The Syracuse Common Council postponed its vote on a 30-year payment in lieu of taxes, or PILOT, proposal for the developer of a new Syracuse University bookstore complex on University Avenue.

Khalid Bey, a Syracuse common councilor and chairman of the Economic Development, Downtown and Metropolitan Planning Committee, said at the council meeting Monday that he chose to withdraw the vote on the project because it would have undoubtedly been denied.

Under the proposed PILOT agreement, SU would lease the property to Cameron Group LLC for $1. The private developer would construct and finance the $20 million project and would recoup the financing with payments from SU. This would total to about $1.48 million annually for 30 years, at which time the property would be re-leased to the university.

Cameron would pay 17 percent of the property’s tax bill during the 30-year lease period, an agreement that drew criticism from many Syracuse residents and common councilors.

By withdrawing the vote, Bey said the Common Council would have more time to meet with Cameron and SU officials this week to try and hash out a new plan.

After the meeting, Councilor-at-Large Lance Denno said the same proposal could technically be reintroduced to the Common Council, but it would be very unlikely.

‘That specific deal, theoretically, could be reintroduced, but it’s really dead,’ he said.

If the SU administration and Cameron comes up with a new package, Denno said, it would have to be introduced and go through the voting process from the very beginning, starting with a vote from the Syracuse Industrial Development Agency, which passed the current proposal with a 3-2 vote Feb. 21.

Bey said he wanted to make it clear that Common Council members do not oppose the project itself. Rather, it is the PILOT agreement with which many take opposition. He said he hopes Cameron and Chancellor Nancy Cantor will be willing to negotiate a new agreement.

‘I’m hoping they can provide something that is attractive enough for two of the Common Councilors,’ he said.

The new agreement would need two more votes than the current agreement would have had to pass, Bey said. He said he hopes after negotiations with the university and the developer, Common Council members will make decisions as individuals, not as groups.

‘We know what the group thought is now,’ he said. ‘It’s not that they’re against the project. They’re against the PILOT.’

Bey said whether the project will eventually pass is dependent upon how ‘elastic’ the developer is willing to be during his negotiations, and if Cameron and SU can draft a new proposal that would be feasible to Common Council members.

‘If it’s going to fail totally,’ Bey said, ‘we’ll know after this week.’

snbouvia@syr.edu

Published on March 25, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Stephanie: snbouvia@syr.edu | @snbouvia