City Aims To Buy Coney Property With Taxpayer Money

The city which, this year, bought one acre of the Deno's Wonder Wheel Amusement Park with an allotted $200 million from a pool of capital money, is left with about $189 million. With that they plan to buy out the Mayor's rival in Coney Island, Thor Equities. But they hope that will also include repairs for the dilapidated boardwalk, and other Coney needed infrastructure.

The Brooklyn Paper reports:

Advocates for redeveloping the faded People's Playground concede that budgeting hundreds of millions of dollars is questionable public policy, but ultimately support the move because private landowners - before Sitt at least - have shown little inclination to invest in the area themselves for decades.

"Buying all this land my not have been the ideal move from the beginning," said Jonathan Bowles, director of the Center for an Urban Future, a planning group.

But , he added, "the problem with Coney Island for years, if not decades, was that so many landowner's were jut sitting on their property. There were empty lots galore."

This is true for the reason Coney has suffered too many empty lots but the city also never gave incentives and ease the many problems landowners had in Coney Island. However, that approach seems to be the last thing on the city's mind. They are intent on spearheading their own plans with full force.


City opens checkbook for Coney [The Brooklyn Paper]