The purpose of the effort, which saw its first meeting Friday, is to recommend a more formalized process of creating "community benefits agreements," in which developers seeking public approvals strike deals with a collection of community groups and labor. The process surrounding the agreements has been criticized for its lack of consistency and for an inherent capriciousness in the spreading of benefits, among other complaints.

"Things sound great at the initial announcement once private entities get public subsidies, and then a few years later it's much harder to see that they actually materialize," Mr. Liu said Friday.

Mr. Liu is making this an early issue in his tenure—an interesting choice given that a CBA is not something that would customarily fall under the purview of the comptroller. (The comptroller has a vote on many tax incentives, but not on land-use decisions.) While the chairs on the task force represent an array of interests, the membership of the broader commission has a lefty bent, with representation from all the major unions on development issues (the Hotel and Motel Trades, SEIU 32BJ, the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union, and the Building Trades); affordable housing groups such as the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development; and small business advocates such as lobbyist Richard Lipsky.

The commission has been charged with making its recommendations in the next six months.

The announcement comes days after the Association of the Bar of New York City put out a thorough report on CBAs, criticizing the process by which they are typically formed. The Bar Association recommended a task force, but one convened by Mayor Bloomberg (who, of course, would be more empowered to enact recommendations than Mr. Liu, who would not have a vote on any necessary legislation).

ebrown@observer.com

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CBAs proliferated in recent years, particularly in the late real estate boom, as community groups and elected officials rushed to try to wrest concessions and mitigations from developers who may or may not be financially prepared to shower a bounty on the community. The use of CBAs has been criticized, in part because of the somewhat arbitrary manner in which they are formed (there is no standard for which groups end up being signatories in a CBA or participate in the negotiations with a developer, for instance), and the offerings from developers may not necessarily benefit the larger public interest, but rather just assuage a certain small constituency that happens to be negotiating the CBA.

CBAs have popped up at Atlantic Yards, Columbia University's planned West Harlem expansion, and recently at the Kingsbridge Armory development in the Bronx, which was voted down by the City Council after the requirement of a "living" wage became a make-or-break for the elected officials involved.

The well-researched Bar Association's report piles on more criticism and suggests that the tit-for-tat linking of a council land-use approval with a CBA is improper, if not illegal, given that developers are effectively buying zoning changes by paying certain community groups.

It recommends that the city lead a discussion on how to adjust or standardize CBAs, and to formally separate them from the land-use approval process.

From the report:

"The goal is appropriate, but the history of such tools shows that negotiations between developers on the one hand, and either land use officials or community groups on the other, may lead to real or perceived conflicts of interest, compromise land use approval processes, and foster rent-seeking. CBAs accordingly must be carefully circumscribed."

The report, which comes as City Comptroller John Liu is organizing a committee to propose changes to the CBA process, also suggests reconsidering the manner in which communities are involved in land-use approvals, as the boom in CBAs could be attributed to a lack of voice that many community groups feel they have throughout the process.

"Community involvement is a good thing," said Ken Fisher, an attorney at Cozen O'Connor and a former councilman who chairs the Bar Association's land-use committee, "but the vehicle that's written into the land-use process—namely the community boards— doesn't necessarily meet all of the needs, and that's why these ad-hoc agreements have sprung up."

The full report is here. 

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