Chair of Community Board 5 reportedly attacks City Council decision on 15 Penn Plaza

An article yesterday by former Parks Commissioner Henry J. Stern at huffingtonpost.com noted that the chair of Community Board 5 was not amused by the August 26, 2010 vote of the City Council, 46 to 1, to approve five variances to permit Vornado Realty Trust to erect an office tower of about 1,200 feet on the site of the Hotel Pennsylvania on Seventh Avenue between 32nd and 33rd Streets.

According to Mr. Stern, the chair, Vikki Barbero, made the following "penetrating comments::

"The ULURP process has ended and the Council has made its final determination. We remain distressed and dismayed, however, by the level of discussion and debate both in the media and at the Council.

"The issue before the Council was not principally about women and minority employment, as important as this issue continues to be in all job areas. Yet, if you were present for the Council debate you would have thought it was at the heart of the matter being voted on. The issue before the Council was not about a battle between two major real estate developers, as many press reports made it out.

"The issue before the Council was not about the need to foster jobs during this bad economic climate, for even the developer admits they won't be building for years to come. Yet, a number of our political leaders used that bogus argument as an excuse to support the project.

"And the issue before the Council was certainly not about sticking it to the Empire State Building because it failed to light up for Mother Teresa....

"One development should not be permitted to set a bad precedent for the next, as we believe this one does by upzoning an entire block without a rationale and with limited resultant public benefit. A city as dense as ours, with so many competing interests, needs to thoughtfully and inclusively plan for its future and not let one wealthy and powerful developer override that process.

"That was the debate that was entirely missing this week both in most of the media and, even worse, at the City Council. We were disheartened and discouraged by its absence."

Mr. Stern, who is president of New York Civic, declared in his column that "Ms. Barbero is spot on," adding that "On this one, the CPC was clearly in the tank, abandoning its customary guardianship and attention to size, taste and design in its eagerness to approve the tower."

"We believe," he continued, "that what happened in this case is a textbook example of unsound public policy, favoritism to a particular extremely well-connected developer, and lack of regard for the future of the commercial neighborhood around Penn and Moynihan Stations.....This is a case of the city making an extraordinary gift, probably worth hundreds of millions of dollars, to one of its richest and most influential developers. It is a top-down decision, clearly made at City Hall and not by the Planning Commission, which should have been embarrassed at the tricks they had to turn."

"It is commonplace," Mr. Stern concluded, "to denounce the bungling, self-serving scoundrels of Albany, who are a continuing embarrassment to the State of New York. But what does one say for municipal decision makers when their motive is not corrupt, but uncaring reliance upon the paternal supposition that money knows best."