Score one for the little guys — and their grandmas.
A threatened Williamsburg day care and senior center is close to escaping eviction after the state Senate on Monday passed a bill that will allow the state to seize control of the building via eminent domain, says a local lawmaker.
Assemblyman Joe Lentol (D–Williamsburg) said he and supporters of the Swinging Sixties Senior Center and Small World Day Care are still hoping to save the Ainslie Street facility through the courts or by negotiating with the landlord. But — so long as Gov. Cuomo signs the measure into law — they will soon be able to use the threat of confiscating the property as a trump card.
“We now have eminent domain as our nuclear option,” said Lentol, who introduced the bill in January. “Regardless of how it is done, it looks like the center is very close to being saved.”
The Assembly okayed the eminent domain measure two weeks ago, but proponents of the bill had said they were nervous that the state Senate, which didn’t pass a previous proposal to save the building, would not follow suit — especially with the end of the legislative session looming. But state Sen. Martin Malave Dilan (D–Bushwick) said he convinced his colleagues to push the proposed legislation through at the 11th hour.
“This was a last-gasp measure to save an invaluable and irreplaceable community resource,” Dilan said.
Gov. Cuomo has until the end of the year to sign the bill, but he could give it his John Hancock as soon as the Assembly puts its final stamp on it.
Community activists and local politicians have been fighting to keep the three-story, 41-year-old senior center in its original home since late 2013, when father-and-son landlords Victor and Harry Einhorn purchased the property, promptly raised the rent, then served the longtime tenants with eviction papers on Christmas Eve.
The old- and young-folks centers and the people that love them have managed to keep the eviction tied up in court, where they are arguing that the Einhorns’ purchase was illegitimate, because the city and community groups that run the facility should have been given the option to buy the property first. The next court date in the case is scheduled for July.
At the same time, Lentol and other pols have been pushing the city and state to step in, arguing that the center was built using taxpayers’ money with the specific goal of serving the public, so the government has a right and responsibility to stop it from being shut down.
This is the second time that Lentol has attempted to pass legislation to allow a government to take over the building. He introduced a similar bill last year, but the measure stalled after senators complained that it was too broad and might be used to commandeer other buildings. The new bill leaves nothing to chance — it specifies the building’s exact address.
One longtime champion of the facility said she was delighted to see lawmakers using their political clout to save the neighborhood hub.
“It is extraordinary that eminent domain is finally going to be used to help communities, and that the state was willing to stand up for this small center in the middle of Brooklyn,” said Jan Peterson, who is a member of the Conselyea Street Block Association, a community organization that fought to get facility built in the 1970s and has been involved in running it ever since.
