Slowing The Development Process In New York

"For just about each of Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff's early development projects, there is now another similar one wending its way through a review process. The new one may be just as ambitious--and controversial--as the old, but it is infused with a vastly different sensibility, more patient in its approach, more responsive to the grass-roots community."

"As he is about to step down as deputy mayor for economic development and rebuilding, Mr. Doctoroff eschews the idea that he or the Bloomberg administration went through a sea change in the way they approached development over the past six years."

"'It is fair to say that we have become better listeners, and we have reached out earlier and more often to the State Legislature,' Mr. Doctoroff told The Observer in a telephone interview on Dec. 10. 'On the other hand, we would not say that we did not go out and promote our ideas before. We have gotten better at it. I would not say there has been a dramatic shift.'"

"Still, what a shift there has been. On June 15, 2005, the Bloomberg administration announced that it supported a new Yankee Stadium. Without further ado-and in a process critics say ramrodded the project through-eight days later, it got the Legislature to set aside the park land where the ball team would build it."

"By contrast, the mayor announced on Nov. 8 of this year that the city wanted to swap park land to make way for a new amusement district in Coney Island. It will hold a couple of public meetings about it, and then leisurely ask that park alienation be introduced in Albany in January, and the city expects that it will take until June to get it passed."