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January 10, 2008
Pols: Pull Ratner off the trough
The Brooklyn Paper
By Gersh Kuntzman
A City Council effort to reign in a tax break enjoyed by Madison Square Garden should bring about a cutback of the massive public subsidies lavished on Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner, two councilmembers demanded this week.
After the Council’s Finance Committee discussed MSG’s $11-million-per-year property tax abatement on Monday, Councilmembers Letitia James (D–Fort Greene) and David Yassky (D–Brooklyn Heights) demanded that the city and state revisit its subsidies for Ratner’s $4-billion mega-development.
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Both councilmembers said they would put forward a resolution within days that would “scrutinize the effectiveness all the these tax breaks citywide,” James said.[James] questioned, for example, why Ratner still gets tax breaks for his decades-old Metrotech complex and both his Atlantic Avenue shopping malls.
“He may have needed those subsidies in the past, but Brooklyn is hot right now, so these subsidies are inappropriate,” she added.
Yassky and James have called on Speaker Christine Quinn, who is spearheading the attack on the MSG subsidy yet is also a strong Atlantic Yards supporter, to bring the resolution to a vote.
Posted by lumi at January 10, 2008 7:39 PM