The City of Newburgh issued a press release this morning announcing the appointment of Edward Lynch as the new Director of Planning and Development. He will be taking over the post from Courtney Kain, who had served as Acting Director.
According to the press release (download here from the City of Newburgh site), Mr. Lynch comes to Newburgh after spending sixteen years with the Department of Development in New Rochelle, NY.
In New Rochelle, Lynch served under the Development Commissioner Craig King. When the Development Commissioner position opened up following Mr. King’s leaving due to health reasons, and Mr. Lynch was not selected for the position, he tendered his resignation earlier this year.
Newburgh’s press release attributes New Rochelle’s development successes to Mr. Lynch:
The City has radically changed since then with mixed use transit oriented development downtown, including a 40 story Trump Condominium and a 1000 unit Avalon Bay residential development, a mixed use family entertainment center and significantly more commercial development. As Planning Director and Clerk to the Planning Board, Mr. Lynch obviously had a role in making a positive change.
But New Rochelle’s developments, attributed to Lynch or not, may not all be so rosy.
Trump Tower project lacks lessees; OSC audit critical
Talk of the Sound, a New Rochelle blog, reported on June 21 about a New York State Comptroller audit of the New Rochelle Industrial Development Agency due to be published this month. The OSC audit portrays a lack of oversight. Additionally, Talk of the Sound reports that in the case of the Trump Tower, developer Louis Capelli has failed to rent retail space:
The report goes on to state that NRIDA did not monitor the status of ongoing projects to ensure reasonable progress toward the projected benefits described in the original applications so the board cannot be sure the projects will meet their intended goals, or know when they should invoke “recapture” agreements to recover some or all of the benefits provided when projects fall short of their promised goals.
The Capelli organization is on the NRIDA agenda tomorrow, in part to seek extensions on its recapture agreement for Trump Tower which expired in December. A recapture agreement is a clause which allows the City to claim money if a project fails to meet some promise, in this case to lease the retail space at Trump Tower.
The Comptroller warns that when NRIDA officials do not properly monitor ongoing projects and invoke recapture agreements, as appropriate, there is an increased risk that other taxpayers are subsidizing the projects’ financial incentives without receiving the expected benefits to the community. This is precisely what has been occurring since 2009 with Trump Tower.
Read the full post here.
Trump Tower didn’t do much for jobs
Talk of the Sound also reports that the Trump Tower project, according to the Office of the State Comptroller, failed to create the jobs it promised:
The report notes that NRIDA projects have, overall, failed to provide promised job gains for New Rochelle. In particular, Parcel 1A (Trump Tower) was supposed to deliver 358 jobs but has, as of December 31, 2008, delivered just 98 for a net deficit of 260.
Newburgh: New Rochelle North?
Mr. Lynch is not the first New Rochelle expatriate to join the City of Newburgh. Current Corporation Counsel Bernis Nelson served as New Rochelle Corporation Counsel for twelve years (then under the name Bernis Shapiro.)
I think the issue is looking at the photo is that he REALLY appreciates a good set of knockers. The best we could do again an aging white man without any other future.