Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has issued a report claiming that the city’s Industrial and Commercial Incentive Program improperly benefits companies that create limited gains to the local economy and run counter to public health initiatives.

Elements of the city’s largest subsidy program for commercial development are wasteful and counterproductive, according to a report to be released tonight by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.

The Industrial and Commercial Incentive Program provides property tax breaks that often go to gas stations, fast food restaurants, big-box retail and other chain stores that provide low-wage jobs, have limited benefit to the local economy and run counter to public health initiatives, the report argues. It singles out $10 million of the $410 million that the program cost taxpayers in fiscal 2007.

ICIP reduces property taxes for up to 25 years for eligible industrial and commercial buildings that are built or physically improved. Projects qualify automatically if they meet program guidelines.

Mr. Stringer hopes his report will influence state legislators to reform ICIP, which expires June 30. In 2007, the Legislature could not agree on how to change the program and instead extended its authorization for one year.

ICIP provides tax breaks to developments would occur without subsidies, and are often located in neighborhoods that are doing well on their own, according to Mr. Stringer. As borough president, he sits on an obscure commission empowered to review the boundaries of the program, but it has been at least five years since the panel met. Mr. Stringer will ask Deputy Mayor Robert Lieber today to convene a meeting of the commission.

ICIP, which debuted in 1984, has its supporters. The Retail Council of New York State issued a release last year saying the program is needed to encourage retail development in the city because the cost of doing business here remains high.

“ICIP subsidies were supposed to incentivize manufacturing businesses to relocate or expand in the [outer] boroughs,” says Bettina Damiani, project director at the advocacy organization Good Jobs New York. “But all of these property owners in midtown Manhattan are gobbling them up.”

Source: Crains New York