NEW YORK (AP) — Talk about a rent increase that would make even a New Yorker blanch.

Delays on Rt 495 heading for the Lincoln Tunnel
Delays on Rt 495 heading for the Lincoln Tunnel (NJ DOT)
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A park-and-ride lot outside the Lincoln Tunnel could reap the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey $875,000 annually from New Jersey Transit, several years after a contentious deal was made for $1 a year.

Port Authority chairman John Degnan said Thursday that the agency has reached a tentative agreement on a lease for the lot if it receives final approval from both agencies, which could happen as soon as next month.

The new deal would not be retroactive, Degnan said.

"This is a tentative agreement between the Port Authority and NJ TRANSIT with details that still need to worked out and approved by our board of directors," New Jersey Transit spokeswoman Jennifer Nelson said in an email Thursday.

The lease came under heavy scrutiny when a published report last year said records showed then-Port Authority chairman David Samson voted for the $1-a-year lease extension in 2012 at a time when his law firm represented NJ Transit. Before that, the lease was approximately $900,000 per year.

The Port Authority later said Samson recused himself from the vote but that it wasn't accurately recorded at the time.

The Port Authority has acknowledged that documents involving the park-and-ride lease were among numerous records subpoenaed by federal investigators probing Samson's activities as Port Authority chairman. Samson resigned from the Port Authority in March 2014.

Around the same time, the Port Authority's board of commissioners said it would seek to renegotiate the lease extension. NJ Transit has continued to pay $1 per year for the 15 months since that process was started, a Port Authority spokesman said Thursday.

 

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