Quinn, the developers' handmaiden

From the NY Times:

A centerpiece of Christine C. Quinn’s plan to keep housing affordable in New York City is a variation on a proposed tax subsidy for landlords that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg forcefully rejected two years ago as an unacceptably generous giveaway to the real estate industry.

Aides to Ms. Quinn, the speaker of the City Council and a leading Democratic candidate for mayor, acknowledged that the idea had come from the city’s real estate industry, one of Ms. Quinn’s closest allies and biggest campaign donors.

But, the aides said, Ms. Quinn had altered the proposal in important ways since it was heavily criticized by the Bloomberg administration, and predicted that it could, over time, preserve the dwindling supply of apartments that are within reach of the city’s middle-class families.

She unveiled the plan in her State of the City speech on Monday.

The measure and its origins highlight a recurring tension in Ms. Quinn’s rise to political power, between her passion as a former housing activist for liberal causes and her growing willingness to work with the corporate interests that control the levers of power in the city.

City developers and landlords, led by their powerful trade group, the Real Estate Board of New York, have long sought a real estate tax cap, which would guarantee them a discounted and predictable long-term tax bill in return for renting out some apartments at below-market rates.

Which still won't make them affordable enough.