The organization, made up of real estate developers, property owners, banks, insurance companies, investment firms and others, has established a political action committee to direct donations to back candidates in both parties who support pro-development policies.

Called Jobs for New York, the PAC represents an aggressive new involvement in New York’s heavily regulated city elections by a major independent expenditure group. The PAC also has the support of several unions whose fortunes are tied to construction, including those representing carpenters and laborers known as mason tenders.

The effort is focused exclusively on Council races, in part because members tend to have great sway over development in their districts, but also because of the uncertainty surrounding the topsy-turvy mayoral campaign.

The Council will undergo extensive turnover this year with some 21 of its 51 members stepping down, mainly because of term limits.

The infusion of cash from the PAC reflects broader anxieties coursing through New York’s business community as Mr. Bloomberg prepares to leave City Hall after 12 years. The mayoral race has been marked by sharp questions about whether the candidates, especially those in the Democratic primary, are committed to building on the Bloomberg legacy or to dismantling it.

During his tenure, the mayor has championed a pro-development agenda, pushing dozens of rezoning measures through the Council while investing billions of dollars to nurture commercial development and affordable housing — sometimes over the objections of neighborhood residents.

The PAC effort is being spearheaded by the Real Estate Board of New York, which includes some of the most influential figures and families in the industry, including Larry A. Silverstein, the developer of the World Trade Center, Richard S. LeFrak, Daniel R. Tishman, the Speyers and the Rudins.

In an interview, Steven Spinola, the president of the real estate board, called Mr. Bloomberg’s time in City Hall a “wonderful era” and said his organization’s PAC intended to support candidates who would advance a pro-jobs, pro-development agenda similar to Mr. Bloomberg’s.

A memorandum outlining the effort described the coming election as a “transformative campaign that will shape the city’s economic development atmosphere for years to come.”

The group plans to get involved in races in up to 25 Council districts throughout the city, backing candidates who support “an agenda focused on creating good jobs, building affordable housing and improving the city’s economy,” the memo says. It will pay for district-by-district polling, phone banks, direct mail, and television and radio advertisements to support candidates seen as being allied with the interests of business leaders and their supporters in labor.

The focus underscores the enormous role the Council — relatively weak in other areas of city government — has in overseeing development. It tends to defer to individual members’ views on whether to approve, modify or reject projects in their districts.

The effort signals the new electoral dynamic created by recent court rulings that allowed for a proliferation of independent expenditure groups, like so-called super PACs, in presidential and Congressional races around the country. In New York City, campaign regulators are preparing for the participation of outside organizations and putting in place rules that require independent expenditure campaigns to disclose the source of their money and details of their spending.

City campaign regulators said on Thursday that they could not recall an independent expenditure campaign of the financial scale envisioned by the Jobs for New York PAC.

Given the sums the organization is prepared to spend, it could play a powerful role in the local campaigns. In 2009, sitting council members raised an average of $175,000, while challengers raised an average of $125,000, according to an analysis by Citizens Union of New York City, a government watchdog group.

Local races, however, can be unpredictable and hinge on longstanding relationships and grudges; whether an industry PAC can truly influence Council races on a citywide scale is an open question. The organizers have tapped Harry Giannoulis, Maggie Moran and Phil Singer, all veterans of city, state and federal campaigns, to oversee the organization’s activities.

The group said it planned to abide by state contribution limits — $150,000 from individuals and $5,000 from corporations.

The PAC also has the support of several unions: Mason Tenders’ District Council of Greater New York; UFCW Local 1500, which represents supermarket workers; and the New York City District Council of Carpenters.

Mike McGuire, the political director of the Mason Tenders said his members benefited from robust development. “It means jobs,” he said. “Unionized building trades are the last of the good blue-collar jobs in New York City.”

Mr. McGuire also noted that the turnover on the Council was coming at a critical time, suggesting that new members could affect a gradually improving economy, depending on their views. “A pro-development Council would be good for us,” he said.

In an interview, Susan Lerner, the executive director of Common Cause New York, a government watchdog group, indicated that the multimillion-dollar effort was a significant shift in city politics and might alter the nature of campaigning on the local level.

“The entire point of a City Council race is to reflect the needs of the neighborhoods in a district,” Ms. Lerner said. “This undercuts the neighborhood-based nature of a district and replaces neighborhood concerns with industry concerns.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/31/nyregion/business-pac-plans-a-push-in-city-council-races.html?partner=rss&emc=rss