A draft proposal from City Comptroller John Liu issued this week "has immediately stoked concerns among city officials, some real estate executives and others" that it would add cost and time to the city's land-use review procedures and "community benefits agreements," according to an article today by Eliot Brown at wsj.com

A task force commissioned by Mr. Lieu is "poised to call for a major change in the way that the city determines what amenities," such as affordable housing, schools, job training and parks, "to extract from real estate developers in exchange for approving their plans."

According to the article, the proposal recommends that "new groups made up of community representatives - and monitored by the comptroller - negotiate benefit deals with developers involving major rezoning decisions."

"Currently," it continued, "there's no formalized way in which these deals are made....Under the comptroller's proposal, the City Council would still get to vote on the zoning decision. But the negotiations with the developer for parks, affordable housing, job training or other benefits would be removed from the council because they would be completed months before the zoning vote."

The article noted that "benefits agreements struck on projects such as Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards and the Columbia University expansion have been criticized as being inconsistent, unpredictable, unenforceable, and possibly illegal. Those are typically negotiated with input from the City Council during the rezoning process."

"A city official said the Bloomberg administration would oppose the recommendations as drafted, saying it would hinder investment and marginalize the roles of elected officials and community boards. Council Speaker Christine Quinn has expressed concerns about the legality of the proposals, according to a person familiar with her position," the article said.

"The responsible course of action is to ensure that [community benefit agreements conform to clear standards and are guided by the principles of accountability, transparency and enforceability," the report said, according to the article.

An April 28, 2010 article by Terry Pristin in The New York Times noted that "Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg suffered an embarrassment last December when the City Council rejected a major developer's plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars transforming an unused armory in the Bronx, the city's poorest borough, into a shopping mall."

"The Kingsbridge Armory project collapsed - and the Bronx lost the prospect of hundreds of jobs - after the developer, the Related Companies, declined to require its tenants to pay a so-called living wage of at least $10 an hour and benefits. The wage minimum was one of several concessions sought by a coalition of 19 community, religious and labor organizations in exchange for supporting the project - to be formalized in a pact known as a community benefits agreement, or C.B.A. The coalition argued that since the mall would get public subsidies, the workers should be able to earn enough to support their families. But Related said dictating to retailers what they must pay workers would make it impossible to find tenants or financing. Over the years the Bloomberg administration's view of community benefits agreements has evolved from warm support in connection with a number of projects, including Yankee Stadium, to adamant opposition."

"Now," the article continued, "in a report that is likely to have considerable influence on policy makers, the New York City Bar Association has urged the city to stop allowing community benefits agreements to be part of the zoning approval process. The report warns, among other things, that the agreements could create an opportunity for corruption."

The Bloomberg administration helped foster the agreements for projects like the Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn; the Gateway Center at Bronx Terminal Market, a Related Companies project; and the expansion of Columbia University.