Quantcast

Liu sees signs of recovery in city’s economic outlook

Liu sees signs of recovery in city’s economic outlook
By Connor Adams Sheets

Seven months into his tenure as city Comptroller, former Flushing Councilman John Liu said he believes New York City is recovering from the economic downturn at an encouraging rate.

Unemployment in the city has fallen from 10.5 percent in December 2009 to 9.5 percent now — the same as the current national average — and he said the city has been able to recover faster than many other areas because it did not suffer from the popping of a large construction bubble, as many other cities did.

“I am optimistic about where New York City is and where it’s headed,” he said Aug. 5 at a roundtable discussion with reporters from Queens media outlets at his headquarters at 1 Centre St. in Manhattan. “I think we’ve recovered a little quicker and a little better than some other municipalities.”

But the economy is still in far worse health than it was just a couple years ago, Liu said, and some indicators are particularly distressing.

He pointed out that the city experienced a 16 percent increase in the number of foreclosures in the first quarter of 2010 from a year earlier and said that such a jump dampens economic growth by leaving families in dire straits, unable to spend freely and possibly having to enter bankruptcy.

“We’re headed in the right direction, but obviously 9.5 percent [unemployment] is very high, so it speaks to the need to have a long-term economic plan and ultimately to create jobs,” he said.

The city comptroller’s office has introduced a number of initiatives in recent months that Liu said were aimed at helping the city expeditiously recover from the recession.

Last month he called on the city’s large banks to take steps to reform the loan modification process in order to help avoid foreclosures and keep New Yorkers in their homes.

He also brought forward a minority- and women-owned business effort in order to further one of his two key goals as comptroller: “expanding opportunities.” His other main goal is to work as hard as he can to continue “saving people money.”

Liu also took time to weigh in on the Council’s approval last week of the plans for construction of Flushing Commons, an $850 million, mixed-use development project slated to be built on the current site of Municipal Lot 1 in downtown Flushing.

“Councilman Peter Koo supported the project, and with his support the City Council has passed the land-use approvals,” he said.

He would not indicate whether he would have voted for the project if he were still Flushing’s councilman, which he was throughout most of the negotiations on the project. Liu withdrew his support several years ago when the city and the project’s developer, TDC Development, changed an agreement he had helped negotiate involving community benefits, parking rates and other stipulations.

He only said that two concessions which Koo (R-Flushing) helped secure in the final weeks before the Council vote were “in the right direction.” One expanded an assistance program during construction of the project to provide area business-owners with $6 million to help them avoid having to close as a result of lost business and another addressed parking rates.

Liu also highlighted a new program he rolled out last moth called Checkbook NYC, which enables people to view all city expenditures on the Internet, in order to ensure greater government transparency and accountability.

“Checkbook NYC allows you to see every city expenditure and to search for them, sort them, download them,” he said. “It not only allows people to look at these expenditures, but it makes all of us — me included — in government that much more careful with how we spend taxpayers’ money.”

Reach reporter Connor Adams Sheets by e-mail at [email protected] or by phone at 718-260-4538.