, considered by many as the most valuable undeveloped real estate left in Manhattan. The ambitious proposals include expanding the Javits Convention Center, building a new Jets Stadium, extending the No. 7 subway line, and rezoning a 60-square-block area known as Hudson Yards for commercial and residential development.