Newsday from New York, New York • 9

dF a fc i 5r fc I Builders Bonus Draws New Fire Critics Say Developer Abused9 City Policy By Carol Polsky Mortimer Zueker- When Adding Space, Aiding Subways Projects receiving up to 20 percent extra floor space in exchange for subway and in addition, the work was wasteful, unnecessary and extravagant. The Coliseum deal, recently approved by the Board of Estimate, has sharply focused criticism of the subway bonus program. Critics say the city should pay for needed subway improvements without encouraging overdevelopment. And while they praise some of the work including a new free-tranafer tunnel between the 51st Street stop on the Lexington Avenue IRT line and the Lexington Ave-nue-53rd Street IND stop they say same of the subway work done by dais either unnecessary or coe- MILES' man won the right to build two huge towers on the New York Coliseum site on Columbus Circle, he was greeted with almost universal outrage. What upset his critics was that the towers were so big.

The developer paid the city a record $455 million for the site. Critics chary that the city's insistence that it get the iwiTmim price for the land made construction of a huge building inevitable. But, they said, the problem -was made even worse by the citys requirement that he participate in the subway amenity bonus program. That program )ives Zuckerman 0 percent more floor space above the mning limit, in exchange for which he is to pay Dinkins for subway station improvements. So in exchange for an estimated $40 million worth of work on the 59th Street-Columbus Circle station, the massive towers at the foot of Central Park will contain an extra 448,000 square feet of space.

The extra space alone equals about two-thirds of the entire Gulf Western tower just across Broadway. That was a dear and outrageous abuse to what the subway bonus was dwiignad for, said Joseph Rose, chairman of Community Board 5 and a member of the prominent family of builders that owns Rose Associates. Tt was a veiled subsidy to the developer. Lexington Avenue; Boston Properties, developer. Bonus floor area of 146,293 square feet for a tunnel linldng the IND 53rd Street station, the and trains, with the IRT 51st Street station, northbound platform of the local 6 train.

Connections between the north and southbound IRT platforms there, elevators, stairs and escalator. Incomplete. 885 Third Avenue; Gerald Hines, developer. Bonus floor area of 71 ,544 square feet for an improved stainway up to 53rd Street from IND 53rd Street and Third Avenue stop, and new escalator from platform to street Completed. Union Square; William Zeckendorf developer.

Bonus floor area of 153,000 square feet in four-tower condominium project in return for new and reopened stairways on 14th and 15th Streets ana Fourth Avenue into the IRT Union Square station, and reorganization of portions of mezzanine. In development Old Madison Square Garden site (Eighth Avenue at 49th Street); William Zeckendorf developer. Bonus floor area of approximately 1 62,000 square feet in return for over $5 million In improvements to the local southbound side of the IND station at 50th Street, including reopening entrance at 49th Street with new stairs and an escalator within the building, a new elevator at 50th Street and relocating stairs within the building, lightwells for stairways, extending mezzanine (platform where token booths are located) into building, reorganizing control area, and new stairs, escalator and elevators connecting street, mezzanine and lower platform levels. In development Coliseum site (Columbus Circle); Boston Properties, developer. Bonus floor area of 448,000 square feet in return for improvements on 59th Street station on IND and IRT lines, reorganization of entrances and stairways, new elevators, escalators, new passageway connecting IRT and IND lines, widened platforms, new entrances into the new building, reorganization of control areas and aooustical treatments.

In development. "Some deals have benefited riders, said Gene Ruasianoff of the Straphangers Campaign, "and clearly in some cases the developers have made out like bandits. City officials defend the five-year-old program as a way to channel many millions of dollars in private funds into needed station improvements, freeing Metropolitan Transportation Authority funds for high-priority items suchas new subway cars. Carl Weisbrod, executive director of the city Department of Planning, which approves the subway bonuses, said the program has brought in a quarter of a billion dollars in private sector payments to the transit systems. Were saying specific locations can absorb the density, he said.

"We are getting in return significant subway improvements. But critics such as Manhattan Borough President David Dinkins and various community and transit activists say the city should not have a program that gets funds at the expense of Continued on Page 19 Niwaday Philip Dtonlalo Koch Does Soft Shoe in Hard Times 2 If President Ronald Reagan had done what Mayor Edward Koch did on Saturday night at the annual Inner Circle show, the nation might even feel better about him. Koch sang, danced, clowned and seemed to have a good time and he never once apologized. Koch, continuing a tradition he has followed since his first election in 1977, took time out to go on stage and kid biTTumlf as well as a number of reporters and others in his rebuttal to the Inner Circle show, a lampoon written and staged by the City Hall reporters group at the New York Hilton. The reaction of many in the audience was that tackled in the by city or tickled the issue polls, which obviously have been i arjuiHala "Its time to bite the bullet Its time you knew the whole story.

Its time for me to say, just as bluntly as I can that that ITS NOT MY FAULT! The mayor shouted final words. "RfiI ly, the whole thing can be blamed on my meia adviser Koch had very able assistance in his rebuttal show from Aim Reinking, the rest of the cast of Broadways "Sweet Chanty, comedian David Brenner and, of all people. New Jersey Gov. Ttom Kean. The governor, emulating the winning Continued on Page 24 Mayor Koch holds dancer Ann Refolding during the Inner Circle rebuttal performance Saturday.

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