[NYguy]

^ If it's going to be that horrible, it makes you wonder why any Amazon employee wouldn't just buy up one of the many coming apartments in short walking distance.



http://gothamist.com/2018/12/18/amazon_bqx_myth.php

Amazon Can't Close The BQX's Giant Budget Hole





BY NEIL DEMAUSE
DEC 18, 2018

Almost from the second Amazon announced it would be opening a new campus on the Long Island City waterfront, talk began that this could be just the thing to revive Mayor Bill de Blasio's long-stalled Brooklyn-Queens Connector streetcar project. Friends of the BQX, the developer-funded nonprofit set up to promote the light rail line, issued an immediate press release declaring that Amazon's arrival meant it was time to "fast-track" the project. Word of a city-backed "infrastructure fund" for the project's environs sparked speculation that some of that cash could be dedicated to helping revive the streetcar. And last week, Queens Borough President Melinda Katz threw in a demand that Jeff Bezos should pay out of his own pocket for the streetcar — which Katz redubbed "QBX" in a bit of pandering to borough pride.

A look at the numbers, though, shows that even if Amazon's arrival has perked up interest in BQX, it won't do much to solve the project's biggest problem: money. Nearly three years after it was first announced, the streetcar plan is still saddled with a budget hole in the billions, and no easy way to fill that gap.

While Amazon's presence may heighten interest in adding more Long Island City transit options, it won't do much to feed the value capture kitty. If anything, Amazon-spawned development may boost waterfront property values to the point where no amount of scenic trolleys can increase tax revenues any further. “There’s not a whole lot of value to be ‘created’ in these areas where land is already very expensive, near its maximum value the market will pay,” Fischer tells Gothamist.

The one potential pool of cash that the Amazon deal would provide is that "infrastructure fund," which according to the city's Memorandum of Understanding with the company can be used for "streets, sidewalks, utility relocations, environmental remediation, public open space, transportation, schools and signage" elsewhere in the neighborhood. As Amazon won't pay property taxes on its state-owned land, the company will instead make payments in lieu of property taxes, or PILOTs, to the city; half of these, in turn, will be siphoned off and placed in the infrastructure fund.

https://licpost.com/questions-raised...-rezoning-plan

Questions Raised Over Plaxall Site in State-Run Amazon Plan




An outline of the sites making up the General Project Plan as part of Amazon’s headquarters project. Amazon plans on building over the sites outlined in red. The site outlined in green, known as “block C” will move through the upzoning process despite not being part of Amazon’s headquarters.

The topic was among many brought up during last week’s city council oversight hearing, titled “exposing the closed-door process” in part, for its goal in revealing details about how the Amazon HQ2 decision came to be.

Speaker Corey Johnson laid out the provisions for Plaxall’s “block C,” bordered by 46th Avenue and 46th Road along 5th Street, that were worked into the Amazon deal during the hearing: The block’s commercial space allowance, for one, would increase to about four times more that what is currently allowed under zoning.

The upzoning, meanwhile, would be at the hands of the state, with no city council review.

“Not only is Plaxall getting Amazon as a tenant on land they own,” Johnson said at the hearing. “They are also getting a windfall in the form of a huge upzoning without having to lift a finger and work with the city council.”

Johnson also said that the increased commercial allowance in the non-Amazon block to about 800,000 square feet translates to “an office building with roughly the same floor area as the Chrysler Building.” But any construction on the Plaxall site, however, will be limited to a height that is roughly a third of the Manhattan skyscraper’s.

James Patchett, president of the Economic Development Corporation, the city agency involved in the HQ2 process, said the Plaxall block was added to the state’s General Project Plan process because of prior plans for the Anable Basin site and a desire to keep continuity.

Last year, at around the same time Amazon embarked on its HQ2 search, Plaxall announced its massive plan to rezone 15 acres of land at Anable Basin—where it owns several plots—and potentially bring about up to 5,000 apartments and thousands of square feet of commercial and manufacturing space.

The Plaxall properties under the now-scrapped rezoning plan included what is now referred to as “block C,” along with the two parcels where Amazon will build part of its offices.

“We felt that it still made sense to keep them as part of a single approval process,” Patchett said, who later added, “We made it possible for [Plaxall] to build commercial space, which we very much hope will be related to the project in the sense that we hope that other companies will locate near them.”

It’s unclear, however, what Plaxall’s exact development plans are for this site, but the result will either be a project with more than 500,000 square feet of residential space or up to 800,000 square feet of commercial space.

Criticism of the property’s inclusion, while eliciting seething statements during the hearing, already began heating up in the days after Amazon’s official HQ2 announcement last month. Community Board 2’s Land Use Committee, for example, raised questions about the extra Plaxall parcel in the mix when deliberating over Amazon’s project in its Nov. 20 meeting.

“There’s no reason for them to be part of the GPP,” said Lisa Deller, land use chair, said at the meeting. “That’s favored treatment, certainly.”

But in response to Van Bramer’s comments, the EDC said it rejects the premise that the addition of the Plaxall block in the process is unethical and a public good to the developer.

An EDC spokesperson, echoing Patchett’s statements at the hearing, said the decision constitutes smart urban planning and responds to demands heard from the community over implementing comprehensive planning at the waterfront.

It also allows for Plaxall and Amazon to figure out whether the property will be needed for expansion or related uses, the spokesperson said.