Enclaves, Long Gated, Seek to Let In Storm Aid (Sea Gate)

[phantom power]

More Galtian Heros who lack the courage of their convictions.

Sea Gate looks the same as many storm-scattered waterfront communities do. Home after home torn apart by the ocean. Streets filled with sand. Shattered sidewalks and clogged sewers. A sea wall, which had already been inadequate to the task of safeguarding residents, reduced to rubble.

Once the gilded retreat of the Vanderbilt family, Sea Gate, like other gated communities in New York, preserved its exclusivity with the promise that the residents would assume the costs of community upkeep, maintaining their own streets, parks and sewer systems and even fielding the distinct Sea Gate Police Department.

The special status endured, through occasional controversy and political efforts to open the streets to the public, because of the community’s self-sufficiency.

But the damage inflicted by Hurricane Sandy to Sea Gate, in Brooklyn, and another gated community, Breezy Point, in Queens, was so monumental that residents who are already struggling to figure out how they will pay to rebuild their homes say they cannot afford to pay the additional cost of repairing communal infrastructure. So neighborhoods that have long held the rest of the city at arm’s length now seek the financial embrace of the city, state and federal governments.

...

“Now, with this unexpected act of God, those same communities, quite ready to point a finger at government shortcomings, are placed in the difficult position of having to reach out to government for a substantial helping hand,” said Paula A. Franzese, a law professor at Seton Hall University who has written extensively about gated communities.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/27/nyregion/new-york-city-enclaves-long-gated-want-to-let-in-storm-aid.html

[MineralMan]

1. That is fairly typical, I think.

It's also a very sad commentary on those who would fence everyone out of their literally exclusive village, but insist that everybody fix it up when it's damaged.

Libertarians suck!

[phantom power]

4. They'd suck a *bit* less, if they ever lived up to their own rhetoric.

One of the truly pathological things about the various stripes of libertarians is that all their talk of "independence" and "small govt" and "consequences" and "moral hazard" doesn't, when push comes to shove, apply to them.

And I've decided that the one biggest reason they continue to pollute our national dialogue is that they are never, ever, held to their own standard. I'm betting that these Sea Gate people will get their aid. And so, they will pay absolutely no price for their toxic faux-libertarian stance. They'll be right back at it just as soon as the mess gets cleaned up. Just like our Galtian Plutocrat Overlords all got their asses bailed out by taxpayer money, but were not required to pay any social price for it. They never had to admit they were wrong about a single thing.

No new observations here, obviously, but I expect this toxic bullshit to continue, because there have been no teachable moments taken advantage of.

[MineralMan]

5. Yes. I don't hold out much hope for that, though. nt

[n2doc]

2. I'm kind of torn on this

They do pay the same taxes as everyone else. And those taxes are used to pay for other repairs on other streets. So essentially it comes down to how much public access is worth. The City should set some sort of surcharge for private gated communities to cover this if they want to go that route.

[MineralMan]

6. That depends. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't.

Where I am, we're billed separately for street maintenance, street lighting, snow removal, etc. It ends up on the property tax bill, but we actually do get separate bills for those things. Where there are gated communities, those separate charges are not billed, and the HOA pays for those things. It's the same in the condominium development where my wife's mother lives. The HOA is responsible for streets, not the city, and they do not get the same bills for such things.

Now, people in those gated communities do pay the gasoline taxes that usually go to road stuff that is common to everyone, along with other taxes that pay for commons of all kinds.

[Panasonic]

3. I actually know a family that lives in Sea Gate...

I must ask them how they are doing when I head to New York next week.

Actually - I remember now. They said their basement was flooded.

[Nye Bevan]

7. Median household income there is $41,000.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Gate,_Brooklyn#section_4

We're not talking champagne- popping Goldman Sachs partners here.

[jollyreaper2112]

8. Turn into low income housing community

Rename it Galt's Glitch.