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Why is Mayor Bloomberg buying land for developer Bruce Ratner?

The City Council was left asking that question when officials from the city’s Economic Development Corporation disclosed that almost half of the city’s previously announced $205-million contribution to Atlantic Yards would pay for acquiring land within the mega-development’s 22-acre footprint.

And no one knows why.

“I said, ‘Why are we are reimbursing [Ratner] for property that he [could] purchase on the open market?’” said Councilwoman Letitia James (D-Prospect Heights).

“They … avoided the question.”

James, a strong opponent of Ratner’s $4-billion arena-and-skyscraper Xanadu, was joined by Councilman David Yassky (D-Brooklyn Heights) in decrying the city land buy.

“There is no reason for the government to directly subsidize a private construction project,” said Yassky.

A spokesperson for the EDC said the land would eventually be owned by the state, which would then give the developer a long-term lease so he could build the arena, public open space and residential buildings on it.

This sort of land transfer is a common way that governments lower a developer’s building costs while maintaining some control over the site’s future, planning experts said.

But a veteran city planner said the deal reminded him of an earlier — and dirtier — era in New York’s history when the city would buy land and then sell it at reduced rates to developers.

“The difference in this case is that the project is not the city’s plan, it is part of a private developer’s plan,” said Ron Shiffman, a former New York City planning commissioner and a critic of Atlantic Yards.

He likened the $100-million allocation amounted to a free land coupon.

“They’re giving it away,” Shiffman said.

The city’s budget office declined to comment on the so-called coupon.

Earlier this year, a spokesman for Mayor Bloomberg defended the $205-million contribution — double what the city had originally promised to contribute — as a small price to pay for the largest development project in the history of Brooklyn.

“This project will create jobs, provide affordable housing and generate billions of dollars in tax revenue,” said the spokesman, John Gallagher.

But while the city contribution to Atlantic Yards has gone up, the tax revenue that the project is expected to generate has gone down.

Over the summer, state officials said the project would generate $1.5 billion over 30 years. It is now projected to generate $944 million over the same time period — or just $15 million per year for the city and state.

In light of those numbers, local lawmakers questioned why the city is spending its limited funds to boost a private developer.

“The first job of government should be to make sure that the neighborhoods surrounding Atlantic Yards are protected from harmful impacts and that itself will require significant investment,” Yassky said.

©2007 The Brooklyn Paper