Mayor Bloomberg has shown over his first five years in office that he can pull off complicated city projects – even though he’s hit stumbling blocks that have delayed some major initiatives for years.
Now, well into his second term, the mayor faces his greatest challenge: the monumental, 127-point plan to dramatically alter the city by the year 2030.
And insiders say the odds are against Bloomberg on a key component of that plan – charging motorists to drive into Manhattan at certain hours.
But Bloomberg’s got a couple of factors working to his advantage – the billionaire mayor is enjoying his highest popularity level and has demonstrated a willingness to plow ahead on projects that his predecessors wouldn’t go near.
Topping the list of Bloomberg’s winners is a $7.5 billion plan to create and renovate 165,000 units of affordable housing by 2013.
Experts give the administration high grades for attempting such a massive undertaking, which has so far resulted in funding for more than a third of the units.
“On the production of affordable housing and bringing financial resources to strengthen and preserve existing units, they’ve delivered in a significant way,” said Brad Lander, director of the Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development.
The administration’s hand was less sure at Governors Island, a 172-acre problem property that the federal government turned over to New York state in January 2003.
Early last year, Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff wowed skeptics by unveiling a model of a $125 million aerial-gondola system that would connect the island to Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Ten developers submitted proposals. But their grandiose ideas – which included a Nickelodeon cable-channel theme park – were ultimately all rejected.
Mayoral aides are now taking smaller steps, preparing for summer concerts, tours and the design of a world-class park.
Gov. Spitzer is also holding up expansion plans negotiated with his predecessor for the Javits Center, a centerpiece in the development of the far West Side.
City officials said on other fronts, though, the signature project is proceeding, with approval of a half-dozen residential towers and the extension of the No. 7 subway line.
Bloomberg’s relationship with the governor is critical to his chances of completing everything he has set out to do. While that relationship is warm in public, there are some real stresses.
One source said mayoral aides were “livid” when Spitzer offered proposals for improving the environment, knowing Bloomberg’s own plan was to be released a couple days later.
Another project on the slow track is the Homeport on Staten Island, which the city acquired in 1995, when it was decommissioned as a naval base.
Bloomberg announced in November 2004 that the city had earmarked $66 million to develop the 36-acre site into a waterfront community.
“It’s inching along,” one local official said.
Some of Bloomberg’s most important initiatives haven’t gotten much press, even though they’ll reshape the city for decades to come.
The city Planning Department is rezoning neighborhoods in all five boroughs to limit high-rises on streets of one- and two-family houses.
“You won’t have another 24-story building going up across from Katz’s [deli on the Lower East Side],” one aide said.
Rewriting the entire building code took an astonishing six years.
Bloomberg also managed to push through a comprehensive plan for exporting the city’s garbage and for maintaining water quality by winning hard-fought sign-offs for a filtration plant under Van Cortlandt Park.
One smaller project that’s landed in the hard-to-achieve category is Flushing Commons in Queens: 5.5 acres of housing, open space, retail and a hotel that’s supposed to replace an 1,100-car municipal parking lot.
City Councilman John Liu, who represents the area, said a developer was selected in 2005 but a dispute over costs has resulted in an almost two-year delay.
“If something doesn’t happen within a couple of months, I would question whether anything would happen,” he said.