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June 7, 2007
Yonkers Agency Approves Controversial Development
Forest City Ratner projects scored a two-fer in The NY Times. Here's the latest development in Bruce Ratner's controversial Ridge Hill project in Yonkers, where (if you can believe it) he is about to score a big chunk of land for less than the market value, and get more tax breaks than originally thought (hmmm...):
After three years of divisive debate marred by suspicions of back-room deals and political favoritism, a proposal to build houses, offices and shops on an 81-acre site off the Sprain Brook Parkway cleared its last hurdle here on Wednesday, when the Industrial Development Agency, a quasi-governmental body, approved $22 million in mortgage and sales tax exemptions for the developer.
But the occasion was far from celebratory, and the vote, swift and subdued, did not come without protest. City Council members are incensed by the mayor’s decision to pursue the sale of the leasehold on the site to the developer for what they say is a fraction of its value.
An article in the Journal News explains the financial bait-and-switch better:
Ridge Hill developer gets $23.1 million in tax breaks from IDA
By Len Maniace
The Yonkers Industrial Development Agency approved an estimated $23.1 million in tax breaks yesterday for the developers of the $600 million residential-commercial Ridge Hill project.
The IDA granted the tax exemptions to Forest City Ratner, despite an attempt by City Councilman and Democratic mayoral candidate Dennis Robertson to postpone the vote. Robertson and a majority of the City Council are challenging Mayor Phil Amicone's plan to sell the lease to the developer for $26 million, insisting that price is a fraction of the lease's worth.
...
The tax breaks are incentives permitted under state law to encourage development. They break down to $12.2 million in sales-tax exemptions and an exemption from mortgage taxes worth $10.9 million.The measure approved by the IDA is different from the plan to sell the lease for the 81-acre site to Forest City Ratner, an issue that's moved front and center in the dispute over the city's late budget and, for now, in the race for mayor.
Robertson and four other Council members maintain that the property is worth $150 million, a figure that Amicone disputes.
The latest to raise questions about the deal is state Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, D-Greenburgh, who questioned the city's $26 million estimate for the property in a letter to Amicone.
Brodsky cited the age of the property's five-year-old appraisal and said that value appears low in comparison to the annual payments that Forest City Ratner would be expected to make to the Ridge Hill Development Corp., the private development corporation set up by the city to market the property. Ridge Hill Development Corp. now holds the property's lease.
Posted by lumi at June 7, 2007 6:28 AM