Belmont arena rendering (rendering: Sterling Project Development)
Delayed appraisal, dubious benefits analysis, interest-free financing complicate rosy outlook
Three lessons from the long battle over Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park and the Barclays Center in Brooklyn are that promises of huge financial benefits deserve skepticism, that independent studies trump promotional ones, and that scenarios should be presented as a range of outcomes, rather than just the best case.
Unfortunately, those lessons have been ignored regarding the new sports-and-entertainment arena complex planned at Belmont Park in western Nassau County, with the New York Islanders as anchor tenant and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, surely anticipating a big ribbon-cutting in 2021, as the chief cheerleader.
The near-final step toward approval of “the transformational $1.26 billion Belmont Park Redevelopment Project” came in a Cuomo press release July 8 announcing that a new Long Island Rail Road station would help serve the project, which also includes a hotel and “luxury outlet stores.” (That retail, as I explain below, might be the priority for the Islanders’ owners.)
The press release came with a chorus of praise—the new station might lessen the likelihood of arena-related traffic chaos—but left seeds for doubt.
Unfortunately, as the project comment period ends August 1 and approval votes loom soon after, the Cuomo administration has obfuscated public assistance for the station and an overall deal that gives the developers the project land essentially rent-free, while presenting an economic benefits analysis with glaring gaps, and delaying the delivery of promised data.
Who’s paying for the station?
The estimated cost of the station is $105 million. According to the press release, “The arena developer will cover $97 million— 92 percent of the total cost — and the State will invest $8 million.” The developer is New York Arena Partners, or NYAP, involving Sterling Equities, the Scott Malkin Group (Islanders’ owners), Madison Square Garden, and the Oak View Group.
That scenario was belied by a “Fiscal and Economic Benefits” report attached to the Final Environmental Impact Statement (or Final EIS), which said NYAP would initially contribute $30 million for that new station, then pay $67 million over the course of 30 years.
That sounds like the equivalent of interest-free financing, a huge bonus for the developer. Unfortunately for the public, Newsday, Long Island’s dominant newspaper, initially accepted Cuomo’s framing, while an editorial columnist echoed Cuomo’s take, gaining an enthusiastic tweet from a spokesperson for Empire State Development (ESD), Cuomo’s economic development authority, who essentially called alternative explanations fake news.
By contrast, Neil deMause, writing in Gothamist, estimated that the financing offered a $33 million public bonus to the developers.
To me, it recalled the 2009 deal in which Forest City Ratner, which had bid $100 million for the right to build over the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Vanderbilt Yard in Brooklyn, negotiated relaxed terms: permission to put $20 million down (for the parcel necessary for the Barclays Center), then pay, over 21 years, the equivalent of $80 million in 2009 dollars: approximately $173 million, at an implied 6.5% interest rate.
Four days after Cuomo’s announcement, Newsday reported that NYAP was, in fact, getting the equivalent of interest-free financing for the station, and was essentially getting the entire 43-acre site in exchange for payments being reinvested into project infrastructure. One sports economist quoted in the story thought the rail deal was fair while another thought the deal might stimulate the economy, even if the land was a bargain.
New public revenue?
I have more doubts, and not just because of Cuomo’s record on transparency. Consider: the ESD board meeting July 8 to accept the Final EIS was scheduled with exactly one business day’s notice, a decision that provoked project opponents to protest to the Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE).
According to Cuomo’s press release, the state-commissioned analysis “found the new arena, hotel and retail village will generate nearly $50 million in new public revenue per year and produce $725 million in annual economic output” (spending, apparently).
Sure, building on underutilized land adds significant jobs and tax revenues, especially from the retail, but Cuomo’s numbers deserve scrutiny rather than blind endorsement.
The state's fiscal estimates ignore the cost of additional public services and infrastructure, as well as the value of various tax exemptions. Unbiased agencies, like the New York City Independent Budget Office, typically weigh benefits and costs. The watchdog group Reinvent Albany has asked ESD for an analysis of Belmont subsidies, without results. (In Streetsblog, Reinvent Albany also raised several questions about the new train station, including operating costs and cost overruns.)
Moreover, the report by BJH Advisors performed for Cuomo doesn’t consider “whether the spending and jobs are moving from one site presently in New York State to the new project location.” That’s said to be reasonable, “given the type and unique nature of the retail uses and the newly generated demand for hotel and accommodation services.”
Maybe, but that excludes the nearby Nassau Coliseum, clearly an arena rival, as explained below.
The new luxury outlet mall
And if, as the state says, “there are currently no direct comparable development [sic] to Value Retail's luxury outlet product within the United States,” shouldn’t the developers of such high-end retail be paying for the land?
We haven’t heard much about Value Retail, founded by Islanders’ co-owner Malkin, but Belmont would represent the first United States example of a successful European chain, of which Bicester Village, not far from London, is now the United Kingdom’s second-busiest attraction and generates more sales per square foot than any retail outlet in the world.
Consider: at 315,000 square feet, if Belmont achieves sales at $2,000 per square foot, that means annual revenue of $630 million, and big success for Value Retail, which typically charges brands 12.5% of sales: meaning $78.8 million in annual rent given that estimated revenue. (Is $2,000 per square foot realistic? Well, sales at less-exclusive Woodbury Common, as of early 2018, were $1,624 per square foot, and Bicester achieved sales of $4,000 per square foot, as of 2016. Even at Woodbury Common results, the Belmont numbers would be formidable.)
No wonder Value Retail founder Malkin has let Islanders’ co-owner Jon Ledecky be the public face of the project.
Rent goes back into the project
Beyond the rail station financing and tax breaks, the Cuomo administration has figured out how to mask significant public help for what was long portrayed as an “entirely privately funded” project. (Now, I suppose it’s “almost entirely privately funded.”)
Along with that initial $30 million payment for the station, NYAP will pay $20 million upfront for Project Site infrastructure. However, these payments fulfill the developer’s seemingly sweet land lease: announced at just $40 million to control 43 acres for 49 years.
So, instead of paying New York for the site, that money—plus an extra $10 million—goes back into the project.
What about the appraisal?
Is the land worth just $40 million (or even $50 million)? The annual payment, per acre, is but 10 percent of the cost paid for the right to build a “racino” at Aqueduct, another racetrack. In March 2018, ESD promised the Village Voice an appraisal would be done before “the conclusion of the environmental review in 2019.”
Apparently appraisals exist. ESD, in the Response to Comments Chapter of the Final EIS released July 8, said that “The transaction between ESD and the Applicant is a fair market transaction confirmed by appraisals received by ESD.”
However, ESD has not released them. Despite that July 8 statement, Newsday reported five days later that an appraisal would be complete “in the coming weeks”—just in time for the final approval votes.
The Belmont process suffers from opacity, as I’ve written. A rival bidder for the site withdrew in 2017, citing (to Long Island Business News) “extraordinary requirements, preconditions and reviews” that pointed to a wired deal for a hockey arena; LIBN’s editor opined that the state “only solicited proposals tailor-made for the Islanders and their well-heeled backers.”
Impact on the Coliseum
The claim that spending and jobs won’t move within the state has a huge blind spot: the county-owned Nassau Coliseum, less than ten miles away. The state review fudges the new arena’s likely devastating impact on the Islanders’ former (and now part-time) home, which, after being downsized and renovated, seats only 13,900 for hockey—too small for the National Hockey League—and up to 15,000 for concerts.
The new arena would seat 18,000 for hockey and up to 19,000 for concerts—and, of course, would contain many more luxury suites. Unlike Barclays, announced in 2012 as the Islanders’ new permanent home as of 2015 but making an awkward fit for the team, it would be built to accommodate hockey.
Asked in the public comment period about the need for another arena, the state responded, “The arena would meet the demand for larger events that cannot be hosted at smaller venues such as Nassau Coliseum.”
Well, it might meet the demand for Islanders games. But it’s dubious that the Coliseum couldn’t host “larger events.” Even at Barclays, which offers far better transit access and a denser population nearby, only a few supernova performers, like Jay-Z and Barbra Streisand, have consistently sold out, while concerts averaged between 9.711 and 11,944 over the first four years, as I reported. Even the Belmont Final EIS (Chapter 7) notes that non-sporting events at Barclays averaged 8,468.
Nonetheless, the Final EIS Project Description chapter quotes the Belmont arena developer without question: “In addition to the approximately 44 to 60 New York Islanders home games, NYAP envisions approximately 145 non-NHL arena event days annually, including: approximately 50 marquee concert/entertainment event days that would fully utilize the arena’s space (approximately 19,000 seats); approximately 65 large to medium event days (utilizing between 6,000 and 11,500 seats), such as Disney on Ice, Cirque Du Soleil, E-Sports, or high school sports; and approximately 30 small or non-ticketed event days (3,500 seats or fewer).”
“Assuming the above-described events were to sell out at the utilization levels indicated, attendance on arena event days would average approximately 15,000 patrons,” the document states. That’s extremely dubious. Even Madison Square Garden—the region’s premier event venue, in the heart of Manhattan—falls short, averaging 14,825 for non-sporting events, as acknowledged elsewhere in the Final EIS.
If the attendance estimates are overblown, that also lowers the expected number of jobs, and tax revenue from new spending, further undermining the projections.
Dancing around the damage
Another commenter during the environmental review asked how, if visitors to non-sporting events are expected—according to a previous project document—from “a catchment area of no more than a 20-30 minute drive to the arena,” Belmont would compete with the Coliseum.
The ESD response acknowledged that the arenas “would overlap significantly,” but asserted that “both venues attract visitors from throughout the entire MSA [Metropolitan Statistical Area], which is significantly large enough to absorb the additional supply of events and entertainment.”
That’s an astounding leap of logic. The MSA, while it contains 20 million people, extends to New Jersey and even Pennsylvania. How many people would travel long distances to attend shows at Belmont? Remember, many Islanders fans decided they had little interest in attending weeknight games at Barclays, the team’s temporary home, given the travel commitment. In other words, demand depends on logistics.
The response, however, continued in fantasyland: “One venue might focus on larger shows, both venues could host the same acts on different nights, or perhaps host events marketed at different audiences.”
Sure, events are marketed to different audiences. But most shows too big for the Coliseum don’t exist, as attendance figures show. As to hosting “the same acts on different nights,” that’s not just dubious business practice—why would an arena coordinate with a rival?—but also a logistical nightmare: why would an act that has loaded in equipment and sets move nearby for a second performance?
Where’s the audience?
The Final EIS Socioeconomic Conditions chapter claims that “the Nassau Coliseum would continue to focus on smaller-scale events than those hosted at the Barclays Center and the proposed [Belmont] arena.” When that passage appeared in the Draft EIS, I pointed out—in a January op-ed for the Daily News—that the Coliseum relies on family shows, which Belmont plans to pursue.
That contention remains un-rebutted. Instead, both the Draft and Final documents confidently assert, “Overall, the metro area is considered sufficiently large to comfortably absorb additional non-sporting events from the proposed arena without having a significant impact on the existing venues.”
Such passive-voice phrasing, backed by no independent analysis, severely undermines the claim and further undermines the credibility of the state review.
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Norman Oder is a Brooklyn journalist who writes the daily blog Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report and is working on a book about the project. On Twitter @AYReport.
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Note: this piece has been updated: the original version referenced the 15,000 attendance estimate without including the Islanders' games, and didn't clarify that the MSG attendance figures were for non-sporting events.
(photo; Edwin J. Torres/Mayor's Office)
The New York City Public Advocate is a poorly defined position that, over its 30 years of existence, has often been used to advance the political interests and status of career politicians. I’m running for Public Advocate because I want to do something very different with the office: turn it into a “startup” working in the public interest to deliver real products and services that improve New Yorkers’ lives and helps under-resourced civil servants modernize our city’s government.
I’ll do this by delivering five noncontroversial “solutions” that I’ve outlined in Gotham Gazette columns over the last few years: 1) strengthening our social safety net; 2) kickstarting technology-enabled government reform; 3) improving civic engagement processes; 4) facilitating metro-regional coordination; and 5) producting websites that help New Yorkers see and understand their government.
1) A Searchable Safety Net
Politicians talk constantly about our city’s safety net, but where is it? New York City doesn’t have what almost every major city in the country does -- a “211” system that organizes government and nonprofit health, human, and social service information and makes it available to the public through a website and 2-1-1 phone hotline.
Everyday thousands of city and nonprofit staff are duplicating work and struggling to keep their own resource directories up-to-date, recognizing that the availability of this information is the difference between a New Yorker accessing the critical health and social services they need or needlessly suffering without it.
No nonprofit or government agency has taken it upon themselves to solve this citywide problem -- but the Public Advocate can and should.
As Public Advocate, I will create an open source directory of all available health, human, and social services available in New York City, and make that information accessible on the web, via an app, by phone, and via API to partner organizations all over the city.
2) Digital Transformation Team
New York City’s bureaucracies were designed in an era of telegrams, switchboards, and printed memos. It’s past time for an upgrade. And the best way to get one is by helping city agencies create their own Digital Service Organizations (DSOs). These groups use open source technology and agile production techniques to bring government services and the bureaucracies that provide them into the modern era.
The first DSO was the UK’s Government Digital Service. Founded in 2011, it has driven a digital transformation in the UK government -- greatly improving services and reducing annual operations’ costs by over a billion pounds per year. We could get similar results in New York City, but someone needs to lead. That someone should be the Public Advocate.
As Public Advocate, I will work to ensure that New Yorkers get faster, better, and cheaper government services by working with civil servants and their agencies to train, support, and network them together as we create DSOs throughout our city’s various government agencies.
3) Civic Engagement Oversight
In November 2018 New Yorkers voted overwhelmingly to establish a “Civic Engagement Commission” (CEC) to “enhance civic participation.” We need to make sure that the CEC advances the interests of the public, rather than those of politicians.
As the voice of New Yorkers, the Public Advocate is in the perfect position to provide oversight and help improve New York City government’s civic participation programs. We can do this by providing New Yorkers with clear information about the city’s existing public participation processes, which agencies are doing them, who leads them, what metrics they use to determine success, and how those programs could be improved using best practices (which I’ve honed over the past decade from working around the world).
Then, we will establish an “Engagement Lab” that works with individual civil servants and government agencies to support them as they establish and improve public engagement processes.
4) A Regional Organizing Project
New York City is the largest city in the United States with more than 8.5 million residents, but we’re also the beating heart of the nation’s largest “metropolitan area,” with a population of over 23 million spanning four states and 30 counties.
Our city’s ability to tackle some of our most important challenges such as housing, transit, energy, pollution, climate resilience, and more all require regional solutions. But systemic coordination among the 30 counties and four states in the New York Metropolitan Area doesn’t happen efficiently. In fact, it’s hardly happening at all. Our current methods for regional coordination are woefully inadequate, relying on a hodgepodge of nonprofits, commissions, and multi-government “authorities” that each work on their own sliver of these massive and deeply interconnected challenges.
Sometimes these groups compete; sometimes massive areas of work go completely uncoordinated; and the public is hardly aware these groups exist or that they are charged with making such important decisions. Unfortunately, we experience this coordination failure everyday -- crumbling subway systems; out-of-control infrastructure construction costs; our communities’ unmitigated vulnerability to extreme weather are all evidence of this massive problem.
That’s why, as Public Advocate, I’ll launch an online metro-regional coordination hub that aggregates and organizes information from the various coordination bodies, produces events that bring these bodies together, and develops a 10-year plan for improving metro-regional governance.
5) An Open Government Interface
Thanks to the city’s innovative open data law, city agencies are publishing a tremendous amount of information to the city’s open data portal, but finding the right information can get a little tricky. Professional researchers and large businesses have the resources needed to make sense of city data, but smaller businesses, journalists, and the vast majority of residents often do not.
Fortunately, the city created the Commission on Public Information and Communication (COPIC) with a charter mandate to “educate the public about the availability and potential usefulness of city produced or maintained information and assist the public in obtaining access to such information.” Unfortunately, information on COPIC is hard to find. It seems to lack an official website or an active Twitter. Go figure!
As Public Advocate, I will reconvene COPIC and work with that body to create a unified interface for information about city agencies, such as their budgets, expenses, capital projects, social services, performance indicators, and more. In the words of the original OpenCongress.org web project, we’ll build “the website [the city] should have made for itself.”
Successful implementation of the five solutions described above requires a focused vision, a motivated team with the right skills, and the resources -- financial and political -- that come with the Public Advocate’s office. As a technologist that helps nonprofits, governments, and startups build information systems to achieve specific goals, I know how to get this work done. As a concerned New Yorker dedicated to giving this city the government it deserves, I’m confident I will -- whether I’m elected Public Advocate or not.
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Devin Balkind is a nonprofit executive, civic technologist, and startup advisor running for Public Advocate as the Libertarian Party nominee. On Twitter @DevinBalkind.
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Have an op-ed idea or submission for Gotham Gazette? Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
(photo: offshore-wind-govMike Groll/Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo)
New York Already has the Lowest Greenhouse Gas Emissions Per Capita of Any State in the Nation and is Moving Forward
New York State has just enacted a plan to bring its planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions to 15% of its 1990 levels by 2050 and provide enough “carbon-emission offsets“ like forestation and wetlands reclamation to bring total carbon-emissions to “net-zero“ by that same year. These goals put New York at the forefront of the United States in addressing climate change.
Governor Cuomo had submitted a similar proposal in his executive budget in January of this year, entitled the Climate Leadership Act, but the Legislature did not adopt it in the April budget. Instead, it reformulated the proposal to provide a more highly developed and detailed planning process to implement the transition to a carbon-neutral society and economy by the goal year of 2050.
To be sure, the governor deserves great credit for already moving New York in this direction, using the state’s powers to usher in substantial increases in wind and solar power over the past several years and repeatedly enunciate and affirm goals of increasing renewable energy and setting a policy of achieving 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
In June, the state Legislature passed a bill -- The New York State Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act -- at the end of its 2019 legislative session, which Governor Cuomo just signed into law, creating a broadly inclusive public participation process along with a step-by-step planning and regulatory decision-making structure for the energy transformation.
A Climate Action Council is created consisting of 12 New York State agency heads and 10 non-governmental individuals who will spend several years scoping out a plan to implement the transition and vote to present their recommendations to state government leadership by 2022.
In 2023 the state agencies will then incorporate the recommendations into ongoing regulatory actions to bring the residential, commercial, industrial, transportation, and electricity-generation sectors of New York’s economy toward the greenhouse gas emission reductions needed to reach the goals.
The legislation also mandates that disadvantaged communities, which have borne the brunt of pollution and climate change, share in the benefits of the transformation in a major way, to receive a goal of 40% of the benefits and a legal minimum of 35% of the benefits.
By 2030 New York’s goal will be to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40% below its 1990 levels, including achieving electricity generation from 70% renewable sources of energy, and a carbon-neutral electricity-generation sector by 2040. The State Public Service Commission (PSC), regulator of the state’s electric utilities, is directed to a more expedited schedule for the electric generation renewable goals since 2030 is in fact not really so far away for this important sector of the state’s economy.
The goals are far from unrealistic, because in part we are much closer to them than many people realize. New York’s greenhouse gas emissions are already nearly 20% below its 1990 levels, according to the 2019 State Energy Patterns and Trends published by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.
GHG Emissions by Sector (in million metric tons carbon dioxide equivalent) |
|||||||
Year |
Residential |
Commercial |
Industrial |
Transportation |
Electric |
ElecImports |
Total |
1990 |
34.3 |
26.5 |
20 |
59.4 |
63 |
1.7 |
205 |
2016 |
30.9 |
20.7 |
10.2 |
73.7 |
27.7 |
3.8 |
167 |
% Change |
-9.8% |
-22.2% |
-48.9% |
24.20% |
-56% |
120% |
--18.5 |
1990-2016 |
New York’s electricity-generation system is already in an advanced stage of transformation from a fossil-fuel based system. Coal is nearly gone; only 1% of New York’s electric generation came from coal in 2018, and the last coal-fired plants will be deactivated in 2020.
Only 37% of New York’s electricity use now comes directly from fossil fuels consumed in New York. 16% of New York’s electricity use is imported from Canada and other parts of the United States. There is some fossil fuel use in that mix but it also includes hydroelectric and nuclear power. 26% of New York’s electricity comes from nuclear power, and nearly 20% comes from renewables, primarily hydroelectric power.
The Transmission System Needs Extra Capacity
Although New York’s electricity grid has made major progress shifting from fossil fuels, its transmission infrastructure needs upgrades and new investments to keep up the pace of bringing in more renewable power, according to the Independent System Operator (ISO), manager of the state’s electric grid.
Some wind power produced in Upstate New York has to be curtailed off the grid now because it can’t be economically transmitted downstate due to capacity limitations; the same goes for some Canadian power generation and even some of New York’s own hydroelectric generation. The ISO and the PSC have moved to permit several new transmission-line upgrades to bring power around the state more effectively, from Canada, from western New York to Eastern New York, and from Upstate to Downstate.
The Cuomo administration foresees offshore wind power around New York City and Long Island as major new sources of renewable power, and, once again, the transmission systems need to be upgraded to absorb that wind energy production. When he signed the bill on Thursday, the governor also announced the two winners of a procurement process to add 1,700 MegaWatts of offshore wind power, which may eventually produce about 5% of New York's electric power. It may realistically be 2035 before New York can get to 70% renewable power, but the Public Service Commission is authorized to modify the timetable in the CLCPA to get there.
Several of New York’s nuclear power plants will be deactivated by that time, but several nuclear plants will still be in operation in 2040 and the legislation permits that power to be counted as part of the carbon-neutral goal for the electricity-generation system.
The Independent System Operators’ most recent analysis of New York’s electric grid, Power Trends 2019, even forecasts New York will have the ability to absorb increasing use of the grid by electric vehicles, and that energy storage systems, energy efficiency measures, and demand control systems can manage the electric system’s gradual transition to renewables, along with the investments in new transmission capacity.
New York Energy Use and Renewable Transition
Although there is plenty of attention, and credit for the environmentally-beneficial progress of New York’s electric grid, greater challenges will remain for transportation, industrial, and building energy use. That’s because fossil fuel use in New York’s electricity-generation system is now only 20% of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. The non-electricity-generation sectors, namely transportation, industry, and buildings in the commercial and residential sectors, emit 80% of New York’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Even if New York eliminated fossil fuel use from its electric generation and electricity import sectors, its greenhouse gas emissions would still be at 66% of its 1990 levels. According to its energy profiles from the United States Energy Information Administration, New York’s current baseline already has the lowest greenhouse gas emissions per capita in the nation among the 50 states, at only 50% of the national average! New York has the second lowest energy consumption per capita of the 50 states already (Rhode Island is first).
New York’s efficiencies in large measure predate the big renewable push of recent years and are merely the general characteristics of New York’s economy. Transportation accounts for 44% of New York’s greenhouse gas emissions but it is still cleaner than the rest of the country. The New York City metropolitan area mass transit system carries millions to their destinations using much less energy per capita than the rest of America. New York is 6.1% of the U.S. population but uses only 4% of the energy consumed in the transportation sector of the U.S. (per USEIA, State Energy Data 2016).
One of President Trump’s chief environmental lunacies is the rollback of President Obama’s fuel efficiency standards for the American automobile industry. But the industry itself is highly resistant to the rollback, as are many states and foreign markets, as well as foreign producers, and progress will continue there.
As the vehicle fleet in New York turns over, efficiency improvements will continue and greenhouse gas emissions will decline. The state government and municipalities will need to promote the transition to electric vehicles and powering them from renewable energy, continue to invest in public transportation -- not just in the New York City metropolitan area but the state’s other communities as well -- and promote alternative methods of transportation.
New York has little in the way of heavy industry and its industrial sector uses only 1% of the energy used in the industrial sector in the United States. But its commercial and residential sectors use energy in closer proportions to New York’s share of the U.S. population. The residential sector uses less electricity than normal because of the high proportion of small apartments in New York City, but overall household energy use is still 15% greater than the average household because of New York’s colder weather and the fuel needed for space heating and hot water.
Improving energy efficiency in New York’s commercial and residential buildings presents serious challenges. Conservation investments for many homeowners may be too costly because they are of modest means and they will need help and subsidies to improve efficiencies. Commercial and apartment building owners may also find energy investments costly and may need tax incentives to stimulate those investments. But there is time for the residential and commercial building sectors to change.
New York’s new law directs the Climate Action Council to hold public hearings for several years throughout the state as it develops its plans, and the Council must establish advisory panels from different sectors of society, including labor and industry, to examine how to go forward. It must also work with environmental justice and just transition groups with plans for fair treatment and beneficial participation of disadvantaged communities.
New York’s state and local governments will need these inclusive processes to establish buy-in from sectors of society that may be fearful or skeptical of what a transition will look like or how they could be affected. The goals can be achieved, or New York can come very close, with the collaborative process the state has outlined for carbon-neutrality by 2050.
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Jim Brennan was a member of the New York State Assembly for 32 years, where he chaired four committees. On Twitter @JimBrennanNY.
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