Jeez Louise put away the steely knives. Too much drama. Too much class warfare. People in this city of every race and creed manage to get along fairly well 99.8% of the time which is pretty remarkable. For all its failings we should not lose sight of that.
Look I only know what I read in the funny papers and the other day Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac almost went belly up along with Wall Street, the U.S. Real Estate Market and US Banking system. This guy Catsimatidis seems a bit to honest to be a politician so maybe you are right that he will never be Mayor but the day groups like FUREE (clearly an intentionally provocative miltant acronynm) can "protest" so that business people MUST fund items in the public interest is the day New York really does become Moscow on the Hudson. The politicians lining up with FUREE shoudl get back to work and expand the tax credit program instead of takingto teh streets. What are we France?
The reason that tax credits and tax abatements exist to subsidize affordable housing is because given the cost of NYC labor and compliance costs (DOB, DOT, and dozens of other alphabet soup agencies) no bank will finnace a project with low rent rolls. Low rent, High cost = no steel going up. From what I've read the guy has said that when credits become available and he can finance it he will do affordable units on the rest of the three blocks he owns. Seems fair to me. Just because he is a straight shooter and overweight is no reason he should have to capitulate to these clowns. If he did that I would say he does not have the right stuff to manage this "gorgeous mosaic" of a city.
Jeez Louise put away the steely knives. Too much drama. Too much class warfare. People in this city of every race and creed manage to get along fairly well 99.8% of the time which is pretty remarkable. For all its failings we should not lose sight of that.
Look I only know what I read in the funny papers and the other day Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac almost went belly up along with Wall Street, the U.S. Real Estate Market and US Banking system. This guy Catsimatidis seems a bit to honest to be a politician so maybe you are right that he will never be Mayor but the day groups like FUREE (clearly an intentionally provocative miltant acronynm) can "protest" so that business people MUST fund items in the public interest is the day New York really does become Moscow on the Hudson. The politicians lining up with FUREE shoudl get back to work and expand the tax credit program instead of takingto teh streets. What are we France?
The reason that tax credits and tax abatements exist to subsidize affordable housing is because given the cost of NYC labor and compliance costs (DOB, DOT, and dozens of other alphabet soup agencies) no bank will finnace a project with low rent rolls. Low rent, High cost = no steel going up. From what I've read the guy has said that when credits become available and he can finance it he will do affordable units on the rest of the three blocks he owns. Seems fair to me. Just because he is a straight shooter and overweight is no reason he should have to capitulate to these clowns. If he did that I would say he does not have the right stuff to manage this "gorgeous mosaic" of a city.
Posted by: BuzzLightBeer at July 17, 2008 1:29 PM in response to John Catsimatidis: Tough Guy For Tough Times