Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) news:

4/27/05 --The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation will hold a public hearing on how to spend its remaining Community Development Block Grant funds on Wednesday, April 27th 6:00 pm

6/2/04 -- LMDC board authorizes the release of Partial Action Plan No. 8 on WTC memorial and cultural programming.

4/16/04 -- LMDC releases Partial Action Plan No. 7 for public comment. The Plan was submitted to HUD for final approval on May 18, 2004.

1/22/04 -- LMDC releases Partial Action Plan No. 6 for public comment. The Plan would provide $50 million to subsidize 300 middle-income rental apartments in Lower Manhattan. Although the public comment period has closed, the Plan has not yet been submitted to HUD for final approval.

9/18/03 -- The LMDC releases Partial Action Plan No. 5 on tourism in Chinatown and communication about Lower Manhattan development. Click here to read comments by the Labor Community Advocacy Network (LCAN) and the Liberty Bond Housing Coalition.

9/8/03 -- The New York Times releases an investigative report showing that wealthy traders and stock brokers benefited disproportionately from the Business Recovery Grants given out in the aftermath of the attacks.

8/7/03 -- The Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released $54 million in additional funds to fill out the small business attraction and retention program that had left almost two thousand applicants approved but without checks for many months. Up to $90 million was also released for streetscape improvements. Read the press release from HUD.

7/10/03 -- Members of the Labor Community Advocacy Network (LCAN) took the issue of job creation to the July Lower Manhattan Development Corporation with a press conference. Inside the board room, activists held signs calling for funding for the "Liberty Jobs" program. A coalition member from Community Voices Heard spoke up during the press Q & A period, asking how many jobs would be created from the money that had been allocated that morning. LMDC president Kevin Rampe responded that he had no specific job numbers, but that each program the board approved did have an "economic impact" component. 

Read about the July LMDC board meeting in Newsday. Click here for photos.

The event at the LMDC board is one of several leading up to a July 28th accountability session  to urge public officials to implement the Liberty Jobs plan. (To read the entire LCAN proposal on Liberty Jobs, click here.)

6/12/03 -- Liberty Bond Housing Coalition members hold press conference and stage a silent demonstration at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation's June board meeting. Participants urged the LMDC to commit funds to make Liberty Bond financed housing developments mixed-income.

Click here for photos.

Read statements from:

Assemblymember Scott M. Stringer

City Councilmember Alan J. Gerson

Victor Bach, Senior Housing Policy Analyst of the Community Service Society

Bettina Damiani, project director of Good Jobs New York

 

Read press coverage in The New York Times, Newsday, the Daily News, Associated Press, the Downtown Express and City Limits Weekly

3/17/03 -- The Labor Community Advocacy Network and the Liberty Bond Housing Coalition submit a joint comment on revised Partial Action Plan No. 3.

11/27/02 -- The New York Board of Trade was approved for a $23.3 million CDBG grant under the WTC Job Creation and Retention Program in May of 2002. Read coverage of this and other retention grants in a recent Newsday article. Or view the complete list attached to revised Reconstruction Watch publication #4.

10/29/02 -- American Express, which received $25 million in CDBG cash last June as part of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation's "business retention" program, announced that its profits doubled in the last three months, according to the Daily News (Read article). Since the end of 2000, American Express has laid off 13,800 employees, or almost 16% of its workforce. 

8/15/02 -- Applications for Residential Grant Program are now available at the LMDC website in English, Spanish, and Chinese.  

8/14/02 -- Increased appropriations announced at LMDC Board meeting: An additional $783 million in HUD-facilitated CDBG funds was approved by the Federal government on August 2nd. This amount includes $33 million earmarked specifically to attract businesses back that left after September 11th. 

8/1/02 -- Third round of "business retention" deals includes $40 million for The Bank of New York. Read about this allocation in the New York Daily News.

6/5/02 -- "Amended Action Plan for New York Business Recovery and Economic Revitalization" released. Public comments must be submitted by June 24th. Click here to read amendment text.

6/3/02 -- Second round of "business retention" deals:

Our decision to return downtown, which has been our home for more than 150 years, was not predicated on financial incentives . . . Once those financial incentives became available, we chose to participate, as did other companies. 

-- Tony Mitchell, spokesman for American Express, as quoted in Newsday exclusive, June 3, 2002.
 

Second round - company names and amounts (including American Express)

First round - company names and amounts