12 ms·

The Horror of Hudson Yards Is How It Was Financed

169 points by keeganjw 8y ago

FreedomToCreate 8y ago
I have worked in the United States for 10 years on a non-immigrant visa (I have no other way to work in the United states and 7 years of H1-B lottery have yielded nothing). I have paid more than six figures in taxes to the Feds, as well as contributed to an American business and being an active community member. I have no path or way to immigrate to the United States nor can I use by past decade of contributions in any way. Its a slap in the face when I read about people literally buying there way in and corrupt politicians and businessman manipulating the system without consequence.
- keeganjw 8y ago
  This how you know things are broken when someone who's been here a decade, paying their way and contributing, gets tossed out as soon as the wind blows a different direction. We're just shooting ourselves in the foot and missing out on a lot of good people.
- tim333 8y ago
  The EB5 is still running if you can lend $500k for about six years.
- gniv 8y ago
  If you paid 10 years into social security, you are eligible for payments, wherever you are in the world.
  - mcguire 8y ago
    https://www.ssa.gov/international/agreement_descriptions.html https://www.ssa.gov/international/agreement_descriptions.htm...
- pm90 8y ago
  Its a mistake to assume that the American system is fair or corruption free. To a certain extent, corruption and shadiness exist everywhere. America is a great country but you kinda have to assume the worst and live life accordingly. Which means hustling all the time, looking at alternative ways etc. I know a whole bunch of folks who have married specifically for immigration reasons (some of them admit it, most don't). I'm not saying that you do any of those things and I empathize with you. I guess the only place where I fault you is in assuming the American system is fair and corruption free, which it totally is not.
  - enraged_camel 8y ago
    >>I know a whole bunch of folks who have married specifically for immigration reasons (some of them admit it, most don't). To be perfectly clear, this is immigration fraud and it’s extremely illegal.
    - marcinzm 8y ago
      I'd wager most marriages (by a large margin) that result in a green card happened at that specific time because of the green card. Otherwise they'd have waited longer. I guess it's technically illegal but so is jaywalking in NYC.
- marcinzm 8y ago
  >Its a slap in the face when I read about people literally buying there way in Why? The US is a capitalistic society and more so than other countries such as those in Europe. Presumably you liked the US because it is such a capitalistic society with high pay, slightly lower taxes, etc. Paying to get in is pretty much the definition of capitalism.
  - FreedomToCreate 8y ago
    So in your world view, bribery should be absolutely allowed than? You have a piece of land I want, but the law prevents me from stealing it from you and you won't sell. So I grease the hand of the local authorities and get them to take it via eminent domain, pay you some cash for compensation and just take it. I have more capital so its fair... We go to court, but since I have more money I'll just grease the hand of the judge.
    - marcinzm 8y ago
      I quoted a specific part of what you said for a reason. The only dubious thing they did was get the cap for investment lowered from $1m to $500k. The lower cap does not change the fundamental issue you stated which was paying for citizenship. Merely changes how much they had to pay. So on that point, buying your way in is not bribery if the legal system allows it. It's merely paying for a service from the government. For example, I pay the government to register my car, to get permits for work I'm doing or get a concealed gun permit. In this case they're paying for citizenship. This is also merely one way to pay for citizenship, little different than the usual "pay $100+k for a US college degree so my child gets OTP and can apply for a H1B."
  - unreal37 8y ago
    The US doesn't have lower taxes like you think it does.
    - marcinzm 8y ago
      I said slightly lower and overall it's true depending on the exact US state and European country being compared. For high income brackets which is presumably what an immigrant would be aiming for. Also some countries tax individuals while others tax employers for the same thing which makes comparisons difficult. Then there's VAT which is objectively larger than even the largest US sales tax.
ashayh 8y ago
There are people who paid 10-15 years into SS and Fed taxes (sometimes more than 500K) yet have a long, long way to a Green card or citizenship.
- bdamm 8y ago
  A friend of mine worked in the US for 17 years under various visas, but never managed to get her green card. She is facing retirement without the social security she was taxed to fund. She also won't get anything of usable value from the old-age pension program in her country of origin since she worked out of country for so many years. A real immigration trap.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    The US and several other countries have reciprocal agreements with regards to payments into social security/retirement programs; did your friend neither save for retirement nor comes from a country with a reciprocal agreement?
  - booleandilemma 8y ago
    When someone goes to the US to work, aren’t they doing it to be paid wages they wouldn’t be able to make in their home country? That in and of itself is a nice benefit.
    - allannienhuis 8y ago
      I don't think everyone immigrating to the U.S. does so for 'jobs/money'. Plenty of people immigrate for family and relationship reasons, many from first-world countries.
      - booleandilemma 8y ago
        I agree, and that’s why I said When someone goes to the US to work...
        8y ago
totalthrowaway 8y ago
The actual article title is "The Hidden Horror ... " Having been there, financing is but one of its many horrors. NYC is great for many reasons. Having high end airport malls is not one of them.
- kemiller 8y ago
  I was in the neighborhood the weekend it opened and strolled through. Thing that struck me was that there was no seating almost anywhere. People were sitting on the floor and it felt like a weird refugee area.
  - bobthepanda 8y ago
    There's no seating because you're not meant to sit. A lot of public space these days is designed to be hostile for that use, so that undesirables like the homeless don't linger, but in the process it becomes hostile to everybody. A lot of public-facing plazas are meant to be ornamental or monumental and nothing more, which is quite sad.
    - totalthrowaway 8y ago
      There was a time when this concept was revolutionary. https://www.pps.org/article/wwhyte https://www.pps.org/article/wwhyte He literally filmed what people actually did in public spaces, and came up with great guidelines to make them enjoyable. Architects study this is school. As you say, whenever it isn't implemented, it is because they specifically chose not to, not because they don't know better.
      - bobthepanda 8y ago
        It's not really the architects' fault if their clients don't want free enjoyment of the space by the public.
  - zachkatz 8y ago
    I documented this. It's pretty crazy: https://www.instagram.com/p/BvXMeLSBZ5Q/ https://www.instagram.com/p/BvXMeLSBZ5Q/
andrewla 8y ago
The summary is that through some insane gerrymandering, the Hudson Yards project is lumped in with a bunch of low-income areas in Harlem. This means that foreign investors only need to invest $500k to qualify for a visa program that would normally require a $1M investment. What's unclear from the article is how extensively this exception was used (that is, how many <$1M investments were accepted). The article says there were 3,200 foreign investors who qualified for the EB-5 through Hudson Yards, for a total of $1.2B invested. That's an average of $375k per investor, which makes no sense -- $500k is the floor. It might be that the 3,200 number was derived by dividing the $1.6B (that includes the still-accepting-investors phase 3) by the $500k requirement for the TEA (Targeted Employment Area). Without real stats it's hard to see how bad this is -- "buying your way in" is maybe a tough pill to swallow for people who have tried to immigrate, but the $1M EB-5 path is open regardless of zoning shenanigans.
- rb808 8y ago
  The worst thing is people aren't paying $500k, they're investing $500k, so probably will get most of it back again. It really costs them nothing.
  - conanbatt 8y ago
    Would you feel better if they just paid 500k for a visa?
    - Scoundreller 8y ago
      Like a tax? Yes.
      - conanbatt 8y ago
        So its a quantitative issue for you, not qualitative. If they loaned more without interests its equivalent.
        paulgb 8y ago
joe_the_user 8y ago
"Which terrible is the real terrible" can be problematic debate. Still, I'd say the original claim that this visa program could help low income neighborhoods deserves entry on the list of terribles along with it's overt hijacking.
CodeSheikh 8y ago
"EB-5 is supposed to be a way to jumpstart investment in remote rural areas, or distressed urban ones". And most of the investors apparently are from China. Is China really strategically investing in important infrastructure all over the globe?
- code_duck 8y ago
  Mmm, no, these people have no interest in that per se. They’re trying to buy individual access to the United States. The lack of interest in renovating dilapidated infrastructure is also underlined by the topic of the article, which is how these funds were actually invested in luxury real estate.
ng12 8y ago
I don't really understand the point of an urban TEA at all, at least in a thriving city in the midst of a housing bubble like New York. It sounds like a way to just directly funnel funds to gentrification projects.
thrwwy192783 8y ago
What a wonderful and equitable world globalism has created. The wealthy can just buy citizenship while the poor, the desperate and the refugees languish pretty much stateless. At this point a wealthy chinese, saudi or israeli citizen is more of an "american" than a poor kid born in the rust belt. At least the government and the elites value these wealthy foreigners more than any poor citizen here in the states.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  >poor kid born in the rust belt... ... or in Harlem apparently. It is a little infuriating that they are, essentially, stealing from impoverished rural and urban areas.
  - mruts 8y ago
    That’s not what’s going on at all. You think that if Hudson Yards wasn’t built, Harlem would somehow get all that money? That’s not how it works, it’s not a zero-sum game.
    - mthoms 8y ago
      If I understand it correctly - there is a limited number of these Visas and this mega-project used up most of them. If true, then this scheme is indeed taking opportunity away from Harlem and other areas it was intended to help.
      - mruts 8y ago
        That's a fair point. But have you considered that maybe Harlem would be hard pressed to find investors, even if the investors got a Visa? It would only take away investment from other areas if a) all the investment visa spots are fully allocated and b) If the investors would have given the money to some low-income community instead. I'm certainly not an expert on this, but it sounds plausible to me that at least one of the aforementioned conditions is not true.
ralph84 8y ago
Just auction off N green cards every month. That would be much more transparent and fair than the current system.
mruts 8y ago
I’m not sure what is so bad about this. Hudson Yards got money, investors got visas. Why is this a problem? It’s not like it’s taking investment from low income nrighborhoods: it’s not a zero sum game.
- sudden 8y ago
  Theres nothing wrong with it, people are just conflating different issues.

169 points by keeganjw 8y ago

I have worked in the United States for 10 years on a non-immigrant visa (I have no other way to work in the United states and 7 years of H1-B lottery have yielded nothing). I have paid more than six figures in taxes to the Feds, as well as contributed to an American business and being an active community member. I have no path or way to immigrate to the United States nor can I use by past decade of contributions in any way. Its a slap in the face when I read about people literally buying there way in and corrupt politicians and businessman manipulating the system without consequence.

keeganjw 8y ago
This how you know things are broken when someone who's been here a decade, paying their way and contributing, gets tossed out as soon as the wind blows a different direction. We're just shooting ourselves in the foot and missing out on a lot of good people.
tim333 8y ago
The EB5 is still running if you can lend $500k for about six years.
gniv 8y ago
If you paid 10 years into social security, you are eligible for payments, wherever you are in the world.
- mcguire 8y ago
  https://www.ssa.gov/international/agreement_descriptions.html https://www.ssa.gov/international/agreement_descriptions.htm...
pm90 8y ago
Its a mistake to assume that the American system is fair or corruption free. To a certain extent, corruption and shadiness exist everywhere. America is a great country but you kinda have to assume the worst and live life accordingly. Which means hustling all the time, looking at alternative ways etc. I know a whole bunch of folks who have married specifically for immigration reasons (some of them admit it, most don't). I'm not saying that you do any of those things and I empathize with you. I guess the only place where I fault you is in assuming the American system is fair and corruption free, which it totally is not.
- enraged_camel 8y ago
  >>I know a whole bunch of folks who have married specifically for immigration reasons (some of them admit it, most don't). To be perfectly clear, this is immigration fraud and it’s extremely illegal.
  - marcinzm 8y ago
    I'd wager most marriages (by a large margin) that result in a green card happened at that specific time because of the green card. Otherwise they'd have waited longer. I guess it's technically illegal but so is jaywalking in NYC.
marcinzm 8y ago
>Its a slap in the face when I read about people literally buying there way in Why? The US is a capitalistic society and more so than other countries such as those in Europe. Presumably you liked the US because it is such a capitalistic society with high pay, slightly lower taxes, etc. Paying to get in is pretty much the definition of capitalism.
- FreedomToCreate 8y ago
  So in your world view, bribery should be absolutely allowed than? You have a piece of land I want, but the law prevents me from stealing it from you and you won't sell. So I grease the hand of the local authorities and get them to take it via eminent domain, pay you some cash for compensation and just take it. I have more capital so its fair... We go to court, but since I have more money I'll just grease the hand of the judge.
  - marcinzm 8y ago
    I quoted a specific part of what you said for a reason. The only dubious thing they did was get the cap for investment lowered from $1m to $500k. The lower cap does not change the fundamental issue you stated which was paying for citizenship. Merely changes how much they had to pay. So on that point, buying your way in is not bribery if the legal system allows it. It's merely paying for a service from the government. For example, I pay the government to register my car, to get permits for work I'm doing or get a concealed gun permit. In this case they're paying for citizenship. This is also merely one way to pay for citizenship, little different than the usual "pay $100+k for a US college degree so my child gets OTP and can apply for a H1B."
- unreal37 8y ago
  The US doesn't have lower taxes like you think it does.
  - marcinzm 8y ago
    I said slightly lower and overall it's true depending on the exact US state and European country being compared. For high income brackets which is presumably what an immigrant would be aiming for. Also some countries tax individuals while others tax employers for the same thing which makes comparisons difficult. Then there's VAT which is objectively larger than even the largest US sales tax.

ashayh 8y ago

There are people who paid 10-15 years into SS and Fed taxes (sometimes more than 500K) yet have a long, long way to a Green card or citizenship.

bdamm 8y ago
A friend of mine worked in the US for 17 years under various visas, but never managed to get her green card. She is facing retirement without the social security she was taxed to fund. She also won't get anything of usable value from the old-age pension program in her country of origin since she worked out of country for so many years. A real immigration trap.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  The US and several other countries have reciprocal agreements with regards to payments into social security/retirement programs; did your friend neither save for retirement nor comes from a country with a reciprocal agreement?
- booleandilemma 8y ago
  When someone goes to the US to work, aren’t they doing it to be paid wages they wouldn’t be able to make in their home country? That in and of itself is a nice benefit.
  - allannienhuis 8y ago
    I don't think everyone immigrating to the U.S. does so for 'jobs/money'. Plenty of people immigrate for family and relationship reasons, many from first-world countries.
    - booleandilemma 8y ago
      I agree, and that’s why I said When someone goes to the US to work...
      - 8y ago

totalthrowaway 8y ago

The actual article title is "The Hidden Horror ... " Having been there, financing is but one of its many horrors. NYC is great for many reasons. Having high end airport malls is not one of them.

kemiller 8y ago
I was in the neighborhood the weekend it opened and strolled through. Thing that struck me was that there was no seating almost anywhere. People were sitting on the floor and it felt like a weird refugee area.
- bobthepanda 8y ago
  There's no seating because you're not meant to sit. A lot of public space these days is designed to be hostile for that use, so that undesirables like the homeless don't linger, but in the process it becomes hostile to everybody. A lot of public-facing plazas are meant to be ornamental or monumental and nothing more, which is quite sad.
  - totalthrowaway 8y ago
    There was a time when this concept was revolutionary. https://www.pps.org/article/wwhyte https://www.pps.org/article/wwhyte He literally filmed what people actually did in public spaces, and came up with great guidelines to make them enjoyable. Architects study this is school. As you say, whenever it isn't implemented, it is because they specifically chose not to, not because they don't know better.
    - bobthepanda 8y ago
      It's not really the architects' fault if their clients don't want free enjoyment of the space by the public.
- zachkatz 8y ago
  I documented this. It's pretty crazy: https://www.instagram.com/p/BvXMeLSBZ5Q/ https://www.instagram.com/p/BvXMeLSBZ5Q/

andrewla 8y ago

The summary is that through some insane gerrymandering, the Hudson Yards project is lumped in with a bunch of low-income areas in Harlem. This means that foreign investors only need to invest $500k to qualify for a visa program that would normally require a $1M investment. What's unclear from the article is how extensively this exception was used (that is, how many <$1M investments were accepted). The article says there were 3,200 foreign investors who qualified for the EB-5 through Hudson Yards, for a total of $1.2B invested. That's an average of $375k per investor, which makes no sense -- $500k is the floor. It might be that the 3,200 number was derived by dividing the $1.6B (that includes the still-accepting-investors phase 3) by the $500k requirement for the TEA (Targeted Employment Area). Without real stats it's hard to see how bad this is -- "buying your way in" is maybe a tough pill to swallow for people who have tried to immigrate, but the $1M EB-5 path is open regardless of zoning shenanigans.

rb808 8y ago
The worst thing is people aren't paying $500k, they're investing $500k, so probably will get most of it back again. It really costs them nothing.
- conanbatt 8y ago
  Would you feel better if they just paid 500k for a visa?
  - Scoundreller 8y ago
    Like a tax? Yes.
    - conanbatt 8y ago
      So its a quantitative issue for you, not qualitative. If they loaned more without interests its equivalent.
      - paulgb 8y ago

joe_the_user 8y ago

"Which terrible is the real terrible" can be problematic debate. Still, I'd say the original claim that this visa program could help low income neighborhoods deserves entry on the list of terribles along with it's overt hijacking.

CodeSheikh 8y ago

"EB-5 is supposed to be a way to jumpstart investment in remote rural areas, or distressed urban ones". And most of the investors apparently are from China. Is China really strategically investing in important infrastructure all over the globe?

code_duck 8y ago
Mmm, no, these people have no interest in that per se. They’re trying to buy individual access to the United States. The lack of interest in renovating dilapidated infrastructure is also underlined by the topic of the article, which is how these funds were actually invested in luxury real estate.

ng12 8y ago

I don't really understand the point of an urban TEA at all, at least in a thriving city in the midst of a housing bubble like New York. It sounds like a way to just directly funnel funds to gentrification projects.

thrwwy192783 8y ago

What a wonderful and equitable world globalism has created. The wealthy can just buy citizenship while the poor, the desperate and the refugees languish pretty much stateless. At this point a wealthy chinese, saudi or israeli citizen is more of an "american" than a poor kid born in the rust belt. At least the government and the elites value these wealthy foreigners more than any poor citizen here in the states.

bilbo0s 8y ago
>poor kid born in the rust belt... ... or in Harlem apparently. It is a little infuriating that they are, essentially, stealing from impoverished rural and urban areas.
- mruts 8y ago
  That’s not what’s going on at all. You think that if Hudson Yards wasn’t built, Harlem would somehow get all that money? That’s not how it works, it’s not a zero-sum game.
  - mthoms 8y ago
    If I understand it correctly - there is a limited number of these Visas and this mega-project used up most of them. If true, then this scheme is indeed taking opportunity away from Harlem and other areas it was intended to help.
    - mruts 8y ago
      That's a fair point. But have you considered that maybe Harlem would be hard pressed to find investors, even if the investors got a Visa? It would only take away investment from other areas if a) all the investment visa spots are fully allocated and b) If the investors would have given the money to some low-income community instead. I'm certainly not an expert on this, but it sounds plausible to me that at least one of the aforementioned conditions is not true.

ralph84 8y ago

Just auction off N green cards every month. That would be much more transparent and fair than the current system.

mruts 8y ago

I’m not sure what is so bad about this. Hudson Yards got money, investors got visas. Why is this a problem? It’s not like it’s taking investment from low income nrighborhoods: it’s not a zero sum game.

sudden 8y ago
Theres nothing wrong with it, people are just conflating different issues.