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January 14, 2008
City’s brand of CBA bad for rest of the nation?
MetroNY
By Patrick Arden
Community benefits agreements have dampened opposition to projects elsewhere, but they’ve spawned controversy here as politicians have hammered out 11th-hour CBAs just before crucial votes.
This New York style of deal making worries California attorney Julian Gross. “The entire future of the community-benefits movement could be threatened by CBAs being sidetracked and taken over by developers and electeds who want to steer and channel the community participation,” he said.
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“The whole thing works better democratically when electeds don’t try to pressure community groups to support projects based on the electeds’ views on what projects are good,” Gross said. When politicians are involved, critics charge, CBAs are weaker — not just in benefits extracted but also in legal protections.
Predictably, nothing has happened on the CBA for Columbia since the City Council approved the university's expansion plans last month.
Posted by lumi at January 14, 2008 5:29 AM