Frank Lombardi writes from the Daily News City Hall Bureau about the City Councils overwhelming vote to reject a plan to develop the long-vacant Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx.

“The normally tame City Council turned tiger Monday on Mayor Bloomberg and one of his favored developers.

In an unprecedented rebuff of a development project pushed by the mayor, the Council voted, 45 to 1, to reject a $324 million shopping mall earmarked for the long-vacant Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx.

The deal breaker: Local officials wanted the developers to ensure that retail workers in the mall would be paid a “living wage” of $10 an hour with benefits, or $11.50 without benefits. Bloomberg and the developer, the Related Cos., refused.”

Bloomberg, in Copenhagen for the climate change summit, said the rejection means the loss of more than 2,200 construction and full-time jobs and more than $300 million in private investment in the Bronx.”

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Also, in the Daily News, Bob Kappstatter tells read that the real deal killer was that living-wage argument.

Some win while others lose after Kingsbridge Armory deal gets scrapped

“Who woulda thunk it?

The City Council Monday torpedoed the city’s plans to put the Kingsbridge Armory under developer The Related Companies’ Christmas tree, along with $40 million to $60 million in tax breaks and renovations as stocking stuffers.

While the technical reason for killing the deal rested on traffic issues, the real deal killer was that living-wage argument that retail workers deserve $10 an hour plus benefits.

Those involved said an eleventh-hour compromise pushed by Deputy Mayor Robert Lieber to set up “a special fund” to make up the difference from minimum wage was “put together with just too much spit and glue” and boiled down to a welfare giveaway.

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