Photo: Getty via Daily Intel

Among the outcomes so far: The conversion of 15 percent of the taxi fleet to clean-fuel vehicles, the construction of 79 new playgrounds, $100 million a year to increase the energy efficiency of government buildings, 20 pilot projects to clean up city waterways, hundreds of miles of new bike lanes. Ninety-three percent of the 127 initiatives are under way, Mr. Doctoroff said.

"The biggest achievement of them all," he said, is a greenhouse-gas inventory showing a 2.5 percent reduction in citywide carbon emissions, "at a time when greenhouse gases in cities around the nation continue to increase."

There is little doubt that PlaNYC is an ambitious and noble undertaking, despite the failure of congestion pricing -- which Doctoroff rightly cites as a direct cause of the current MTA funding crisis. But it seems a little specious to brag about reductions in greenhouse gas emissions when the Bloomberg administration has continued to vigorously promote VMT-inducing suburban-style parking, a contradiction not lost on City Room commenters like Chris, who writes:

What’s most frustrating is how Bloomberg and his advisors fail to make some very basic connections between their policies, for example working for modest transit improvements while promoting development that is very parking-intensive. Bronx Terminal Market is a prime example of this. Big box development with considerable parking availability which will do exactly what it is designed for- bring more cars, congestion, and pollution into the city.

So give credit where credit is due, but so many people wish Bloomberg would connect the dots.

Indeed. Even as he lobbied for PlaNYC and congestion pricing, Doctoroff himself was a prime mover behind the Yankee Stadium parking deal and greenhouse gas catastrophes like the Gateway Center. There's the legal battle waged by the administration to bring some 20,000 parking spots to Hell's Kitchen. And just last week Bloomberg celebrated the opening of driving-intensive commercial development at the Gateway project -- one day after announcing a new "green" buildings initiative. In fact, when asked point blank by Streetsblog about the connection between more parking and more driving, the mayor either didn't understand the question or chose not to address it.

Chris believes there's something "far more complex than just ignorance" at work here. We agree. The question is, will the Bloomberg administration safeguard the progress of PlaNYC by reversing its disastrous parking policies?

The parking spaces were given to the team for the private use of Yankees officials, players and others; the spaces were originally planned for public parking. The city also turned over the rights to three new billboards along the Major Deegan Expressway, and whatever revenue they generate, as part of the deal.

The quest for perks first made news months ago following an inquiry by Assembly Member Richard Brodsky, but the nature of recently uncovered e-mails between the team, the city, and the Economic Development Corporation is depressingly banal.

At another point, raw personal feelings emerged, as evidenced during this exchange, starting June 29, 2006, between top city officials about Randy Levine, the Yankees president.

"If we want a deal on the suite, he wants 250 spaces," Seth W. Pinsky, then the executive vice president of the city’s Economic Development Corporation, wrote to Daniel L. Doctoroff, a former deputy mayor. After Mr. Doctoroff did not respond, Mr. Pinsky, a bit sheepishly, wrote the next day: "It comes down to how much we’re willing to rely on Randy’s word."

"Let’s not give," Mr. Doctoroff replied. "I don’t trust him."

The Daily News has more, including PDF files of some e-mails. The News notes that taxpayers could end up paying for the spots if stadium garages, as expected, take a loss.

And the kicker? Follow the jump for mind-bending quotes from Westchester's faux-populist-in-chief.

Mr. Brodsky said what emerges from the e-mail correspondence is a sense of entitlement ingrained in Bloomberg officials. He said that the city appeared to be pushing for use of the suite for not just regular-season games, but for the playoffs and the World Series, and for special events like concerts, too.

"There’s this 'Alice in Wonderland' quality to the question of, what is the public interest here and who’s protecting it?" said Mr. Brodsky, who conducted a hearing on the issue of public financing of sports stadiums this summer. "We can’t find the money for the M.T.A., or schools, or hospitals, and these folks are used to the perks and good things of life, and expect them."

Richard Brodsky railing about entitlements and perks -- in the name of the MTA? We are through the looking glass, indeed.

Yesterday's City Limits article on Yankee Stadium parking contains a link to an interactive Google map, developed by author Mathilde Piard, of the stadium site and its surroundings. Users can click on the shaded areas for descriptions of each parking garage or surface lot, including how many cars it can hold and when it will be used.

Be sure to click on Garage A, formerly known as what was left of Macombs Dam Park, for the $237 million subsidy and free police parking feature.

 
A few weeks back Atlantic Yards Report posted a compendium of recent writings that point to the contradictions inherent in, and problems resulting from, parking requirements for urban development plans.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg's much-praised PlaNYC 2030 contains a glaring omission, a failure to address the antiquated anti-urban policy that mandates parking attached to new residential developments outside Manhattan, even when such developments, like Atlantic Yards, are justified precisely because they're located near transit hubs.

Transit-rich Manhattan isn't exempt from such requirements either, as the city fights in court to turn Hell's Kitchen parking maximums into minimums.

AYR cites a December New York Times op-ed, written by planners Alex Garvin and Nick Peterson, as one indicator that awareness of the parking paradox is entering the mainstream. And yesterday, Metro published a piece questioning the value of Community Benefits Agreements. Touted as a way to smooth possible tensions between neighborhoods and developers through a give-and-take planning process, some argue that CBAs are being abused by builders and the elected officials who support their projects.

This New York style of deal making worries California attorney Julian Gross. “The entire future of the community-benefits movement could be threatened by CBAs being sidetracked and taken over by developers and electeds who want to steer and channel the community participation,” he said. 

One result, in the case of Atlantic Yards and the new Yankee Stadium, is an influx of cars essentially legislated into neighborhoods that don't want them, even as the city preaches the virtues of sustainable growth. From that perspective, the hiring of DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and other planning dream-teamers can seem less a sign of hope than another symptom of the city's schizophrenic approach to urban mobility -- unless, whether due to publicity or change from within, a lot more stuff like this happens.

Photo: Photogrammaton/Flickr

Last summer the city agreed to pay $5 million to construct part of a pedestrian walkway to the new stadium over a piece of property on East 153rd Street, according to the Voice. That land is owned by the Glaser family, which operates G.A.L. Manufacturing, a successful elevator equipment company. Though the Glasers had previously never contributed money to local candidates, they gave the Carrion campaign a total of $30,000 around the time the air rights contract was signed.

The Glasers didn't return the Voice's phone calls. A spokesman for Carrion referred questions to his campaign office, which said, "The borough president has many first-time contributors, as people throughout the city have taken notice of his proven track record in governing."

The pedestrian bridge is a small but key piece of the massive stadium project because it connects the new Metro North station to the stadium property. An existing pedestrian bridge is considered too narrow and out of compliance with federal disability laws.

Under the deal signed last spring, the city agreed to pay $5 million to the Glasers for the air rights over their property to allow for widening and improving the concrete pedestrian bridge leading to the foot of Yankee Stadium. The air-rights deal will cost taxpayers almost as much as the $6.5 million that the city plans to spend actually renovating the bridge.

City officials say that the $5 million bought three things: access to the property for two years, the right to put the bridge over the property, and a piece of land on which to set a column that will support the bridge.

As Streetsblog readers know, mayoral hopeful Carrion has been an outspoken supporter of the new Yankee Stadium and its publicly-subsidized parking decks, despite community opposition to the extra year-round traffic the project promises to bring to the polluted South Bronx. After the contentious parking deal cleared its last hurdle, Carrion bragged that the stadium would set off a chain reaction of development in the area.

How much his constituents will benefit, or suffer, from that development remains to be seen. But Carrion's mayoral campaign is making out quite nicely. In addition to the $30K from the Glasers, the Voice reports that his campaign has accepted over $34,000 from Related Companies, which is building the controversial Gateway Mall complex near the stadium -- a project criticized for, among other things, its auto-oriented design.

As it happens, according to the Voice, "At the same time that G.A.L. negotiated the $5 million air-rights deal, Related got $1.2 million from Metro North for an easement over a small sliver of its property to allow for the widening of rail tracks."

Carrion is unapologetic in his advocacy of the stadium, as well as the $225 million in taxpayer-subsidized parking that will come with it.

Carrion gives himself credit for helping to "turn the tide" in the Bronx from "an acceptance of failure" to an environment in which investors are optimistic enough to put millions of dollars into housing, parkland and a new stadium for the Yankees.

In today's Daily News, Carrion refers to last week's approval of parking deck financing as "yet another important step toward realizing the goal of investment and community participation in the redevelopment of this area."

But not everyone would paint such a rosy picture. Last year Carrion was accused of purging community board members who opposed the stadium project. More recently, some South Bronx residents have vowed to fight construction of the garages. Simply put, they don't want the traffic or the pollution necessitated by an auto-dependent vision of economic prosperity.

Ironically, in the AMNY profile, Carrion also makes a case for congestion pricing.

"The fact that we can reduce millions of tons of particulate matter from the environment, and reduce the heat effect that we create and get more people to live healthy is a good thing. It's the objective that's more important than the inconvenience."

Carrion may not see the disconnect between his negative view of traffic congestion his zeal to bring more of it to the South Bronx, but others do. Again, the Daily News:

"All along I've been opposed to the stadium and the traffic and congestion it would bring to the neighborhood," [Council Member Helen] Foster said. "And this [garage] project will just encourage even more people to drive to the west Bronx."

Many of Foster's constituents worry the 9,000 parking spaces around the stadium will turn their already traffic- and asthma-choked neighborhood into a de facto park-and-ride hub -- especially if the mayor's Manhattan congestion pricing plan becomes reality.

Under the agreement, the city will give up some $2.5 million in taxes, with an estimated $5 million forfeited by the state. And the asthma-plagued South Bronx will get almost 4,000 new parking spaces, in garages the city aims to draw traffic to year-round.

Today's approval of the Yanks' parking subsidy by the board of the NYC Industrial Development Agency can only be described as a fait accompli. Despite last month's surprising postponement, caused in part by the IDA's failure to provide requested information to Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion (himself a parking subsidy supporter) -- not to mention the revelation of one sad, shocking detail after another in the local media -- the unanimous vote came with relatively little discussion, one item on an agenda of about a dozen. The entire meeting took less than an hour.

Still, there were a few noteworthy aspects surrounding the decision:

• it was announced that an economic feasibility study is now underway (as opposed to, well, conducting same before the package was approved);
• the IDA signed off on the project though a finalized ground lease apparently does not yet exist;
• the deal includes possibly as many as 600 free parking spaces for the Yankees (Streetsblog has a call in to the IDA to confirm the number);
  
• Carrion's representative on the IDA board, Rafael Salaberrios, was not present for the vote, but walked in shortly after it occurred.

Bettina Damiani, Project Director of Good Jobs New York, an NGO that has tracked the stadium project closely, says the IDA's promise of 12 full-time and 70 part-time parking garage jobs, with an average wage of $11 an hour, hardly justifies the impact on surrounding South Bronx neighborhoods.

"There would be a stronger economic benefit if they threw cash off the elevated subway," Damiani says.

Fittingly, Damiani is headed to Washington, DC, tomorrow to testify at a Congressional hearing on how professional sports stadiums shift funds away from public infrastructure.

Following up on his tour of the smelly swath of plastic turf the Yankees installed in the South Bronx after turning actual park land into a stadium construction site, Neil deMause reports in the Village Voice that a clause in the Yanks' lease agreement with the city -- initiated by Mayor Rudy Giuliani and extended by Mayor Bloomberg -- allows reimbursements for stadium "planning" expenses. As of 2005, deductions include apparent write-offs for food, alcohol, and thousands of dollars in schwag, like caps and souvenir crystal baseballs.

Seems the Yankees haven't been spending enough on stadium "planning" to take full advantage of the rent break, so to justify additional deductions, the club began handing over loads of receipts to the Parks Department.

[W]hereas the earlier receipts were limited to stadium-related expenses -- although questionable ones, like the $700-an-hour lobbyist bills and restaurant tabs for engineering consultants -- by late 2005, the files had begun to look like those of an organization hastily trying to spend down its account by billing the public for everything but the kitchen sink.

Here's a sample itemized list, courtesy Good Jobs New York:

• $31,364 in food and bar tabs at Yankee Stadium for two nights of the 2005 post season
• $1,978 for a dozen crystal baseballs
  
• $8,600 in "rivalry" wool caps for home games against Boston and Toronto
• $1037 for 550 logo baseballs for an annual sales meeting
• $2,037 in gifts for corporate clients like Sony, Ford and Continental Airlines
• $25,000 for office space near Newark Airport
• $10,145 for press room rental
• $1,948 for party for Verizon
• $78 to ship batting helmets from Yankee Stadium to Tropicana Field

Images of actual receipts are here, here and here.

GJNY has issued a media release calling for an audit by City Comptroller (and potential mayoral candidate) William Thompson -- something the city has not done since 2004, when it examined the Yankees' stadium planning costs from 2001 and 2002.

"Considering the impact the new Yankee Stadium has had on the taxpayers and the neighborhood," reads the GJNY statement, "Good Jobs New York calls on Comptroller William Thompson to bring up to date all audits of the team to ensure no improper expenditures were in fact borne by the taxpayers."

Here are snapshots of the scoreboard at Yankee Stadium last Sunday. (The Yanks beat Toronto, 7-5.) Despite the perceived parking hardship, average attendance at the stadium has been 52,739 this season, an all-time record.

Naturally, this casts further doubt on the need for all those (all together now) publicly funded parking spaces -- a project that has already caused actual hardship for South Bronx residents who, to add injury to injury, saw neighborhood park land poached and replaced (temporarily, at least) by a stinky plastic heat island.

Assuming the garages are built as planned, and prove as unprofitable as expected, will the scoreboard still "strongly suggest using public transportation"?

The Bronx Borough Board was expected to take up the stadium parking issue today, but Streetsblog has received word that it was not on the agenda after all. Though this will presumably affect the scheduling of an IDA vote to issue the $225 million in tax exempt bonds sought to finance construction of three stadium parking garages, an article in today's Sun -- referring to the complex as  "the most expensive baseball park ever built" -- quotes a Yankees rep who says the project is proceeding as planned.

The Yankees have refused to provide interviews with those involved in the construction of the new stadium. A spokeswoman for the Yankees, Alice McGillion, said, "We are on schedule with construction, on budget, and fully expect to be operational and ready for opening day 2009."

If you thought it was bad enough that the city seized public park land in the asthma-choked South Bronx, turned that public land over to the New York Yankees to use for parking, and is currently on course to have taxpayers subsidize said parking to the tune of $8,000 per space, well, you'd be wrong. It gets worse.

The triple tax exempt bond plan for the new Yankee Stadium was hatched when no developers stepped up to bid on stadium parking deck construction, and their inherent unprofitability has now led the city's Industrial Development Agency to seek year round operation of the garages.

Via onNYTurf, the Observer does the math:

If all the new parking slots (9,179 total) are filled every game day (81 times a year), the operator will bring in $18.59 million annually from Yankees-related revenue. But the $225 million in bonds, if paid back over 30 years at 6.5 percent, would require $17.04 million a year in payments.

That leaves just $1.55 million a year for salaries, maintenance, utilities and other operational costs—not to mention rent that the operator, the Bronx Parking Development Corporation, is supposed to pay the city.

“With recent and ongoing South Bronx developments, such as the development of the Bronx Terminal Market and the new Metro North Station, we expect there to be strong demand for parking on non-game days, which certainly help the financial viability of the project,” a spokeswoman e-mailed The Observer.

So, with the stadium deal, the city hopes to get into the business of inducing parking demand -- in an area it says will benefit from congestion pricing.

Photo: The Foo Fighter/Flickr

If anyone knows more about any of these folks, or if you spot any outdated info, please share.

The IDA board:

• Robert C. Leiber, Chairman. President of the New York City Economic Development Corporation. Former real estate executive. Mayoral appointee.
  
• Derek Park, Vice Chairman. Senior Executive Vice-President, Cohane Rafferty Securities. Mayoral appointee.
  
• Amanda Burden, ex officio. City Planning Director, City Planning Commission Chair.
  
• Michael Cardozo, ex officio. New York City's Corporation Counsel.
• Albert V. De Leon. General Counsel, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken.
• Dan Doctoroff, ex officio. Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding.
• Joseph I. Douek. Chairman and CEO, Willoughby's Konica Imaging Center, friend of Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, and subject of this 2006 critique on Room EIght.
• Kevin Doyle. Executive Vice President, Local 32BJ, "the largest property services union in the country." Doyle was profiled by the Observer when he joined the IDA board. Appointed by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.
• Bernard Haber. Member of Queens Community Board 11. Queens Borough President appointee.
  
• Rafael Salaberrios. President, Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation. Chairman, Bronx Tourism Council. Bronx Borough President appointee.
  
• Robert D. Santos. Vice President for Campus Planning and Facilities Management, City College of New York. Former executive with construction firm Lehrer McGovern Bovis, Inc. Former Assistant Commissioner, NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Former Deputy Commissioner for Operations, NYC Department of Parks and Recreation. Mayoral appointee.
  
• William C. Thompson, ex officio. New York City Comptroller.

Alternates:

• Barry Dinerstein. Deputy Director for Housing, Economic Development and Infrastructure Planning, NYC Planning Department.
• John Graham. City Comptroller appointee.
• Angela Sun. Doctoroff appointee.
• Leonard Wasserman. Chief, Economic Development Division, New York City Law Department (Corporation Counsel). 

At a hearing last week, residents of the South Bronx, along with public advocates, protested the $225 million triple tax exempt bond issue, which would be used to finance the construction of three stadium parking garages. Speakers testified that making so many parking spots available would encourage stadium-goers to drive to the asthma plagued area, rather than take public transit -- and at taxpayer expense, as the bonds are estimated to cost New Yorkers some $8,000 per space in lost revenue.

Also at last week's hearing, a representative of Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion, Jr., Deputy Director for Planning & Development Paula Luria Caplan, told the IDA that Carrion's office had been denied "vital information" concerning the project, and said the IDA should not act before "statutorily required approval" by the Bronx Borough Board. (Streetsblog contacted Carrion's office for an update, but had not received a reply as of this writing.)

Today's session, closed to public comment, featured no discussion of the parking bonds. Instead, it was announced that several IDA board members had concerns and questions, and that the matter would be decided later at a special-called meeting, for which no date was given.

"I hope that the board realizes that you can't dress this up pretty," says Bettina Damiani of Good Jobs New York, an NGO that opposes the Yankees parking subsidy and has followed it closely (witness GJNY's 28-page chronicle, "Insider Baseball"). "You can put lipstick on it all you want. It's still a parking garage. The IDA has a tough job ahead of them."

At a sparsely attended public hearing in Lower Manhattan, Margaret Collins of Save Our Parks told the New York City Industrial Development Agency (IDA) that a "barely contained rage" is simmering over the traffic the new stadium is expected to bring to the area. Surveys show that lack of recreational space and pollution are the top concerns in South Bronx neighborhoods, Collins said -- problems that were exacerbated when the Yankees seized public park land for its stadium complex, and which could yet worsen once its proposed 9,000 parking spaces are put to use.

Though the new facility will have 5,000 fewer seats, and will be served by a new Metro-North station, current plans call for it to have 2,500 more parking spots than the existing stadium. Three new parking garages (of four originally planned) will be financed through $225 million in triple tax exempt bonds, if the IDA approves such action, at a public cost of some $8,000 per space. A vote could come as early as next Tuesday, September 11. The IDA board votes in closed session.

Noting the low turnout for the hearing, Collins -- herself testifying with sleeping infant in tow -- pointed out that most affected residents can not make it downtown for a meeting in the middle of a workday. She warned that lack of public attendance should not be confused with lack of public engagement. 

"The community is not sleeping on this question," Collins said.

Speaking after an unusual plea for access was presented to the IDA on behalf of Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion, Jr., Collins bristled that politicians had signed on to the stadium project without knowing what they were agreeing to. Carrion, a vocal stadium proponent, has been denied what his office termed "vital information" regarding its financing, even though he, like all borough presidents, has an appointee who serves on the IDA board.

The IDA is the financing arm of the New York City Economic Development Corporation. The IDA board is made up of 15 members and alternates, including City Planning Director Amanda Burden and Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff.

While she was outnumbered by IDA board members and staff, Collins was not alone in testifying against the project. Joyce Hogi, who has lived in the vicinity of Yankee Stadium for 30 years, objected to the "snarling traffic" that "consumes" the area, and said the new garages would amount to "induced demand" for otherwise unneeded parking, "providing an incentive to drive into an already overburdened neighborhood." Of the new Metro-North station, Hogi asked, "We spend millions on public transportation and now we plan to spend millions to encourage them not to take it?"

Hogi suggested public moneys would be better spent on upgrades to the Melrose Metro-North and 161st Street subway stations, which would benefit surrounding neighborhoods year-round.

Bettina Damiani, director of Good Jobs New York, said that the parking subsidy, if approved, would bring the public commitment to the new stadium to a total of approximately $795 million.

Photo: Michael Dietsch/Flickr

Testifying before the NYC Industrial Development Agency (IDA), which is poised to issue over $200 million in triple tax exempt bonds to the "Bronx Parking Development Company" for parking deck construction, Deputy Director for Planning & Development Paula Luria Caplan said Carrion has not received "vital information" regarding project financing.

Here is the testimony submitted by Caplan on behalf of Carrion, in its entirety:

The new Yankee Stadium project represents a remarkable achievement for the Borough of the Bronx and the City of New York. As this board is aware, the Borough President has been involved in this redevelopment project from its inception and has always insisted that both the community and its representatives are thoroughly engaged in this process.

The Borough President is deeply concerned that after repeated requests we still have not received vital information regarding the details of the Bronx Parking Development Company financing. Specifically, the Borough President's office has requested the following:

A copy of the draft lease agreement;
A copy of the feasibility study;
An explanation of the increase in the deal size from $190 million to $218 million;
and details regarding the elimination of Lot D from the parking facility after 2010.

Finally, the Borough President is concerned as to whether this project can move forward on September 11th without the statutorily required approval of the Bronx Borough Board. In order to make an informed decision at the September 11th IDA Meeting, the Borough President must receive this information immediately.

Bettina Damiani of Good Jobs New York, who also offered testimony, said that it is unheard of for a borough president to resort to making such a statement at an IDA hearing, considering that each borough president has an appointee on the IDA board.

Complete coverage still to come.

As Streetsblog reported back in April, the city is set to subsidize thousands of parking spaces for the new Yankee Stadium by issuing hundreds of millions in tax-exempt bonds for parking deck construction.

The Post reported this week that one of the four planned parking structures has been scuttled, but the rest remain on the table, in spite of a new Metro-North station that should mitigate stadium parking demand. Tomorrow the NYC Industrial Development Agency (IDA) will hold a hearing on the bond issue, which by some calculations would cost city and state taxpayers over $8,000 per parking space.

Here's a summary from Good Jobs New York, which has been keeping a watchful eye on the deal:

The New York Yankees are currently building a new stadium one block north of its existing location at East 161 Street and River Avenue in the Bronx. The project would also include the construction of three nearby parking garages containing almost 4,000 spaces. The proposed stadium and parking facilities are being developed on over 20 acres of frequently used public parkland, and city, state, and federal subsidies for the project exceed $700 million in direct spending and tax breaks.

 

The New York City Industrial Development Agency (IDA) is proposing to offer additional subsidies for the construction of the three new garages and the renovation of existing garages and surface lots in the area. The IDA is proposing to offer the garage developers $219 million in triple tax-exempt bonds (up from an earlier amount of $190 million) to finance the development of the parking facilities. The city estimates this will mean over $2 million in forgone city income taxes (not to mention millions more on the state and federal level). In addition, the city will no longer collect a percentage of the revenues earned at the garages.

Perhaps, instead of a parking subsidy, the city sees the tax break as an investment in what some hope will be a Bronx development boom. Centering on the stadium, some $500 million in retail development is planned for the area. Retailers have also pledged to reserve 1,200 game day parking spots for Yankee fans.

 
Meanwhile, the ball club has stalled on a promise to repay nearby residents for seizing public park land for its new field and parking complex, in the form of an $800,000 annual endowment to area non-profits. Metro reports that the organization that is supposed to distribute the funds has not yet registered with the state, and its first annual report, due in April, never materialized.

"The parks were taken in eight days without one public hearing," complained [Geoffrey] Croft, president of NYC Park Advocates. "The Yankees wasted no time in seizing the public's land, but they're in no hurry when it's time to pay up."

Croft charged the promised payoff was actually a "pittance," considering the neighborhood, which is plagued by asthma, lost "70 percent of their trees."

More coverage of the parking deal can be found here.

Tomorrow's IDA hearing, which is open to the public, will be at 10:00 a.m. at 110 William Street, 4th Floor.

 
Photo: hotdogger13/Flickr

The huge parking expansion associated with new Yankee Stadium construction has failed to attract any bids from private operators. The city has apparently scaled the seemingly uneconomic plan back by one 900-car garage, but instead of reducing it further, it is adding more public money to ensure that the new, smaller stadium has thousands of additional parking spaces around it.

The city's Economic Development Corp. wants to award $186 million in triple tax-exempt bonds for parking garage construction, significantly upping public subsidies for the project. Housing advocates say the shortage of such "private activity" tax-exempt bonding is one reason affordable housing construction in the city lags so badly. Meanwhile, news reports say the MTA is having trouble funding the Yankee Stadium Metro-North station that was added to the stadium project after criticism last year.

Developer Forest City Ratner is about to knock down historic buildings near downtown Brooklyn to construct the borough's biggest surface parking lot. On Sunday, April 15, Brooklyn Speaks, a coalition favoring a better Atlantic Yards plan, will hold a rally against the demolition and parking lot. "Providing 1,400 surface parking spaces next to the third largest transit hub in the city is not only unnecessary, it is contradictory to the whole rationale for the project's location," the Tri-State Campaign said in the event's announcement.

The issue of urban parking and traffic may yet be aired in court. The Hell's Kitchen Neighborhood Association's nearly two-year-old Clean Air Act lawsuit against NY City and State recently survived a round of dismissal motions. It claims that the 2005 Hudson Yards amendment to the NYC Zoning Resolution violated clean air law by relaxing the parking regulations below 60th Street without first fulfilling the terms of an agreement with the EPA. While the development says nothing about the strength of the allegations or potential outcome of the case, it bodes well that it will be heard and decided on the merits.

What could be worse than replacing neighborhood parks with private parking decks, built with the specific intent of increasing car trips by the tens of thousands through a community already suffering from so much disease-causing pollution that its nickname is "Asthma Alley"?

How about forcing afflicted residents to help foot the bill?

That's what could happen in the South Bronx, courtesy of the New York City Industrial Development Agency (IDA) and the New York Yankees.

Though the sweetheart deal orchestrated to fund a new stadium for the richest team in baseball went off with barely a hitch -- including the seizure of public park land, accomplished in just eight days -- construction of the planned parking decks for the new facility has been another matter.

Apparently recognizing the decks as a losing proposition, no private developer wants to build them. So to get things rolling, the IDA -- the financing arm of the NYC Economic Development Corporation -- is now set to award some $186 million in triple tax-exempt bonds for deck construction to a group called the Community Initiatives Development Corporation (CIDC), a non-profit that sets up tax-free loan packages.

In testimony from last week regarding the deck plan, Bettina Damiani of Good Jobs New York (GJNY) offered an analysis of how the project made its way to the CIDC, which has set up a 'local' Bronx division (BCIDC) for the stadium deal:

Despite the fact that these garages went through an official Request For Proposal the financing structure and selection process has the appearance of yet another backroom subsidy deal. BCIDC president William Loewenstein is a strategic partner of lobbying powerhouse Stadtmauer Bailkin, LLP, which specializes in securing public subsidies for its clients. The firm's promotional materials identified him as such until last fall. Stadtmauer Bailkin is listed on the IDA's core application as the attorney of CIDC.

This is a very tidy loop. Stadtmauer lobbies City Hall on behalf of Central Parking Systems, the business claiming it will operate the parking lots. Stadtmauer needs no introduction here. One of its managing directors has promoted herself as having written incentive guidelines as an employee of the New York City Economic Development Corporation. And the firm's incentive procurement practice was recently renamed Biggins Lacy Shapiro & Co. Jay Biggins is a former executive director of NYCEDC. CIDC's senior vice president Joseph Seymour is the former executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

The proposed deck plan would push total subsidies for the new Yankee Stadium to somewhere north of $400 million, according to GJNY. It would also increase the current parking stock by 55 percent, even as plans for a new Metro-North station to serve the park languish for lack of funding.

All of which smacks of hypocrisy to Kate Slevin, associate director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, who also submitted testimony to the IDA:

In January, Mayor Bloomberg announced his PlanYC initiative, which envisions a city in 2030 with faster travel times, more green space, and with the cleanest air of any big city in the USA. Providing more public subsidies for parking garages -- especially when funds for a transit station are precarious at best -- flies in the face of these goals. It's hard to take an initiative like PlanYC seriously when the city is throwing money at parking for a transit-oriented site like Yankee Stadium. 

In the interest of equal time, the Mets are encouraging fans to use transit for today's home opener -- at least while construction of their new stadium continues to take away parking. To avoid the 'shortage' during last year's playoffs, nearly half of Mets fans attended the games without their cars -- proving that even if you don't build it, they will come.

Note: Prior to publication, Streetsblog contacted Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff's office for comment on this story. Mr. Doctoroff could not immediately be reached.

 Image: duluoz cats via Flickr

Last December, in announcing the goals of his Long-Term Planning and Sustainability initiative, Mayor Michael Bloomberg raised the terrifying specter of New York City commuters in the year 2030 stuck in an eight-hour "rush hour." This all-day traffic jam would become a reality, the mayor said, if New York City failed to plan for growth.

Just a short bus ride away from the Queens Museum of Art, where the mayor delivered his speech, is Downtown Flushing. There, the ideal of the mayor's Long-Term Planning and Sustainability project is running up against the reality of New York City's current-day development boom.

Though Downtown Flushing is accessible by more than twenty bus lines and the number 7 train, two major new development projects, Flushing Commons and Flushing Town Center, have been planned with the assumption that people will come by car. Flushing Commons, a $500 million project which will include a hotel, retail, and community center, is being built on city-owned property. Flushing Town Center is a combination residential and retail complex whose $600 million cost is being helped along by a variety of state tax breaks. Together, the projects will create a net gain of 3,500 hundred parking spaces in Downtown Flushing, an amount more suitable for a suburban mega-mall than the most transit-friendly neighborhood in all of Queens.

New York has a reputation as a walking and public transportation city, and cutting commute times is one of the goals of the PLANYC 2030 project. Yet the city's recent development boom has included the planning and construction of tens of thousands of new parking spaces, many of which are being paid for by public money. New York City and State are, in essence, subsidizing a parking boom that, some experts say, may ensure decades of automobile dependence and traffic congestion no matter what Mayor Bloomberg's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability has to say about it.

No one seems to know exactly how many new parking spaces are being built across New York City, but Matthew Roth of Transportation Alternatives says he can think of 18,000 spots off the top of his head. The new Yankee Stadium includes 10,000 slots for vehicles, more than doubling the amount of parking per fan at the old stadium. The Bronx Terminal market will offer room for 2,800 cars. And vast, accessible parking lots are a basic element of plans for Atlantic Yards, Ikea, Fairway, Whole Foods, Lowe's and many other developments in Brooklyn. In April 2005, Brian Ketcham and Carolyn Conheim of Community Consulting Services tallied up over 20,000 new parking spaces planned, under construction or already built in and around Downtown Brooklyn (Download their PDF).

While many outer borough Community Boards view new parking spaces as a traffic mitigation, experts say otherwise. "Those new parking spaces result in encouraging more people to drive while at the same time you're trying to eliminate traffic by other means," said Jeff Zupan, a transportation analyst with the Regional Plan Association. "You're working at cross purposes, no doubt about it."

All of this new parking space is necessary, city officials say, because outer borough New Yorkers are more likely to drive where public transportation is not as developed. Even in Flushing, with its wealth of transit, Councilmember John Liu (chair of the council's transportation committee), has fought to keep the cost for parking at Flushing Commons below market rate and to keep the number of new spaces as high as possible, despite studies that show they aren't all needed.

The City Planning Department has long tried to restrict driving in Manhattan's Central Business District by not requiring developers to include parking, putting caps on the amount of parking that can be built, and taxing parking lots. A recent, notable exception is the rezoning of the enormous Hudson Yards area on Manhattan's West Side. City dollars are being spent on extending the 7 train to the area. Still, developers will also be required to build a certain amount of parking based on the size of the buildings they are constructing. These are the first such parking requirements in Manhattan since 1982.

City officials argue that they are simply providing people with a choice by accommodating both public and private transportation. But UCLA Professor Donald Shoup, whose book The High Cost of Free Parking is the most thorough examination of parking ever written, argues that simply offering a choice won't cut congestion.

"Off-street parking requirements encourage everyone to drive wherever they go," he writes, "because they know that can usually park free when they get there." Inexpensive and abundant parking, in other words, creates more traffic congestion. So, how does Mayor Bloomberg square his administration's laudable long-term sustainability goals with the boom in parking that his administration has, in many cases, promoted and subsidized?

Photo: wakejunkie/Flickr

Anybody else catch the Discovery Channel's 2-hour special on global warming on Sunday night?  It recapped the many problems we can expect to see from global warming: potential death for millions of people, millions more forced to move as coastal cities are permanently flooded, extinction for many species of plants and animals, more frequent severe weather events like forest fires, hurricanes and tornadoes, and positive feedback loops that reinforce the warming. It all would sort of a change life as we've come to know it - for the worse. Complete transformation of the planet: Every other issue sort of pales in comparison, and it makes one wonder, how can we be concerned about anything else?

A matter of this magnitude ought to guide every single public policy decision, starting 10 years ago. Urban planners in particular should be on the forefront of finding ways to reduce emission of greenhouse gases by encouraging the creation or revitalization of walkable, transit-served cities, and by reducing automobile use in them.

Given global warming, the plan for a new Yankee Stadium -- one that increases the number of parking spaces by 75% (while reducing the number of seats) -- is absolutely bonkers. Yes, the plan has an unfunded commitment to construct a new Metro-North station, but the focus is clearly on increasing parking in a community that already suffers from high rates of asthma.

It is all the more incomprehensible because the new stadium will continue to sit atop the 161st Street station served by the B, D and 4 trains. Taking a train to the game is a more fun way to get to the game than driving is anyway: You feel the collective energy of the crowd well before you get to the stadium; leaving is a breeze on the subway compared to sitting in a parking garage motionless as you jocky for position against all the other ill-tempered motorists.

New Yorkers for Parks is reporting that the plan is approved, but a commenter notes that the IRS still need to approve the tax-exempt bonds.

Photo: Mikeystrike's "Post-Game Traffic" on Flickr