Sheldon Silver
(D-Manhattan)

Depending on whom you ask, Silver is either a total killjoy or a voice of reason amidst a cacophony of development-happy politicos and citizens’ groups.

The speaker sees himself as a mixture of pragmatist and moralist. His number one priority, he says, is downtown revitalization.

Along with the governor and State Senate majority leader, Silver sits on the Public Authority Control Board, an obscure yet powerful agent charged with evaluating the economic merit and security of large private projects. All three board members must agree before giving any project the go-ahead. Silver used his power to abstain to block the West Side Stadium Project.

While saying that he considers every project on its own merits, Silver has a reputation for extending extra consideration to downtown New York, especially his Lower East Side district, even to the detriment of the rest of the city.

Silver maintains that developing the stadium would have created undue competition against downtown revitalization.

“Ultimately, 75 years from now, I believe that New Yorkers are going to need 60-75 million more square feet of office space, but the issue now is how fast we can rebuild downtown,” he said. “What we really don’t want is anything going on at the same time that would compete with that.”

But many supporters of the stadium suggested that he was simply protecting the interests of his backers, including Cablevision.

Silver has a reputation for holding his cards close to his chest when it comes to major votes and for being prickly with lobbyists and fellow Assembly members offering advice. He also is known for “member items” targeting his Lower East Side district. With 7.2 million state dollars funneled into pork projects, many of them on the Lower East Side, his 2006 expenditures on pork were about 100 times those of his fellow Democrats.

Projects he has supported: Atlantic Yards, Hudson Yards rezoning, Javits Center expansion (as long as it remained separate from West Side Stadium plans), general downtown revitalization Projects he has opposed: Moynihan Station, Far West Side Jets Stadium

Philosophy regarding proposals for building and development: “I’m looking for something that I think promotes the economy of New York, something that will be consistent with the moral obligation of restoring lower Manhattan, and nothing should be done to deter the restoring of that. I think we have a moral obligation to the victims of 9/11 to go forward full-blast.”

—Leah Nelson

Eliot Spitzer
Governor (D)

Spitzer has never thought small. As an antitrust lawyer, he helped win a multi-billion-dollar settlement on behalf of all U.S. merchants who accepted Visa and MasterCard; as attorney general, he took on Wall Street and insurance brokers. As governor, his vision for building and development is no less grand.

Spitzer has only been in office since January, but major developments are already underway. One of the governor’s chief campaign promises was to focus revitalization efforts on upstate New York, a long-neglected region that he once compared to Appalachia.

Before starting his term, the governor announced that he planned to split the Empire State Development Corporation, the state agency that oversees all New York building and development, into two branches: one for upstate and one for downstate.

The agency has always been seated downstate, and upstate New Yorkers have long complained that it is out of touch with their region’s economic needs and reality. The upstate division, which has already garnered enthusiasm from some and skepticism from others, will be seated in Buffalo.

The governor calls reform his number one priority, saying that prosperity and regeneration will be impossible without it. In this vein, he will revise the “member items” system by which individual legislators are able to funnel state money to pet projects, enforcing greater investigation into whether pork projects are genuinely in the public interest.

To the extent that pork projects revolve around building and development, genuine reform of this system could hugely impact the prospects for building and development in districts that have been blessed with powerful, pork-packing senators and representatives.

Projects he has supported: St Regis Mohawk Casino in the Catskills, $230 million purchase of Farley Complex on 33rd Street to expand Penn Station while creating office towers and building a new arena, Freedom Tower and downtown revitalization, redevelopment of brownfields (abandoned industrial areas located mostly upstate), Peace Bridge expansion

Projects he has opposed: None yet.

Philosophy regarding building and development: In his State of the State address, Spitzer said, “Our first objective is to reform our government … because if our state is to prosper again we need a government that is a catalyst for change instead of an impediment”. Spitzer spokesperson Jennifer Givner added that every proposal for development will be scrutinized carefully. “Part of the governor’s core belief is that money can’t just be handed out,” she said.

—Leah Nelson

Dan Doctoroff
Deputy Mayor for Economic
Development and Rebuilding

A former investment banker whose city salary is a dollar a year, Dan Doctoroff has played a key role in the Bloomberg Administration’s dozens of development projects from the Greenpoint-Williamsburg waterfront to lower Manhattan to the Bronx Terminal Market. He refuses to elevate any one project above the rest, though some might say the 2005 Hudson Yards rezoning will have the greatest long-term impact.

An outgrowth of Doctoroff’s failed attempt to attract the 2012 Olympics to New York, the rezoning set the stage for high-rise development on 310 acres of Manhattan’s previously derelict Far West Side. Doctoroff envisions a mix of residential, commercial and cultural development—a “21st-century Rockefeller Center,” perhaps—and predicts the area will yield $25 billion in city revenues over the next 25 to 30 years.

More recently, Doctoroff has led Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s (R) Sustainability Advisory Board, which will release a report next month featuring recommendations such as how to reclaim up to 1700 acres of polluted land and put it to productive use. He is also working on ways to accommodate the city’s projected population growth to 9 million over the next few decades through smarter use of space, investment in aging infrastructure and innovative environmental stewardship.

Doctoroff is known as an incredibly hard worker with a stubborn streak that gets results. Bloomberg has said that Doctoroff will ultimately have a greater impact on New York than Robert Moses, albeit while operating more democratically and with greater oversight. Doctoroff says the comparison is flattering, though the true credit is due to Bloomberg, whose vision he is working to execute.

Projects he has supported: Far West Side Jets Stadium, Hudson Yards rezoning, Greenpoint-Williamsburg rezoning, Atlantic Yards, Gateway Center at Bronx Terminal Market, many more

Projects he has opposed: [Would not say.]

Philosophy about building and development in New York: “We have very fundamental views about where the city is going and what we need to achieve, including providing a diverse mix of office space in a diverse number of locations. We have, on the residential side, major concerns about affordability. … We have very concrete targets for what we believe we need to get built over time and so that sets what I’d call the strategic framework for any individual project. And then what we’re looking for is a function of design. It is a function of how it helps to achieve those broader strategic objectives, how it enhances the vitality of the city, how it acts as a catalyst to other development that may take place.”

—Daniel Weiss

Ken Fisher
Partner in Real Estate and Land
Use Practice Groups, WolfBlock
Former City Council Member
(D-Brooklyn), Chair of Land Use Subcommittee on Landmarks,
Public Siting and Maritime Uses

As a City Council Member, Ken Fisher fought to preserve the residential character of Greenpoint-Williamsburg, helping to block incinerators, power plants and waste transfer stations proposed for its waterfront. Since being term limited out of office in 2001, he has remained a key player in the neighborhood’s development, marshaling support for the massive rezoning plan approved by the Council in 2004, which cleared the way for increased residential development, and representing developers there—as well as throughout the city—as a real estate and land use lawyer with WolfBlock.

Starting with the rezoning, Fisher has pulled off a series of impressive coups. In 2005, he convinced the Council to reject the landmarking of a Cass Gilbert warehouse in Williamsburg—over the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s recommendation and Mayor Bloomberg’s veto. Last year, he convinced the Council to approve a long-delayed rezoning of the Kedem Winery in Williamsburg. And, though he tends to turn down opposition work, he helped Green-Wood Cemetery put the brakes on a condo project that would have blocked a view of the Statue of Liberty.

Preservation groups that lauded Fisher for his work on the Council (where he chaired the subcommittee overseeing landmarks) were stung by his efforts to develop the Cass Gilbert warehouse, but Fisher is unapologetic. He calls his opposition to the landmarking a “Nixon-goes-to-China moment” and argues that developing the warehouse and the rest of the rezoned area in Greenpoint-Williamsburg is part of a “strategic plan” to ensure Brooklyn thrives in the future.

With a hand in many projects there and elsewhere, Ken Fisher will continue to play a major role in charting that future, in or out of government.

Projects he has supported: Greenpoint-Williamsburg Rezoning, Kedem Winery Rezoning, Triangle Equities’s Flatbush Junction Retail Complex

Projects he has opposed: incinerator/power plant/waste transfer stations on Greenpoint-Williamsburg waterfront, condos near Green-Wood Cemetery

Philosophy about building and development: “No matter how benign a project is in New York, it’s going to ruffle somebody’s feathers, but just because that’s true doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be sensitive to the fact that you’re changing somebody’s quality of life,” Fisher said. “To you, building a building may be creating jobs and housing and wealth, but to the person who’s got to live with the construction debris next door, it may be a different story.”

—Daniel Weiss

Robert Lieber
President, New York City Economic Development Corporation

Before being appointed to head the Economic Development Corporation by Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) in January, Robert Lieber spent 23 years at Lehman Brothers, specializing most recently in private equity investment in real estate assets and companies.

Last year, he was one of a group of volunteers from the firm that advised the city on how to handle the lease for the World Trade Center site. Though he had no previous plans or aspirations to work in the public sector, he came away from the experience with newfound respect for what government could achieve.

Now he is charged with using the government’s power to help promote economic growth through a variety of means including the administration of vacant city-owned property and the encouragement of projects that put underused property to more remunerative use. He emphasizes the importance of developing growth outside Manhattan—and the corporation has a role in a number of major outer-borough projects.

Among them is the Downtown Brooklyn Plan adopted in 2004, which aims to dramatically increase the commercial office and retail space as well as available housing in the city’s third largest business district. In Queens, plans for Flushing Commons include a hotel, residential units and retail space. Nearby, Willets Point is projected to have its infrastructure upgraded to ready it for development. And the stagnant Bronx Terminal Market will be torn down to make way for Gateway Center, an 18-acre plot including plenty of retail space and a park on the Harlem River waterfront.

Though still a new arrival, Lieber is clearly enthusiastic about his work with the Bloomberg Administration.

“What is it, a thousand and thirty-six days left in this mayor’s administration?” he asks. “There’s a lot to do and not a lot of time to get it done in.”

Projects he has supported: Flushing Commons, Gateway Center at Bronx Terminal Market, Red Hook Piers 7-12 redevelopment, Hunts Point Vision Plan, New Stapleton Vision Plan, Sherman Creek Neighborhood Plan

Projects he has opposed: To date, none.

Philosophy about building and development: “What we’re trying to do is use our resources to take a view of the long-term needs of the city of New York,” Lieber said, “to promote growth in areas where we can create incentives to get people to diversify the businesses, as well as diversify the locations of those businesses.”

—Daniel Weiss

Robert Tierney
Chair, Landmarks Preservation Commission

In his four years as chairman of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, Robert Tierney has walked the sometimes difficult line between preserving landmarks and deferring to the city-wide trend toward development. Tierney lacks formal training in architecture or urban planning, and many in the preservation community have viewed him warily, but they were pleased and property owners were irked by one of his first controversial decisions—to create the Gansevoort Meat Market historic district.

In succeeding years, his commission’s refusal to hold a public meeting on whether 2 Columbus Circle, the “lollipop building,” deserved landmark status made it the target of preservationist protests and lawsuits. In 2005 the building was sold to the Museum of Arts and Design, which is in the process of significantly altering its distinctive facade.

Later in 2005, it was Tierney’s turn to grow outraged, as the City Council took the rare step of rejecting his commission’s recommendation of landmark status for two buildings in the space of a month. Many felt that the second of these, the Austin, Nichols & Company Warehouse in Williamsburg, deserved a special exemption from the Greenpoint-Williamsburg rezoning approved the year before.

In January, the commission blocked a proposed 22-story glass-and-steel tower from being built atop an Art Moderne low-rise at 980 Madison Avenue because it would not have fit in with the standards of the Upper East Side Historic District.

While the commission has been criticized in the past for focusing on Manhattan, under Tierney it has begun to shift its attention to the outer boroughs. The commission established the Fieldston Historic District in the Bronx last year and others are under consideration for Sunnyside, Queens and Crown Heights, Brooklyn. In addition, last year the commission completed a survey to identify landmark-worthy buildings on Staten Island, the fastest-growing county in the state.

Projects he has supported: Alteration of 2 Columbus Circle’s distinctive facade; did not support demolition of the Dakota Stables on the Upper West Side, but determined no legal status for landmarking

Projects he has opposed: Proposed tower at 980 Madison Avenue, addition to Austin, Nichols & Company Warehouse in Williamsburg

—Daniel Weiss

Melinda Katz
Chair, City Council Land Use Committee (D-Queens),
and Member of Advisory Council, Lower Manhattan Development Corporation

As chair of the City Council’s Land Use Committee, Katz has a vote on virtually every building and development project the city undertakes. She tries not to form opinions about projects prior to their arrival in committee, she said, because kinks that might initially have appeared problematic are often worked out by the time they cross her desk officially.

But as a former Legal Aid attorney who used to work on eviction cases, the tenant perspective on any proposal has a clear impact on her opinions. Affordable housing is one of her top priorities. She opposed allowing Wal-Mart to become an anchor store in Rego Park because of its reputation for low pay and for treating workers badly.

Katz sees the city as a collection of small communities, each with unique flavors and needs, and she tends to look askance at development proposals that would unduly wipe out large residential areas.

“Development is important for the city, but you also need places for people to live,” she said. “We are trying very hard to make everything balanced.” Katz supporters always cite her proactiveness as a politician and her involvement with the community she represents. But Katz does have a reputation for closeness with real estate developers, which has led some colleagues to question her integrity.

Projects she has supported: Rego Park rezoning, Bronx Terminal Market, Hudson Yards, Williamsburg-Greenpoint rezoning

Projects she has opposed: Bronx BJ’s Club, Wal-Mart at Rego Park

Philosophy about building and development in New York: “There needs to be a balance of different interests. On the one hand, there are small communities that people are proud of, but also, we are New York City and, people, thankfully, want to put their companies here,” Katz said. “It’s always a balancing act because [development] is part of the underpinnings of the economic revitalization that’s been going on in the last five years, while at the same time the committee prides itself on downzoning some communities because they need to remain pristine.”

—Leah Nelson

Amanda Burden
Chair, City Planning Commission,
and Director, City Planning Department

In her five years as head of city planning, Amanda Burden has overseen the city’s most extensive rezoning campaign in decades. The City Council has adopted 68 of her commission’s plans covering 4,600 blocks—and plans to rezone 2,300 more are in the works. The result makes way for the development of over 30 million square feet of new office space and 35,000 additional housing units, including many affordable ones.

Burden has also played an important role in preserving the High Line railroad bed as a park and in reducing the scale of the controversial Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn. A proposed rezoning of Jamaica, Queens, which will be voted on by Queens Community Boards 8 and 12 next month, would be the largest in the city’s history and would allow for the development of office space in the vicinity of the neighborhood’s Air Train station.

Despite the ambitious agenda, Burden is known for her meticulous, ground-level approach to zoning and for her insistence on high aesthetic standards. She spends many of her weekends walking the streets of neighborhoods under consideration for rezoning and calls this her favorite part of the job. Eschewing the “broad-brush” zoning of the past, her plans aim to concentrate development close to public transportation while discouraging it in areas dependent on cars, all while providing generous amounts of public space and waterfront access.

Burden has received criticism from both sides of the development debate: neighborhood groups argue that the immense 2004 Greenpoint-Williamsburg rezoning has unleashed a disruptive construction boom, while developers complain that she tends to micromanage projects, unduly imposing her own design principles. To the former, she replies that the rezoning will help preserve the neighborhood in the long run by imposing height caps on new buildings. To the latter, she says she is “unapologetic about our emphasis on design quality and architectural excellence” in all projects—from low-income housing to high-profile office buildings.

Projects she has supported: Greenpoint-Williamsburg Rezoning, Hudson Yards Rezoning, the High Line

Projects she has opposed: Burden has supported many "down-zonings" in areas such as Bay Ridge, Whitestone and City Island that have limited development.

Philosophy about building and development in New York: “The philosophy of the administration, and this is the philosophy of the mayor and it’s been implemented by Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff, is to make sure we have a five-borough policy for economic development, affordable housing, recapturing the waterfront and neighborhood preservation—and good design.”

—Daniel Weiss

Joseph Bruno
State Senate Majority Leader (R-Rennselaer)

In December 2006, the New York Times christened Bruno “king of legislative pork.” But to those privileged few that he showers with favor in the form of “member items” Bruno brings little but good news.

Regardless of the looming FBI investigation, the man that the Daily News designated “damaged goods” seems far from backing down. The consensus among fellow Republican senators is that Bruno’s power and popularity are such that it will take a lot more than a mere federal inquiry into his personal ventures to affect the Majority Leader’s momentum.

Though he is among the three members of the Public Authority Control Board, which makes decisions about development in the city, most of Bruno’s efforts are focused on the Capital region. Bruno says he hopes to improve upstate New York’s viability through hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives to high-tech companies and to infrastructure.

When it comes to building and development, the senator has a taste for local edifices that will hear his name, including a Minor League baseball stadium, a YMCA and the Albany International Airport, which displays a bust of the senator among its treasures.

Projects he has supported: Javits Center Expansion, Atlantic Yards, downtown revitalization, numerous Albany-based developments

Projects he has opposed: Moynihan Station, West Side Stadium

Philosophy on building and development: “He is looking at projects that will strengthen the economy of the state and the city and create jobs for New Yorkers,” said Bruno spokesman Mark Hansen, contending that, Bruno “really is open-minded to evaluating proposals for economic development and job expansion.”

—Leah Nelson

Patrick Foye
“Economic Czar” and Co-Chair, Empire State Development Corporation

Named “Economic Czar” and Downstate Chair of the Empire State Development Corporation by Eliot Spitzer, this government outsider has not wasted any time in getting down to business.

Like his boss, Foye puts due diligence high on his to-do list. Foye’s top priority is a strategic review of economic activities and improved results and accountability for the ESDC. To this end, the downstate branch is currently undertaking a top-to-bottom review of every project now underway, and recently voted to expand the environmental review of the Moynihan Station proposal.

Speaking for both himself and Foye, upstate Economic Czar and Empire State Development Corporation Chair Daniel Gunderson has said, “We need to change the mindset away from economic development being geared merely as doling out large bags of cash.”

Following Spitzer’s lead, Foye and Gunderson have self-imposed anti-conflict-of-interest measures upon themselves, promising not to invest in or do business with any person or entity doing business with the corporation for the duration of their terms.

The reason, Foye has said, is because he wants the ESDC to be an “open and level playing field for all those who want to do business in New York State.”

Projects he has supported: “Everything is under review right now,” said Foye’s spokesman Errol Cockfield. The board has approved $1.5 million to reconstruct the Bay Shore Marina, $50,000 for a salt shed in the village of East Hills, $250,000 to keep 1-800-FLOWERS and the 422 jobs it provides in Nassau County, and just over half a million dollars to expand several other downstate-based companies.

Project he has opposed: To date, none.

Philosophy on land use and development: Cockfield said the “goal is to use public resources and try to leverage those as much as possible to stimulate private investment, and to make sure that taxpayers get the best return on their investment.”

—Leah Nelson