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

["Larry Schnapf" <larry@schnapflaw.com>]

I would challenge the notion that the brownfield program is not effective.
Many sites have been remediated that would not have attracted investment
capital. I have about two dozen sites in the BCP ranging from small
affordable housing projects on gas station or dry cleaner sites to high end
condo projects on complex sites. None of these projects would have gone
forward nor been remediated without the tax credits. 

The critics of the BCP might want to shift their attention to the movie tax
credits. The state incurs $400MM each year in film tax credits. Not only to
the file tax credits exceed the BCP tax credits by a wide margin on an
annual basis but at least BCP results in permanent jobs and investments. 

IMHO   


Lawrence Schnapf

55 East 87th Street #8B
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646-468-8483 (c)
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www.SchnapfLaw.com 
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-----Original Message-----
From: brownfields-bounces@lists.cpeo.org
[mailto:brownfields-bounces@lists.cpeo.org] On Behalf Of Lenny Siegel
Sent: Wednesday, November 27, 2013 11:34 PM
To: Brownfields Internet Forum
Subject: [CPEO-BIF] Tax Commission report: New York "Brownfield program
aboon for real estate, ineffective for environment"

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according to an unpublished report prepared for the state by a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

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