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January 17, 2007
$700M PARK FLAP
PATAKI PALS CASH IN
NY Post
By Rich Calder
Lookie! Bruce Ratner isn't the only Pataki pal to cash in on a big development project sponsored by the Empire State Development Corporation:
A development team with close ties to ex-Gov. George Pataki stands to rack up nearly $700 million in gross revenue by selling more than 400 luxury condos to be built within the state-planned Brooklyn Bridge Park, The Post has learned.
The potential gold mine has opponents fighting to keep high-rise housing out of the proposed 85-acre waterfront park in Brooklyn Heights, charging that developer Robert Levine and partners just might have pulled off the deal of the century.
Terms of the Levine deal with the Empire State Development Corp. in 2004 - when Pataki controlled it - are outlined publicly for the first time in a legal notice for a hearing on the project, to be held Jan. 29.
The document has the ESDC envisioning Levine's development reaching at least $674 million in sales before expenses.
Here's another similarity to Atlantic Yards — both projects skip local land-use review by going through the less-stringent (and at times tragi-comic) State review process:
By going through the ESDC, Levine can circumvent the time-consuming and costly process of obtaining a zoning change through the city to build condos.
NoLandGrab: We're still waiting to hear a decent explantion as to why the Brooklyn Bridge Park must be self-sustaining (isn't that what our tax dollars are for?), while Bruce Ratner gets more than a billion dollars in subsidies for his private Atlantic Yards plan.
Posted by lumi at January 17, 2007 8:32 AM