Saturday, October 17, 2009

Even Californians Are Pissed



The LA Times website features a blog piece by Jill Stewart on the California Public Employee Retirement System and its investment in Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village. Here's the part that addresses Stuy Town/PCV:

.... the other ugly news breaking today about corruption at Calpers: its board of directors poured vast public funds -- your money -- into a scheme in Manhattan to force working-class people out of thousands of apartments on the city's East Side, and rent those apartments to the rich. Sick, sick stuff.

Calpers' board of directors and staff need a massive political and fiscal enema. Here's what these people have been up to:

According to the Wall Street Journal, CALPERS was a very, very big investor in a plan to convert 11,000 apartments that make up the vast "Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town" of 56 (yes, 56) brick high-rises on the city's East Side. Apparently, these 56 towers provide roofs for about 30,000 working-class New Yorkers.

In a plot thick with evil intent -- like forced homelessness and mass evictions -- Calpers poured in cash, along with the Government of Singapore Investment Corp. and others, to own a piece of Cooper Village/Stuy Town, which was built for returning veterans and their young families after World War II.

Calpers' hope -- it's actual hope -- was to force out thousands of working-class residents, and turn the vast brick complex into "market rate" units.

The term "market rate" in Manhattan means housing for the upper-middle-class and the rich.

Add some granite counters, WiFi, poodle doors and snobby doormen, and force thousands of working people out of their rent-controlled homes. But do it 3,000 miles away from California in New York City.

We California state taxpayers paid for this nasty scheme, but we never knew it.

But now, with Calpers mired in intellectual corruption -- and possibly fiscal corruption, thanks to its pals like Al Villalobos -- the WSJ reports that the vast brick Manhattan complex worth $5.4 billion when Calpers bought into it is now worth $2.1 billion and default appears "imminent."

Let's see it blow up in Calpers' face. California voters are not shitheads. California voters have approved bond measure after bond measure to provide affordable housing and house the homeless. California voters would never, ever have backed such an anti-human, anti-family, anti-worker scheme as the one Calpers invested in in New York.

Maybe Californians will put an initiative on the ballot to upend the Calpers board of directors and outlaw its ultra-rich private middlemen, and start over at this troubled pension fund.

As the WSJ reported about Cooper Village/Stuy Town: "The new owners predicted they would be able to convert thousands of protected apartments to higher market rents. These projections convinced Calpers" to jump in. How despicable.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

She makes a reference somewhere at the end of the article to "snobby doormen." We should be so lucky! The closest we've got to doormen are the students who pin the doors open so their friends can come and go to their all-night beer pongs.

Anonymous said...

STR, thanks for all these links to publications that have up-to-date reporting on STPCV. You are providing a really useful service to your readers and it is appreciated. The "Related Articles" link is particularly useful.

Stuy Town Reporter said...

You're welcome!

Anonymous said...

It's ironic that instead of converting a pleasant, well-run middle class housing development into a luxury enclave for the rich, Tishman Speyer turned it into a bankrupt slum. What brilliant businessmen they are! NOT!!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the link to the article about the inspections. I knew they they up to something evil! If they cared about fire safety codes they wouldn't pack hordes of kids into these apartments. There has already been one devastating fire caused by careless kids and TS is to blame for turning the property into a dorm.

Anonymous said...

I heard a rumor they were monitoring tenants with FIOS's computer use!

Anonymous said...

Did anyone notice if anything was stolen during these inspections that took place when the tenant wasn't home? I took photographs of everything in my living room.

Anonymous said...

I heard they have Martha Stewart with them to inspect each apartment and if they find it's messy or dirty they send an eviction notice to the tenant. Especially if the tenant is an elderly RSer who is paying a SCRIE rent!

Anonymous said...

Hey, read the NYT or go to the New York State Court of Appeals website. Good news there!

Stuy Town Reporter said...

Delighted to come home from work and find out about this ruling!