(AMNY) Senator Jabari Brisport, March 9, 2022

It would surprise most New Yorkers to learn that, by the end of this month, the State of New York is poised to approve the largest development project in the history of New York City. Larger than the World Trade Center redevelopment of Hudson Yards, the 18-million-square-foot-plus project around Penn Station would include 10 new skyscrapers without going through the City’s typical land use process.

In addition to usurping the City’s ability to decide what is built where in the five boroughs, the State also plans to take any new taxes from the buildings for its own so that it can fund an update of Penn Station without paying to fix up the decrepit transit hub itself.

What do city residents get for this land and money grab? 529 units of permanently affordable housing – out of 1,798 total units – in a development large enough to yield 10,000. Instead of this desperately needed housing, we get millions of square feet of office space. Even before the Omicron wave, only 28 percent of New York office workers were back in the office – a number very few experts expect to ever get back to 100 after the pandemic accelerated the shift to remote work.

So where did this plan come from? The scheme uses a little-known process called General Project Planning, which ostensibly allows the State to grant development rights unilaterally through the Empire State Development Corporation in order to create tax revenue in the name of the public good.

Source: AMNY