Developer wins in court, we pay

From the NY Observer:

The Paterson administration was handed a potentially costly loss at the hands of a state appellate court Thursday, as the state Department of Environmental Conservation was denied in its attempt to appeal a brownfield cleanup case against enigmatic developer Sheldon Solow.

The state now stands to pay a previously estimated $250 million to Mr. Solow as a result of the opinion, which upheld an earlier decision that ruled the state had to award Mr. Solow the money he was entitled to under the old brownfield development program. That program, which was amended last year to close what were seen as gaping holes in the legislation, allowed developers to get unlimited benefits from the state when they were building on polluted sites (the awards were a proportion of the total development costs).

As part of his planned (but not progressing) $4 billion development on a former ConEd site by the United Nations, Mr. Solow initially applied to be in the program back in the Pataki administration, a request granted by state officials at the time.