Yidden Asked to Come Out in Support of Moisha’s

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moishasOpponents of the planned expansion of busy Moisha’s Discount Supermarket are organized to storm tonight’s Community Board 12 meeting looking to pressure the city to rescind the tax break behind the project.Mr. Berachia Binik, manager of Moisha’s, told Hamodia that a deliberate misinformation campaign has been waged against the store. Reports allege that the $1.93 million tax break from the city’s non-profit Economic Development Corporation (EDC) will be used to build a parking lot for the supermarket, located on the corner of Avenue M and East 4th Street.

Rather, explained Mr. Binik, “we are doubling the store and then having a parking lot on top.” The project would bring the store to 15,000 square feet.

Moisha’s will not receive funds toward the renovation. The city’s FRESH program will extend less than $2 million in tax breaks, spread over 22 years – a detail not emphasized in media reports. The store is left to invest $8 million into the renovation.

According to the EDC, the long-term tax break is hardly a one-sided deal. EDC calculations indicate that helping Moisha’s expand will create around $3.7 million in new tax revenues for the city over 25 years.

Backers of the project are trying to rally attendance in support of Moisha’s at the meeting, to take place 7 p.m. tonight at the Amico Senior Center, 5901 13th Avenue, 3rd floor. The entrance is on 59th Street.

The FRESH program provides incentives for stores to sell fresh food in neighborhoods deemed to lack adequate access to those goods. The EDC’s Industrial Development Agency, which sets criteria for FRESH awards, determined that the particular community around Moisha’s lacks sufficient options for fresh staples.

Critics of the expansion claim that the market should not be eligible for the program because the area has other stores. The Daily News claimed the vicinity has 10 other markets that serve fresh fruit and vegetables in a five block radius. One opponent, City Councilman Charles Barron, a member of the consumer affairs committee, called the tax break for Moisha’s an “abuse” of the FRESH program.

“But this is a fresh ‘food’ program which includes fresh fish, fresh milk, fresh dairy, fresh meat and, of course, fresh produce,” Mr. Binik countered. “We don’t have a problem with kosher produce, but all the other items – like take-out, fresh chickens, meat – all need kosher supervision and the other 10 markets don’t [have it]. Many of them don’t serve anything more than the fresh fruit.”

Differences over the impending project has stirred up resentments. Comments on the blog of the Kensington Area Resident/Merchant Alliance (KARMABrooklyn) on the topic are seen by some as an accusation of bias in the board’s composition and agenda.

“Borough Park is overly represented on the Board, and most of the people who attend the meetings live in Borough Park,” the blog states about the body that covers sections of Boro Park, Kensington and Midwood.

A source close to the Board told Hamodia that an active campaign is underway to reduce Chassidic representation on the Board.

{Hamodia Daily/Matzav.com Newscenter}


12 COMMENTS

  1. sadly un necessary if the community would have the support of its councilman unfortunately that is not the case
    Selfishness and pettyness is killing the community
    The truth will come out and what it does the community will be shocked.

  2. Funny thing is that the whole uproar was not about Moisha’s, they had all the permits and did not need any variances from the board or even the boards approval or support to get the tax abatement.
    What people fail to realize is that a member of community board 12 testified and represented himself ” as if” he was coming in the name of the CB 12 while they board had never discussed the matter.others who have agendas took this issue and tried to hijack it against Moisha’s. plain and simple

  3. I wish Moishes tremendous Hatzlacha! They do a great service for the average hard working, tax paying New Yorker who doesn’t get fooled by big advertizing of other stores, who are only out there to rip you off! The roof top parking will be a big help & will ease the pressure on the local residents.

  4. Sorry but, in spite of the glowing encomia from preceding contributors, I cannot get my head around the report that a private enterprise is being given nearly two million US dollars of taxpayers’ money to expand its business.

    And before anyone suggests it, I am not a self-hating Jew nor am I an apikoirus or even lefty liberal. I just do not approve of using public money to further what is, after all, a private enterprise.

  5. Mr. Boomslang,

    They are not getting any public money. They are getting credits over 22 years in exchange for additional future tax revenues the expansion will provide.

    You sound like a die-hard liberal.

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