MCLC: China City project

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: China City project
***********************************************************

Source: Washington Post (1/19/14):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/skepticism-surrounds-china-city-plan
-for-upstate-new-york/2014/01/19/dac079de-816e-11e3-8099-9181471f7aaf_story
.html

Skepticism surrounds China City plan for upstate New York
By George M. Walsh

ALBANY, N.Y. — It is an audacious plan that seems out of place for the
Catskills: a $6 billion China-themed cultural, business and amusement park
to be built on 2,200 acres of forest and former farmland nearly two hours
from New York City.

China City of America has been pitched as a showcase for the country’s
traditions, a boon for the distressed former Borscht Belt region and an
opportunity for prosperous Chinese to invest $500,000 each through an
immigration program that would grant them U.S. visas and a path to
citizenship.

Local reaction was a mix of puzzlement and anger in the Sullivan County
towns of Thompson and Mamakating.

“The take was, ‘Really?’ People were dumbfounded,” said Bill Rieber, the
Thompson town supervisor. “It immediately generated a lot of opposition.”

Details of the project first appeared on a Web site in late 2011, and it
was formally announced in 2012. As recently as mid-May, the full project,
including homes for 1,000 families and the possibility of a casino to be
built over several years, was still on the table at a meeting of
Thompson’s municipal boards.

The people behind China City have since dialed back the pace of their
plans, now proposing to start with a college, dorms and faculty housing on
575 acres solely in Thompson after strong opposition surfaced in
Mamakating. And the original Web site touting the project appears to have
been taken down.

But Sherry Li, the chief executive of China City of America, told the
Associated Press that the goal is still to pursue the entire project,
concentrating more in Thompson, a town of 15,000.

“We haven’t cut back our sizes,” she said. “We’re going to be doing it
step by step.”

Li said the school, known as the Thompson Education Center, would be a
tax-paying, for-profit college enrolling 900 students at first, with a
curriculum concentrated on business, art and entertainment majors. The
college would grow to 3,000 students, many of whom Li expects would come
from China. A second phase of construction would include guest lodging and
a conference center.

A Long Island resident who came to the United States 23 years ago when she
was 19, Li said her background is in development and finance and she’s
confident about raising the $150 million for the first phase. She said $60
million will come from 120 families applying through the federal Immigrant
Investor Program, or EB-5. The program established in 1990 allows foreign
investors who create or preserve a certain number of jobs to apply for
citizenship after five years. An additional $30 million would come from
private equity investment and $60 million through borrowing.

Environmentalists say the project can’t be developed on the scale proposed
by China City without damaging sensitive wetlands vital to the health of
the 2,200-acre Basha Kill Wildlife Management Area, one of New York’s
largest freshwater marshes. State regulators are closely watching the
project.

“It’s pretty much untouched. It’s not just any podunk wetlands,” said
Paula Medley, president of the Basha Kill Area Association and a leader of
the environmental movement against China City.

Li insisted that her land-use and other experts have a plan that will meet
local zoning and include “green” technology in the construction and
operations.

Another controversy arose in December when the Washington, D.C.-based
Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates tighter immigration
restrictions, posted an article criticizing the project and its use of the
EB-5 program and reporting speculation Chinese government money is behind
it.

David North, the author and a fellow at the center, said the EB-5 element
is “based on a broad part of the immigration law for people with nothing
else to recommend them but money to get visas ahead of everyone else.”

China City immigration lawyer Larry Behar lashed back in a news release
that said the center was “spreading xenophobia that smacks of classic
McCarthy-era behavior.”

North denied any racist agenda. “It doesn’t matter to me if this is all
Chinese or all Swedish. This is a bad project,” he said.
Li said no Chinese government money is invested in her project.

After seeing a series of big proposed developments come and go, including
pitches for Indian casino resorts, Rieber said his town has a
“believe-it-when-you-see-it” attitude.

He said the town, which also is considered a likely place for one of the
Las Vegas-style casinos voters have approved for upstate, still hasn’t
been given a site plan by China City. He expects officials to have a lot
of questions for Li and her experts at a meeting Wednesday.

“We’re used to grand plans,” Rieber said. “Most people don’t think they’re
going to happen.”

— Associated Press