Crains New York - November 26, 2012 - (Page 6)

THE Lawyer goes from regs to riches INSIDER The man who wrote the city’s campaign rules is a hot hire for candidates BY CHRIS BRAGG Most New York City election lawyers would be happy to have one client in the 2013 race to replace Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Laurence Laufer has been juggling three. Mr. Laufer, who is widely viewed as one of the city’s top campaign finance compliance attorneys, is navigating the city’s complex, taxpayerfunded elections system for Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, a leading Democratic mayoral contender;Republican mayoral candidate George McDonald; and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer,a Democrat, who left the mayor’s race Nov.18 to run instead for city comptroller in 2013. There’s a reason Mr. Laufer is so sought after to steer candidates through the city’s campaign finance regulations: He wrote many of them himself while serving as general counsel for the New York City Campaign Finance Board from its inception in 1988 through 2000. Also, attorneys with the specific expertise offered by Mr. Laufer and fellow election lawyer Angelo Genova, a founding partner of the firm by Andrew J. Hawkins A property tax break’s renewal stirs confusion T buck ennis SPECIALIST: Laurence Laufer, a former campaign-finance regulator, now helps contenders for elected office navigate—or overcome—the city program he helped design. that brought him in to lead its city political activity practice, are relatively few (it’s a cyclical and somewhat arcane business). Moreover, the 50-year-old Mr. Laufer has a reputation as a fierce and at times combative advocate representing his clients in battles against his old employer. For instance, he is planning to sue the board to dramatically raise the size of private donations that can be accepted by Mr. McDonald, which is anathema to the pro-campaignfinance-reform platform of his other mayoral client, Mr. de Blasio. Mr. Stringer’s decision to switch races illustrates why Mr. Laufer’s practice of having multiple clients in the same political race can work in New York City,despite the potential See FROM REGS on Page 25 he Bloomberg administration last week said it will continue to honor an expired $430 million tax break for hundreds of thousands of condo and co-op owners, despite news that the state Legislature will not convene this year to renew it. But uncertainty in Albany is fueling confusion in the city, istockphoto where property owners and real estate insiders fear a 20% spike in tax bills. Lawmakers were expected to extend the popular tax break, retroactive to its June 30 expiration, in a special session before January. But Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said he is unlikely to call the session, leaving many issues, including the tax abatement, dangling. The city’s Department of Finance nonetheless said it would continue to apply the tax break to property owners’ bills, in the hope that it will eventually be retroactively renewed. Only the state has the authority to renew it. new applicants to the abatement program to wait until Albany reapproves it. “Despite the fact that the abatement is still being granted, otherwise eligible co-op owners who file new applications have been told that they must wait until the Legislature acts,” one source said. “This seems to me … a double standard. Why should current abatement holders get an average $1,200 break that new applicants cannot get?” Mr. Korngold said he represents property owners in Brooklyn who have been prevented from receiving the abatement. “We put in the application last year in adequate time,” he said. “They never put it into effect.” A Finance Department spokesman could not confirm whether new applicants were being blocked from the program. The deal to extend the abatement would also reauthorize a limited version of the J-51 tax incentive, which expired in December 2011, and remove certain provisions from the city’s 421-a program, which encourages development of underused or unused land by reducing property taxes for years. But even those changes, favored by the real estate industry, now appear to be up in the air. “It’s caused all kinds of confusion,” Mr. Korngold said. “Nobody knows what’s going to happen because the bill hasn’t been done.” Paul Korngold, a partner at law firm Tuchman Korngold Weiss Lippman & Gelles, said one successful lawsuit could unravel the whole process and send tax bills soaring for hundreds of thousands of property owners. “The city is acting illegally,” he said. “All it takes is some gadfly to start a lawsuit that asks what gives the city the right to give away $400 million. If I were a rental owner, I would be a little bit upset.” Condo and co-op owners have been in limbo for months about the loss of an annual abatement worth, on average, $1,200 per affected apartment. “Co-ops and condos are very, very nervous as they try to prepare realistic budgets,”said Mary Ann Rothman, executive director of the Council of New York Cooperatives and Condominiums. “Without the abatement,” she said, “the property-tax component of a maintenance bill for a co-op will go up on the order of 20% to 22%. Condos … will directly experience this terrible surprise.” The governor’s office, Assembly Democrats and Senate Republicans have a deal pending to increase the abatements for owner-occupied units to as much as 28.1% of their assessed value over three years while phasing out breaks for nonowner-occupied units. But if Democrats take control of the state Senate, that agreement could evaporate. Insiders say the city is telling Crain’s Insider, our award-winning politics newsletter, is now a blog. Read it every day at www.crainsnewyork.com/insider 6 | Crain’s New York Business | November 26, 2012 http://www.crainsnewyork.com/insider

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crains New York - November 26, 2012

Crains New York - November 26, 2012
IN THE BOROUGHS
IN THE MARKETS
THE INSIDER
BUSINESS PEOPLE
OPINION
ALAIR TOWNSEND
GREG DAVID
SMALL BUSINESS
REPORT: REAL ESTATE
THE LIST
REAL ESTATE DEALS
CLASSIFIEDS
FOR THE RECORD
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
SOURCE LUNCH
OUT AND ABOUT
SNAPS

Crains New York - November 26, 2012