[CPEO-BIF] Tax Commission report: New York "Brownfield program a boon for real estate, ineffective for environment"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Report: Brownfield program a boon for real estate, ineffective for  
environment


By Scott Waldman
Capital New York
November 27, 2013

ALBANY-The state's brownfield program has become a real-estate  
development boondoggle that does little to clean up blighted and  
polluted territories, according to an unpublished report prepared for  
the state by a Cuomo-appointed tax commission.

The program will cost state taxpayers $500 million this year and is  
already on the hook for another $3.3 billion in tax credits in the  
future. Despite the steep tax breaks, more sites were cleaned up  
under a previous voluntary program that did not pay out tax credits,  
the commission found in a 137-page report.

The report cites the largest brownfield credit ever taken, which was  
$114 million used to build a Ritz-Carlton Hotel in White Plains, even  
though there were no cleanup costs. A private power generation plant  
in Rensselaer outside of Albany pulled in $87 million for a project  
that had already been approved before the brownfield law took place.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/albany/2013/11/8536697/report- 
brownfield-program-boon-real-estate-ineffective-environment

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

_______________________________________________
Brownfields mailing list
Brownfields@lists.cpeo.org
http://lists.cpeo.org/listinfo.cgi/brownfields-cpeo.org