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May 7, 2007
Progressive Democrat Issue 120: NYC FOCUS: Your Tax Money is Going to Support a Rich Developer
Mole's Progressive Democrat
Because the Mayor's budget is coming up for a vote soon (and maybe because we missed it the first time around), "Mole 333" repeated the deep concern over "worst expenditures:"
In particular let's consider $205 million budgeted to support Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. This is money that each and every New York City Taxpayer, including those in Manhattan, Staten Island, Bronx and Queens, is being asked to spend so that a private developer can make gobs and gobs of money. Now SOME of that money will go to infrastructure inprovement, which I will address in a moment. That particular expenditure has problems but is not so bad in principle. But $100 million of it is nothing but a gift to a wealthy developer to get him off the hook of actually PAYING for the land he wants to develop. There are two reasons why the $205 million is problematic and should be rejected.
Here's the summary [click here for the details from the original article]:
Reason 1: Ratner was forced to bid $100 million for the Vanderbilt Railyards, which is coincidentally the amount that the City has added for land acquisition.
Reason 2: Ratner never submitted a business plan, though the MTA bid required him to do so and despite the fact that the Public Authorities Control Board was supposed to scrutinize the financial plan for Atlantic Yards.
Posted by lumi at May 7, 2007 9:39 AM