IDA, CDA can keep using offices at Glen Cove City Hall

City formalizes no-rent agreement

Posted Wednesday, May 13, 2020 12:00 am

The City Council voted April 28 to formalize a no-rent agreement at City Hall with the Glen Cove Industrial Development Agency and the Community Development Agency. Above were Councilwoman Marsha Silverman, top left; Ann Fangmann, executive director and contracting officer of the IDA and CDA; Councilman Gaitley Stevenson-Mathews, bottom left; and Mayor Tim Tenke.

Courtesy City of Glen Cove

Glen Cove Community Development Agency and Industrial Development Agency

The Glen Cove Industrial Development Agency is a non-profit, public benefit corporation that works to assist not-for-profits and select businesses relocate, expand and build in Glen Cove. It offers financing, tax management and infrastructure support through the issuing of grants that it has access to.

The IDA closed on the Waterfront Revitalization Project in 2016, assisted the city with the Ferry Terminal Project, Herb Hill/Garvies Point Road Project and The Regency at Glen Cove project, closed on the Village Square property with RXR, among other services from the agency.

The Glen Cove Community Development Agency works to plan and implement programs with a goal to revitalize and rehabilitate parts of the city. The CDA, formally known as the Urban Renewal Agency, was established in 1964 under New York law. Featured projects include waterfront revitalization, a matching grant commercial rehabilitation program, the dishing out of the Community Development Block Grant, which comes from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development through the Nassau County Consortium. The CDA owns the Glen Cove Senior Center. The Section 8 Housing Choice Vouching Program is also under the CDA.

Revenue for the agencies comes from grants, deals made by the agencies and the Section 8 program. Salary, health benefits and retirement come out of this revenue. Only one employee, the grant administrator for the CDA, receives compensation from the city. That individual, who receives 60 percent of her compensation from the city, administers grants and manages projects on behalf of the city.

City of Glen Cove Mayor Tim Tenke is the chairman of the board for these agencies.

By Jennifer Corr

The Glen Cove Industrial Development Agency and Community Development Agency need not pay rent to the City of Glen Cove for office space at City Hall, according to an agreement the outside agencies reached with the city on April 28.

The City Council, including Mayor Tim Tenke, voted 6-1 that day to formalize the arrangement. Council member Marsha Silverman was the lone vote against it.

The two agencies have not paid rent to the city for four years, but rather have provided essential services, so city officials said they thought it only right that they would have office space at City Hall. Until recently, however, that agreement had not been formalized.

“What’s happening right now is that we’re formalizing basically what has been the custom and practice for the last four or so years,” said City Attorney Gregory Kalnitsky. “This is an accounting measure if the CDA or IDA is audited. They’re required to have an inter-municipal agreement in place, formalizing our agreement and showing that they are performing certain services and we’re receiving certain services.”

The CDA, among other services, owns the Glen Cove Senior Center and oversees Section 8 public housing in the city. The CDA issues federal and state grant funding for large-scale projects such as the current waterfront redevelopment.

RXR Realty purchased 44 acres of waterfront property on two parcels from the IDA for $10 million in 2016 in order to construct the $1.3 billion Garvies Point housing and shopping development, which is now under construction. RXR also received a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement.

The IDA had taken over the property in 1999, after the site was contaminated by roughly 47,000 tons of radioactive material and nearly 57,000 tons of chemically contaminated soil. The Superfund site, formerly owned by Li Tungsten, had been a dumping ground for industrial waste since the 1950s.

The IDA worked with the federal Environmental Protection Agency to conduct a $28 million cleanup of the property. The IDA agreed to pay the federal government $100,000, plus a percentage of the proceeds from any sale or lease of the two parcels.

The IDA has had an office at City Hall since 2004, but has never paid rent. In 2016, the IDA gave the city the $10 million it had received from RXR for the waterfront property, effectively paying off the rent it had owed for the previous 12 years. It has remained at City Hall ever since, without paying rent.

Not all City Council members said they were comfortable with the agreement formalizing the no-rent arrangement. Silverman said that the state comptroller’s office recently audited the IDA. The findings are expected this summer. “I wonder if this is premature, and if we should maybe wait a few months,” Silverman said of the vote on the agreement.

“We should take no action on any IDA matter until we have the findings of that report,” Silverman emphasized after the meeting. “In addition, our local economy will be impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, with a good chance that our revenues will be significantly decreased.”

Councilman Gaitley Stevenson-Mathews expressed similar concerns, and asked if the resolution could be rewritten as a six-month contract instead, putting the relationship between the city and the agencies up for further review down the road.

Kalnitsky said the agreement could be changed, and added that he did not believe putting a time limit on it was necessary, but Stevenson-Mathews said he was unsure if he agreed.

Ann Fangmann, the executive director and contracting officer for the IDA and CDA, said the agencies would likely have to move out of City Hall to another office if they had to pay rent. “We work very effectively in City Hall,” Fangmann said, “because we’re right near the mayor and the deputy mayor and the department heads that we need to get the approvals from and the signatures.”

Silverman said that while she valued the work of the agencies, she did not believe the city needed to vote to formalize the no-rent agreement immediately, because the arrangement dated back to 2016. She tried to table the motion to vote on the agreement, but no other council member supported her.

Councilwoman Danielle Fugazy Scagliola said, “I have everybody’s word that we can make changes if we need to, and we are just memorializing an agreement that’s been in place for the last four years, so with that, I would vote aye on all.”

Stevenson-Mathews voted yes, and added that the agreement should be re-evaluated in September.

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