Development, Development Everywhere

Adrianne Shropshire

Development, Development Everywhere

From Brooklyn to the Bronx, from Queens to Yonkers the bustling business of development is thriving. But we've come up with too few answers to the inherent tensions that exist in growth and economic development - who should pay for it, what do we get for our financial investment, what's the real impact on local communities, and who get's to decide.

The sheer scale of the public subsidies that are doled out to private, incredibly wealthy developers should intensify our efforts to come up with good progressive answers to the questions. What we've managed to come up with is a well-known tool called the community benefits agreement or CBA, not to be confused with a collective bargaining agreement or CBA. CBA's have been used all over the country to extract compensation or benefits for local communities that are being disrupted by large-scale development and as a defense against development gone wild.

CBA's in the hands of self-organized community coalitions have won important benefits for local communities but CBA's in the hands of developers looking for good PR are dangerous. As we look at the ongoing controversy surrounding the Bronx Terminal Market and numerous developments in Yonkers and related subsidy abuse we must ask ourselves are CBA's always the best answer and who should be leading the process?

Legislating CBA's has to be part of the answer. Taking key segments in CBA's out of the arbitrary negotiation process and making them public policy should be one goal. There is no negotiating over job quality. Wage and benefit standards are non-negotiable. Prevailing wage and living wage shouldn't even be on the table. Environmental standards and containing sprawl are non-negotiable. Local hiring is non-negotiable. A clear role for community residents in the decision-making process is non-negotiable. Setting a floor will allow local communities to focus their negotiations on other desperately needed community benefits like affordable housing, childcare centers, open space, etc.

Now, to be sure there are countless other issues to be addressed including what's the compensation for those who lose like homeowners in downtown Brooklyn or small businesses in greenpoint/Williamsburg that no longer fit into the rezoned vision of the neighborhood. But establishing conditions as public policy that set the parameters for our expectations for developments that receive public money will take us a long way toward comprehensive, inclusive economic benefits for all.

Adrianne Shropshire: Author Bio | Other Posts
Posted at 9:49 AM, Feb 10, 2006 in Community Development
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Comments

You missed one important point, the CBAs undermine community coalitions that want to absolutely stop a project. Some -- many -- development projects will essentiallt destroy communities even if scaled down. It's not just the WS stadium or Atlantic Yards. Some things should just not happen at all and groups that come in and say, well, he's giving so many jobs to minorities, or so many units of affordable housing (without even considering the net loss of jobs or housing), are at best political paws and dupes, or more likely those who are willing to destroy communities for their own agendas.

Your post says there's a price for my business, or my home. It presupposes misuse of eminent domain or other tools.

This is the liberal (not the progressive) agenda. Too bad Acorn, WFP and most hack democrat elected officials are buying into such nonsense.

Well, if CBAs were codified, and made a mandatory part of all economic development projects, they would be automatic and thus would not undermine groups fighting particular projects.

Of course that's baloney. The CBA's would simply go from the likes of Bertha Lewis to community boards and the BP. And of course, as any good CB person knows, you don't vote against the wished of your BP (at least not too often). The BPs just love all those developer dollars. It also raises the question whether CBA should be part of initial negotiations on any project ... as that simply begs the question, what is your price to make it happen. It ingores the question if something should not happen at all. Even if one realizes that a negotiated agreement will happen at the end of the day, the stupid ones will put it on the table at the beginning. A required CBA, whether by charter or otherwise, simply adds a price tag. Erik, the perfume from Greg David is getting to you.

Of course, that is NOT baloney. Creating a floor from which communities can negotiate up from is far from baloney. Communities should not have to begin a CBA process with the expectation of nothing. They should begin with some basic minimum standards and from there negotiate with developers for other community needs.

Yes, there is indeed a price tag. And the framework for the price tag should be determined by communities. The important point you have missed is the question of power. As communities continue to organize the power necessary to actually stop development (power we do not currently have) we must demonstrate the power that we do have. And that power should be demonstrated to developers, community boards, BPs, city councils, and mayors. Individual CBA's are good an overarching policy will be better.

You're speaking theoreticals, which has little to do with the real world, and has little to do with the people that actually live in a community -- as opposed to some class defined by economic standing or race. Having actually stopped some horrible projects, I know that the codification or expectation of CBAs is, in essence, giving away one's leverage at the outset. The only reason to want CBAs is if you expect to lose and want the crumbs. People who live in these neighborhoods are really tired of these ideological organizations coming in from the outside and preaching.

Anonymous | February 21, 2006 05:32 PM
I'm not sure what about Adrianne's post indicates that an outside, ideological group is going to come in from the outside and try to influence things. I know you are refering to ACORN and this is what happened in Downtown but there are examples in NYC of situations where the community groups leading the negotiations were from within the community.

Did we get what we wanted? Well that's another story. But we didnt have our 197a process invaded by outside interests

Acorn in Atlantic Yards is but one example, and Acorn is not the only group trying to influence from the outside. Also on Manhattan's West Side, in Williamsburg, in Harlem and so on. Acorn in AY is more direct, but Acorn has been pushing a city-wide agenda through it's inclusionary zoning agenda.

As for groups from within the community, well that's another story. You have to ask about the make-up, the intentions and the political backing of some of these groups. For example, in AY, the group BUILD is essentially financed by Ratner. Some of those people do come from Brooklyn, even near AY, but it's not really grass-roots. In Williamsburg, Vito Lopez had his hand, as he always does, in some of the 'concerned citizenry.' And on Manhattan's West Side, even putting aside the Madison Sq. Garden financing of the stadium opposition, it was well-known that Councilmember Quinn's so-called opposition group was actually promoting the Hudson Yards skyscrapers. Quinn excluded the grass-roots community groups, and she even introduced the zoning resolution calling for all they skyscrapers, so the notion of a CBA was a hoax.