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Posted by Manolo on May 01, 2003 at 17:09:43:
Harvey Smith, Mariano Vega Took Money From NY Developer Harvey Shapiro Urban Times News
April 25 - May 1, 2003 UTN NEWS Jersey City-It looks like a duck, it
quacks like a duck, but officials of the
Urban Housing Trust are adamant that their
company is not a renamed Lafayette
Manning. That company, now bankrupt is
owned by a New York Developer named
Harvey Shapiro who has established a
claim of ownership on a key piece of
Jersey City real estate, by unprecedented
means.
Smack in the middle of the
Morris Canal Redevelopment plan area is a
6.5-acre site that once housed an industrial
mill in the Pittsburgh rustbelt school of
industrial revolution architecture. With the
aid of some Hudson County employees
moonlighting as Jersey City Council mem-
bers, a New York developer got a one-of-
kind payment plan to rescue the property
from auction sale to clear up tax arrears.
Kindly council members then helped the
developer get a special zoning classifica-
tion for the property; the only one of its
kind there is or has ever been in Jersey
City.
When a property owner falls
behind in property tax and water and sewer
assessments, the amounts owed build until
the city executes a lien on the property.
That lien puts a cloud on the title so the
owner cannot sell or mortgage or transfer
the property without first paying the
amount owed. This is what happened in the
case of 170 Lafayette Street. Harvey
Shapiro, the developer, wanted to acquire
the property by paying the tax arrears and
satisfying the lien. Only, Mr. Shapiro did
not have the cash to pay all the money
owed.
City officials with 20 years serv-
ice to the city spoke for the record on the
condition that their identity not be dis-
closed. "Mariano Vega was the ramrod for
this project for Shapiro. He took point. He
ran this thing around like it was his baby.
Vega took very good care of Mr. Shapiro.
He probably gave Shapiro one of his
Mariano Vega Medals of Honor." Vega has
occasionally passed out as rewards
Olympic style medals with his likeness, on
a ribbon, bearing the legend, "Mariano
Vega Medal of Honor."
Helpful, Council members,
including L. Harvey Smith, Mariano Vega,
E. Junior Maldonado, William Gaughan,
and then-council president Tom DeGise
affixed their signatures to a council resolu-
tion giving Mr. Shapiro the right to pay off
the lien over a period of three years. "This
is always cash on the barrel head, almost
without exception," said the city official.
But this time the Council gave its approval.
Approval in hand, Mr. Shapiro went
straight to the planning board and, using
the Council resolution in lieu of a deed,
asked planning board members for a zon-
ing approval of a type not seen before.
Shapiro got it. Shortly after getting the zon-
ing he needed, Mr. Shapiro was able to
subdivide the parcel in a way that carved
out a landlocked lot exactly equal to the
footprint of one of the buildings on the site.
Shapiro then gold that building and the land
It sat on for $300,000. Sources in city government who watched the progress of the property over the last 15 years said that there has been no comparable exception made for a property in their collective memory. "There have been payment plans permitted to clear up property taxes in arrears to help individual homeowners avoid foreclosure in cases of extreme duress and hardship. But here we are talking about homeowners in owner- occupied housing who have fallen on hard times. Serious illness, disability and such things were the handful of exceptions in all these years, when a payment plan was per- mitted. It has never happened with a com- mercial property like this one," say city officials. Shapiro never made any payment on the payment plan. Mr. Shapiro apparently seduced Council members Vega and others with a strong pitch how intended to renovate the structure and turn it into either low-income or affordable housing for seniors and try and landmark the former sweat shop as his- toric landmark. Some Council members were a little more seduced than others like
Harvey Smith who received cash from
Shapiro. Smith's campaign finance disclo-
sure reports show cash contributions from
Mr. Shapiro.
Council members were so taken
with Shapiro's persuasiveness that they did
not look very critically or deeply into the
developer's track record. Had they done
more due diligence they would have found
that are similar scheme by Shapiro in
Syracuse, NY wound up a spectacular fail-
ure with a $15 Million bankruptcy. Not
only did Shapiro not make a single pay-
ment on the payment plan granted by coun-
cil members, but now Shapiro's develop-
ment corporation, Lafayette Manning, is
itself in bankruptcy. Shapiro never paid the
city a penny for the property, but did have
sufficient control over the property to sell
the one building and renting another for
amounts variously reported as "between
$17,000 and $20,000 a month Z
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