Subsidies, Subsidies

More and more good government groups are beginning to question the unusual public largesse being earmarked for Related’s Bronx project. We would expect that there will be a considerable din raised at the June 27th City Council hearing about the scope of the public subsidies, now rumored to include Liberty Bonds, Brownfield money and IDA bond financing. It is the later source of funds that has inspired NY Jobs with Justice to promote legislation, sponsored in the Assembly by Richard Brodsky, that would require a full set of hearings on the economic impact of this financing. Of particular interest, of course, is the cost per job of all the public money going into a project.

In the case of the Bronx Terminal Market, we would like to know what the total incentive package comes to, and what kind of job payback (subtracting those jobs lost as a result of the project’s collateral damage to other businesses), emerges from all this public generosity.