CWW calls for all IDA's to be eliminated. These non accountable quasi-public agencies are dens of corruption. Urge that you contact your representatives to abolish all IDA from NYS.
(June 29, 2007) — ALBANY — Projects planned by nursing homes, associations for the handicapped and low-income housing providers are among those that could be jeopardized starting Sunday because of a squabble in the state Legislature over industrial development agencies.
The IDAs, quasi-public agencies whose main job is to provide low-cost financing and tax breaks to projects that generate new jobs, also assist nonprofit groups with construction projects.
But the law that allows them to help out those groups expires on Sunday. The Senate and Assembly couldn't agree on how to change the law, so they left the Capitol last week without adopting any legislation to extend that authority.
The Assembly sponsor of a measure to extend the authority for seven months, Local Governments Committee Chairman Sam Hoyt, D-Buffalo, said the next step is up to the Senate.
"If they pass the seven-month extender when they come back (to the Capitol) on July 16, no problem,'' Hoyt said.
But Hoyt's counterpart in the Senate, Elizabeth Little, R-Queensbury, Warren County, instead steered a bill through the Senate that extends the authority for two years.
"The Assembly needs to come back and pass my bill,'' she said, since seven months isn't enough time for projects to be completed.
Caught in the middle of this dispute are projects like a trio in Monroe County. They are the renovation of the Friendly Home, a nursing home in Brighton, the fixing up of two stores owned by the Association for the Blind in Brockport and Webster, and renovation of low-income housing owned by Ridgeview Special Needs in Irondequoit.
"If they don't have access to low-cost loans, these projects may have to be abandoned or scaled back,'' said Judy Seil, executive director of the County of Monroe Industrial Development Agency. She estimated the total value of those three projects at about $30 million.
More than $1.4 billion in total projects could be held up, said Brian McMahon of the state Economic Development Council, the IDA trade group. Hoyt said that authorization for the state's 117 IDAs to finance projects has been regularly renewed by the Legislature for years.
But this year he insisted on new provisions to make their operations more open and accountable and designed to encourage environmentally friendly construction.
JGALLAGH@Gannett.com
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