[NYguy]

http://www.observer.com/2010/politic...moon-%E2%80%A6

We Can Put a Man on the Moon …

By Eliot Brown
August 3, 2010

Douglas Durst had a plan for Governors Island.

The veteran commercial landlord, whose eponymous firm built the Bank of America Tower, wanted to adorn a piece of the flat ice-cream-cone-shaped spit off the tip of Lower Manhattan with a behemoth Ferris wheel, one akin to the London Eye that would give tourists and riders an unfettered and unrivaled panoramic city view. It was, according to multiple people familiar with the plans, to be an investment of upward of $100 million, and private investments are something the island has noticeably been without.

But before the plan could even see the light of day, it was, effectively, shelved for at least the next few years. This was due not to rejection of the concept - not to say everyone loved the idea - but due to the way in which the city in July grasped control of the island from the state.

In a legal and political twist, when the Bloomberg administration took over - a move that was made in an attempt to speed up development - it put in what could prove to be significant new barriers to any sort of quick development on the 172-acre, onetime Coast Guard base. Now, the island must go through the city's seven-month rezoning process, which in turn must follow the creation of a giant environmental impact statement, which, for large projects, can take multiple years to create. In the meantime, no permanent commercial development can be permitted-no long-term retail; no boutique hotels; and, certainly, no Ferris wheels. (A spokesman for the Durst Organization declined to comment.)

The irony in all of this is that in jettisoning the state, with all its ever-frustrating bureaucracy and constant fiscal quandaries, the city lost the one entity that also had the ability to override the zoning. The city's process, until complete, is filled with uncertainty—and uncertainty is a developer's kryptonite. A state override, by contrast, gives developers far more confidence about the end result (this is in large part because there is less public input), allowing them more chances to ready plans and line up financing during public review. And long periods of uncertainty on an island that is still seeking a place in the minds of most New Yorkers, of course, would seem to present another obstacle to its eventual development.