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February 1, 2008
Bid to cut Ratner’s public subsidies fails
The Brooklyn Paper
The City Council quashed a bid on Wednesday by two Brooklyn politicians to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in city and state subsidies from the Atlantic Yards mega-development.
Councilman David Yassky (D–Brooklyn Heights) asked the Council’s Finance Committee to take up the matter of those Atlantic Yards subsidies while considering a resolution calling for the state to end property-tax exemptions for Madison Square Garden.
“If we are going to say this about Madison Square Garden, we should say it about Atlantic Yards, too,” said Yassky, who added that he and Councilwoman Letitia James (D–Fort Greene) would soon re-introduce the measure, this time as a freestanding resolution, not an amendment.
According to the councilmembers’ calculations, the proposed arena for the Nets will get close to $700 million in subsidies from the city and state.
The failed resolution comes days after Ratner’s lawyers revealed that ongoing legal challenges to the project are likely to create “significant difficulties and cost increases in concluding the bond financing that is essential to the arena's completion.”
Posted by lumi at February 1, 2008 5:35 AM