For those that don’t know about what’s going on at Lacon Court at the end of Devon and Everette Avenues here is a quick recap.
What used to be danazs and the boat yard are gone, they are empty lots. They were purchased byStephen Jemal former owner of the the wiz. He is now a brooklyn waterfront land developer. He has bought up numerous waterfront properties all over south Brooklyn. He plans to develop his Knapp street and Lacon court property into luxury condos. He also just so happen to threaten to sue GerritsenBeach.net
Recently Jemal was ordered by the DEC to remove any docks, debris, or anything that will become a water hazard in front of his Lacon Court property. Keep this in mind.
There is now an organization called Environmental Taskforce Operations (ETO) that is run by Greg Moss, Perry Papadoupoulos, and Bill Dumphy. You can read more about them on their website (http://taskforceoperations.org/)
ETO has reached a lease agreement with Stephen Jemal to occupy the Lacon Court property for two years rent free. In exchange ETO will clean up & maintain all four of the Jemal properties (two outside GB).They will also be taking over communications with the DEC. They will remove any boat, dock, debris in the creek to come into compliance with the recent DEC order . It should be known that ETO will not be doing any construction on the properties this is just clean-up and maintenance.
They are also operating a surveillance program in the creek so if you own a boat or enter the creek you are more than likely being watched and recorded day and night. The goal of this operation is to see who is scuttling the boats in the creek.
So there you have it. ETO is our new neighbor, for at least the next two years, they are watching boat traffic, maintaining the property, all for our good friend Stephen Jemal.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has sent a letter to SSJ development concerning the property on Lacon Court the former location of Danza’s.
The DEC has ordered SSJ to remove all dock debris, any deteriorated platform structures, sunken boats and/or other waste.
Failure to comply with the DEC order will result in penalties of up to $10,000 dollars per day per violation and potential criminal prosecution for SSJ.
This letter, which I am trying to obtain a copy of, only has to do with the Lacon Court property and not the property on Knapp Street. However this legal action might encourage SSJ to clean up the shoreline and waterways along his Knapp Street Property as well.
If you remember… about two weeks ago there was a large wind storm in Brooklyn, 3 people died as a result of the wind that day.
As a result a lot of the construction fences all over the city were damaged. These plywood fences are basically gigantic sails when it comes to dealing with wind. So when they were also knocked down at the Riviera Suites at Knapp Street, it was not a big deal, it could be assumed it would be fixed in time., but they haven’t and its a hazard now.
The Department of Buildings did promise Gerritsen Beach that the property would be closely watched. The DOB also told the community that before any construction started that Riviera Suites would not need a construction fence while construction was not going on, but that was last year. Since then mounds of dirt has been moved in, foundation poured, people throwing garbage over the fence, and now it looks like the existing chain link fence is being held together with hopes and dreams. Its generally not a safe area to drive or walk by. Especially in any type of wind.
Its very obvious that SSJ Development and Stephen Jemal don’t care. It might be everyone involved SSJ Development, Steven Jemal, and his investment companies are still wrapped up in court over Stephen Jemal failing to repay a loan to his investment companies over the SSJ Developments.
Either way, the blown down fence is a hazard and is now become more of a hazard to Knapp Street. So please fix it.
It looks as though Stephen Jemal did not hold up his end of a bargain with Sheepshead Bay Plumb Beach Civic.
If you don’t already know, back in June Stephen Jemal threatened to sue GerritsenBeach.net and SBPBCivic.org over a post that was made on SBPBCivic.org. It’s a long story, so read about it here.
At last night SBPPBCivic meeting where Jemal was a no show; all of the details came out about what led up to their demand letter, the negations and the agreement that was eventually reached with SBPBCivic.
As part of an agreement between SBPBCivic and Stephen Jemal, SBPBCivic would reword their original post as an act of good faith. In exchange Stephen Jemal was to come down to the local meeting and explain his neighborhood projects.
As for what happened to me: I never wanted to deal with them. My web server was attacked and brought down bringing down 120 other websites. I’m planning my next move, over the matter.
SBPBCivic is expected to make a statement (via SBPBCivic.org) and I am expecting that they will be looking very closely at Stephen Jemals projects.
Here are the local meetings that are coming up. The Sheepshead Bay Plumb Beach Civic Association has invited STEPHEN JEMAL of SSJ Development to discuss his development on Knapp St. That should be an interesting meeting if he shows up. I should go and meet him.
Sheepshead Bay Plumb Beach Civic Association, September 2 at 7:30 pm.; Baron DeKalb, Knights of Columbus, 3000 Emmons Avenue; 718-891-1937. www.sbpbcivic.org.
Gerritsen Beach Property Owners Association, September 3 (and each fIrst Wednesday) at 7:30 pm.; St. James Lutheran Church, Gerritsen and Florence avenues; 718-648-6599.
Manhattan Beach Neighborhood Association, September 8 at 8 p.m.; Public School 195, 131 lrwin Street; representatives from the Office of Emergency Management will talk about hurricane preparedness; 917-747-5863.
61st Precinct Community Council, September 10 at 7:30 pm.; Bainbridge Adult Day Health Care Center, 3093 Ocean Avenue; 718-627-6847.
Community Board 15, September’ 23 at 7 p.m.; Zoning Meeting September 16 at 7 p.m. Kingsborough Community College, 2001 Oriental Boulevard (in the faculty dining room) ; 718-332-3008
Tall poles, possibly for signs to advertise The Riviera at Gerritsen Beach which might offer 32 single and two family townhouses the 32 single and two family townhouses, have gone up at the property that used to be Danzas. I say might because the developer Stephen Jemal is being sued for $5.5 Million Dollar by his investment companies, so you never know.
Maybe SSJ development should be using its money to clean up the property at Lacon Ct instead of paying lawyers to send demand letters. I changed my mind…..they should keep paying their lawyers you never know when they are going to need them. *wink wink nudge nudge*
The feisty founder of electronics behemoth The Wiz is threatening to sue a Brooklyn blogger who published jabs against the businessman on his small Web site.
On July 18th 2008, my website came under attack from a now known source, which I believe, based on information received, the attacker is CLOSELY CONNECTED to Mr. Stephen Jemal of SSJ Development. Lets recap.
Later that night after the attack, I received a letter via email from Stephen Jemal’s attorneys, demanding that I take down my post, citing defamation. Here is that demand letter.
I believe that the demand letter makes completely ridiculous and unreasonable demands of me and the website, including:
Removing the entire publication about Mr. Jemal
Removing any reference of the publication from Google, all other search engines, and other blogs (like I run Google and control their root user name and passwords!),
Publish a retraction / clarification approved by Mr. Jemal and distribute that throughout the internet,
signing a non-disparagement†agreement, and oh yeah
Sign an immediate settlement of TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS for legal fees, and additional consideration to induce Mr. Jemal not to file a lawsuit.
Whew! Mr. Jemals representation conveyed that the article painted him badly. (This Article)
Here is the problem with all of this: What statement did I make that was false? What statement did I make that was defamatory? Oh, that’s right NOTHING. Needless to say, that demand was flatly rejected.
This is where things take a very interesting turn.
After posting about the DoS attack, I received multiple emails from ####@SSJDevelopment.com stating that he knows that someone VERY CLOSELY connected to Mr. Jemal, used a bash script that he had taught this person.
Upon reviewing the website logs, the script described was indeed the script used to attack this website. Based on the connection between the two pieces of information, I have reason to believe the author of the email.
Mr. Jemals attorneys have since told me that the attack on the site was the work of a renegade employee who acted without knowledge or authorization of Mr. Jemal. They also told me that Mr. Jemal fired this employee.
While I am not in total agreement with this statement (the offensive IP originated from the Jersey Shore where the alleged offender claims to live, not in Brooklyn where this renegade employee worked), I accepted their statement. I was also accused of using this information in an attempt to extort a settlement, which I was not doing at all I was simply adding information to the negotiations, attempting to give all a fuller view of the circumstances surrounding the blog entry, and released the information with no thought to how it would painted or inferred.
Stay Tuned! We remain on Red Alert (but will take off the annoying red color)and anticipate negotiations ending shortly.
That post has a PDF document of complaint regarding the Stephen Jemal court case.
A specific IP has been making up to 50 requests a second for the PDF that I am hosting of the court complaint regarding the case.
The attack brought down my server, which hosts over 120 domains, for a few hours.
It was brought back up by denying access to that IP.
Now my server is just responding to the requests with a “403″ forbidden error. Serving up the 403 error will use practically no bandwidth and will be a lot less stressful for the server compared to a successful command, which brought down the server in the first place.
I will be monitoring the activity on my site.
I have also reported the attack to the Verizon security team, the IP’s owner, of the Denial of Service attack.
I would hate to actually find out if this attack was ordered by the Jemal’s.
The investment companies that fund the Jemal’s Brooklyn projects in Mill Basin, Gerritsen beach and Sheepshead Bay have filed a civil suit against Stephen S Jemal and Sharon E Jemal in Texas Northern District Court.
The companies “Gerritsen Beach Investments Ltd” and “Riviera Investments I Ltd” filed their complaint on 7/14/2008 the cause is stated as a “Contract Dispute“.
The plaintiffs claim that the Jemal’s (Stephen and Sharon) have not paid them back $5,580,000 plus interest. The Jemals are also allegedly also refusing to pay them back!
SSJ Development is ready to break ground on 3 sites in Brooklyn, including Bergen Beach, Knapp St. and Gerritsen Beach (Lacon Court), thanks to $100 Milliion loan from Amalgomated Bank.
The third project, which won’t break ground for several months, is planned for Gerritsen Beach (Lacon Court). The development, a three-story building with 64 units starting at $349,000, will be called the Riviera. The 3.25-acre site comprises 22 lots Mr. Jemal bought up over the past seven years and was once the site of a marina, a repair yard for boats, a billiards club, and a place where a local resident was collecting pigeons.
“It was really beat up,” he said. “It needed attention.”
Some residents of Gerritsen Beach said that while they believed the waterfront needed improvement, they were against Mr. Jemal’s project.
“It’s going to add congestion and change the character of the neighborhood,” a mother of three who grew up in the area, Margaret McCormick, said. Her husband, Kevin, said residents could do little to stop the development.
Still, they and other opponents are hoping that the cost of cleaning up the contaminated soil from the old boat yard will make it too expensive to build the project.
“What he wants to build is the equivalent of a 35-foot wall along a whole stretch of the waterfront,” Mr. McCormick said. “These are fourth-generation families living in houses on double lots. This isn’t Florida.”
Mr. Jemal contended that he is building within the zoning requirements for the area and that his buildings will add to the character of the existing neighborhoods.
“I’m reclaiming the waterfront and opening it up,” he said. “What I’m doing in South Brooklyn will be on line before anything they’re doing in North Brooklyn.”
Without a plywood fence or any permits posted, construction/demolition has resumed at the Riveria Suites property. Today, there was lots of activity but it looked like there were mainly turning up the soil, but its too cold to watch them for more than a few minutes.
Still there is a concern about the creek side of the property. They are still bringing in heavy equipment without putting up any type of bulkhead, net or plywood to keep debris from falling into the creek.
Recent Comments