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Yes, but my understanding of the article is the city was negotiating in good faith. They were willing to pay the $400k. Still a lot of money.


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Half as interesting did a really nice video on the subject a couple weeks ago: https://youtube.com/watch?v=HG6KA6V4T7w

It is absolutely bonkers how one-sided the deal was and seems to be costing the city billions


I did read it, yes. From what I can tell they paid $4.5 in site preparation, and the $2.5 million was on top of that.

$331b, not $400b. And the article talks about ways to pay for it. You just have to read to the end is all...

Good article. Misleading title.

As the articles goes on to point out, only that single section in the entire project will be that expensive, and that includes a lot of city upgrades that were otherwise needed and rolled into this (like new lighting, adding additional drainage, upgraded sidewalks, and new crosswalks).

To be honest the project sounds fantastic and I hope they keep at it. If they're able to roll in other upgrades at the same time, so much the better. The 12m figure is borderline clickbait (even if it is technically true).


The chronicle mentioned earlier this week that most of the $600k is supposedly for the mandatory environmental review. What a city.

No; they just made the project sponsor pay $20,000 for a study to confirm that it wasn't historic. The cost of that study, and the time it took, and the uncertainty it added to the process, will all get factored into the price that people eventually have to pay for these desperately-needed, much-delayed homes.

I remember hearing lots of back and forth on whether they actually used EternalBlue or not, I'm still not sure if that's settled or not, is it?

"Given the fact that $6 million has already been pulled from parks and public utilities funds to "harden" city systems, the $76,000 demand now seems like a bargain."

That doesn't seem fair at all. They'd still have to harden everything and it would still likely cost millions. From the looks of it they'd at least have their stuff back, probably, but they'd still need to put all the same time/money/work in, wouldn't they?


Yeah, the whole affair was about Barcelona getting a cut of the money from Sagrada Familia.

> Barcelona officials said the city will be paid 4.6 million euros ($5.2 million) in fees under an agreement negotiated with a foundation devoted to completing and preserving La Sagrada Familia.


Yeah I was waiting for the article to explain why the building permit mattered until they mentioned the fee millions of tourists pay to go see it every day and it became obvious the city just wanted a piece of that.

Why else would they demand $5.2M for a building permit.


Of course it is. If they'd have won this, it would have cost <$400,000.

Small change compared to upgrading infrastructure.


> Lorena Plaza, which would cost about $23 million, would qualify for the funds.

49 units at $23 million or $469k/unit. Is it me or is this an insanely high number? Remember, it's not even a house.


> $837,000

That's not what is happening. Per the article:

14% of the units build exceeded $700,000 each, and one project in pre-development is estimated to cost almost $837,000 per unit.


>...The rest of the project was to be funded with "TBD" sources. I believe the initial cost estimates were in the $40B range.

Thanks for pointing that out, I didn't realize that. I wonder how many of the people who voted for the bonds knew that there was an estimated extra 30 billion in cost.

Even going from an estimated 40 billion to 77 billion is still a huge increase. The original article mentioned that the state estimated the cost might actually be $98.1 billion.


Just playing devil's advocate here but maybe the whole line cost $400k and they could only charge the other 4 houses on the street $80k each. The fact that the line's already run doesn't mean it's already paid for.

It is surprising to me that this is being shown as a failure. That seems like pretty decent revenue, all told. Curious to know what the cost to the city was.

> State government documents put the final price tag at $958,600,000 for the property, building construction and equipment. The cost for the equipment alone is close to $300 million.

What a staggering number. How does our government get away with wasting so much money without any accountability?


I think that's how much it would cost or the full amount. I do think they spent $400 though. Very weirdly written article.

"cost the city an estimated $1.95 billion"!

This one change cost the government 60K. If changes like this are implemented all over the city, how will they pay for the IBM contract?
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