A group of construction unions, community groups, and elected officials, including two Brooklyn politicians, City Councilwoman Letitia James and Assemblyman Walter Mosley, filed an Article 78 lawsuit against the Bloomberg administration and developer Acadia Realty Trust calling for the City Point real estate project to be shut down and to commission a new environmental impact statement for the construction site. The suit alleges that the wage rate allowed in the City Point lease would force construction workers to earn substandard… [More]

A group of roughly a dozen property owners in the Midtown East neighborhood of Manhattan plan to convene a meeting this afternoon to discuss preservation efforts targeting their buildings and strategies to deal with any attempt to landmark their buildings that could stall future development, a knowledgeable source told City & State. The group holding the meeting, Midtown 21C–a coalition of real estate, business and labor leaders–believe that preservationists and community activists hope to use the landmarking process to thwart development… [More]

Negotiations between developers of the controversial City Point project in downtown Brooklyn and the Building and Construction Trades Council have ended without an agreement, with both sides pointing fingers and assigning blame to one another. The point of contention is the wages and benefits afforded to the employees of minority and women-owned business enterprises (MWBEs) who are working on the project. In a letter to BCTC President Gary LaBarbera, the City Point developers claim that the deal the union wanted… [More]

With policy makers exploring how to recover from Superstorm Sandy and determining how best to allocate limited federal funds, a panel of experts from across the country are meeting in Albany this afternoon to figure out how exactly to do that. “What we’re trying to do is to have a dialogue with state officials regarding a cost-effective and a more resilient and sustainable recovery and how we smartly use the dollars, those very limited dollars that we have to make… [More]

A lawsuit challenging the expansion of New York University received a boost yesterday when a judge agreed to review further documents that opponents say shows that the land the university plans to build on is designated park land and therefore requires the approval of the state Legislature before the expansion moves forward. As part of NYU’s plans to grow its campus, the city has designated several parcels of land on the blocks between LaGuardia Place and Mercer Street, and between… [More]

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer picked up more labor support in his campaign for New York City comptroller with the New York State District Council of Iron Workers officially announcing their endorsement today. In backing his candidacy, the Iron Workers cited Stringer’s creation of the Community-Labor Task Force on Responsible Contracting that helped provide job opportunities for their members and safe work sites. “Scott has also been a leader in shaping responsible development in the borough of Manhattan, successfully finding the… [More]

During his State of the City speech on Thursday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg provided ample evidence to disprove critics who said that his third term failed to live up to the promise of his previous two, and for good measure, he hung it from the ceiling of the lobby in the Barclays Center. The mayor’s office teased Bloomberg’s various third-term accomplishments in an email leading up to his speech, from the record low in homicides in 2012 to the record number… [More]

New York City Comptroller John Liu released an audit yesterday blasting a 1998 “sweetheart deal” with the Marriott Marquis Hotel that will allow the hotel to purchase the Times Square property from the city for $19.9 million – or about a tenth of its current market value. The Bloomberg administration dismissed the audit’s conclusions and criticized the comptroller, but that hasn’t stopped others from jumping into the fray. “An unprecedented sweetheart deal worth more than $300 million for a luxury hotel is… [More]

In what was dubbed the first real “debate” of the 2013 election cycle, six New York City mayoral candidates squared off at St. Paul Community Baptist Church in Brooklyn last night on the topic of housing. The event was hosted by the Daily News in conjunction with Metro IAF, and drew a packed house, with audience participation a hallmark of the forum. The candidates–City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, former comptroller Bill Thompson, Comptroller John Liu,… [More]

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s 2013 legislative agenda was already poised to be an ambitious one, with education reform, economic development and creating a state campaign finance system among the governor’s crowded list of policy goals. Then came Superstorm Sandy, which pummeled New York City, and the tragic shootings in Newtown, Conn., and Webster, N.Y., crises that immediately shifted the state’s priorities and added a whole new set of challenges to be overcome. “The agenda that we laid out today is clearly… [More]