Business Ethics Fortnight "More Fun than Decent People Think Should Be Legal"

New York University (2)

Team Members: Rachel E. Tanner, Jason Ve, Jacqueline Cartier,
Thomas Luciano

Advisor:

Topic/Audience: Building the New York Sports Convention Center: The War Over the West Side

Executive Summary

The Hudson Yards neighborhood in Manhattan—bordered by W. 30th and W. 34th St on the north and south, and by 11th and 12th Avenues on the east and west—is the last parcel of undeveloped land on an island that currently houses over 1.6 million people and employs over 3 million. The land is owned and operated as a rail yard for the MTA, but has been coveted by developers for the last decade. Last year, the Bloomberg administration and the New York Department of City Planning proposed that the land become the site for a New York Sports and Convention Center—a $1.8 billion stadium meant to serve as a home for the New Jersey-condemned New York Jets, as well as an extension for the aging and undersized Jacob Javitz Center. Despite significant public opposition and the impact that the project will have on the city, the proposal has been kept from the public eye and will not be offered for public referendum. Our organization, which is pledged to represent the voice of the citizens of New York, maintains that this project—and the process by which it has been developed—is an unethical and fiscally irresponsible undertaking that undermines the rights of the public.

The stadium as proposed will come at significant financial, legal, and ethical costs to the people of New York City. The project currently requires a $600 million dollar tax payer investment at a time when New York City is operating on a significant budget gap. At the same time, the Jets have managed to acquire the Hudson Yards Land via an unfair bidding process for a price that is approximately one fourth of its projected value, despite the fact that the MTA is operating on its own substantial budget gap. This has caused an outburst of opposition from the public in the form of lawsuits, proposed legislation, and anti-stadium lobbyist groups. Throughout the battle that has raged over this issue, the public and their interests have been repeatedly ignored and underrepresented. In addition to the fiscal and democratic consequences that this project will have on the City, the project will come at a great cost to the infrastructure and public works of New York. The city government, including the Public Authorities Control Board, has an ethical duty to consider all of these public costs before going ahead with a project of this proportion. Instead the project has turned into a game of political poker played by a handful of billionaires with little regard for public good.

The solution that we propose is simple and feasible: the first step of our plan is to expand the circulation of the information in the Independent Budget Office’s evaluation of the stadium proposal—an evaluation that paints an independent and realistic picture of the total costs and benefits of the stadium. Once the public is better informed about the issue at hand, we propose to turn it over to public referendum by including a question on the 2005 mayoral ballot that asks public opinion about both the project itself and public funding of the project. Once the vote has been conducted, the city should proceed accordingly and via a fair bidding process that will result in the MTA recovering the full value of the land. We believe that this solution will give the voice of authority back to the people of New York by considering the financial, legal, and ethical costs of developing the Hudson Yards land.