Outrage Mounting over Ratner's 421-a Carve-Out
In the days since the State announced its version of a bill to expand the areas in which developers would have to include affordordable housing to qualify for the 421-a tax breaks, public outrage over a sweetheart deal for Forest City Ratner has been rising. A recent NY Observer article explained the hand-out: The 22-acre…
In the days since the State announced its version of a bill to expand the areas in which developers would have to include affordordable housing to qualify for the 421-a tax breaks, public outrage over a sweetheart deal for Forest City Ratner has been rising. A recent NY Observer article explained the hand-out:
In such multi-phase projects, according to the state bill, the whole development can qualify for the tax abatement so long as one-fifth of the apartments in the entire complex are affordable to people who make 80 percent of the area median income. (The AMI is roughly $70,000 for a family of four.) Under the City Council version, only those buildings that had affordable units in them would qualify, while developer Forest City Ratner would have had to pay full taxes on their condominium towers. Therefore, Forest City may be able to qualify some of its market-rate buildings for the tax break and save itself millions of dollars.
The provision of the bill (which was approved yesterday) is so shocking that both Bertha Lewis of ACORN, which is contractually obligated to say nice things about the project, called it “bad public policy” and The Daily News, whose usual coverage of the project is limited to the shilling of Errol Lewis, ran an editorial this morning calling it “sick.” The person to thank for the Ratner provision is Vito Lopez, who is the top dog on the State Assembly’s Housing Committee. He slipped the wording in over the weekend, according to The Daily News. Hakeem Jeffries, who voted for the bill anyway, says he found out about the Ratner provision only the night before the vote. The Daily News editorial cites one estimate of the hand-out being worth as much as $270 million.
421a Bill Gives Special Treatment to Atlantic Yards [NY Observer]
FCR Won’t Comment, ACORN Calls it “Bad Public Policy” [AY Report]
Atlantic Yards Gets a Deal so Sweet it’s Sick [NY Daily News]
State Raises Affordable Housing Bar for 421-a Bill [Brownstoner]
Rendering from a photo by Flatbush Gardener
as someone above note well. This is not a loophole that developers can all take advantage of. This is a special clause in a reform bil, contradicting everything the reform bill stands for, JUST FOR BRUCE RATNER. Get it?
as for Brownstoner “schilling” [sic] (he’s a good pitcher by the way) for Norman Oder, is Brownstoner also shilling for perhaps this City’s last best old-school columnist Juan Gonzalez?
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/06/22/2007-06-22_atlantic_yards_gets_a_deal_so_sweet_its_-2.html
Don’t complain. Compete!
Step up your game and stop bitch’n!
Don’t complain. Compete!
Step up your game and stop bitch’n!
10:48– who’s paying you & if you are so knowledgeable about Brooklyn history please share with us the REAL story of Metrotech, its proposal, construction & “growth”?
also sweety (not “bitch”), explain the great CAPITALISM behind Atlantic Center Mall? (or should i say… oligarchy?)
one note: it’s Errol Louis & calling him a shall is… absolutely correct, but he’s worse than that. Errol’s transformation into a neo-con windbag is one of the more gruesome displays in the New York papers in recent years, esp. given the still small # of black voices there. hard to decide who’s worse, Errol or Stanley Crouch– they both “excel” in equally loathesome, anti-intellectual, essentially DIShonest ways.
p/s: i do see 10:48 could be SATIRE; if so, ok, i was played.
This isn’t taking advantage of an existing tax loophole. This is getting the Legislature to write a special one just for you. We should all be so “lucky.”
that’s $2000 per month rent, of course
can’t wait to be able to pay only $2000 for a crappy one bedroom with an eight foot ceiling, paper thin walls, and misaligned moldings.
So what? Who cares? More power to FCR and any other developer who takes advantage of tax loopholes. That’s business. That’s the way the game is played. FCR took the lead in Brooklyn when no other big time developer cared a bit about this borough. FCR put Brooklyn development on the map. There’s no reward without risk and I seriously hope that Ratner continues to reap massive benefits from AY. In the end, the project will be a major win for Brooklyn. It’s going to be awesome! If FCR gets a huge tax benefit I really couldn’t care less. I want this sucker built and I want it built now! Let’s go NETS!
Go cry be a river someplace else, Brownstoner, and stop schilling for Norman Oder. Are you his cyber-bitch?
let them eat cake