From left: A U.S. visa, the International Gem Tower and a rendering of the Barclays Center at Atlantic Yards

With financing conditions extremely tight, New York City developers have increasingly turned to the EB-5 program, which gives foreign investors visas in exchange for investment in job-creating projects, to land funding for their projects. But according to the New York Times, developers are bending the rules to make their projects more attractive for those foreign funds, and taking money away from other projects that need the funding.

The minimum investment to qualify for a visa under the program has always been $1 million — but the threshold is reduced to $500,000 if the project is in a rural area or a community where unemployment is 50 percent greater than the national average. [more]

The WTC Memorial and One World Trade Center are underway, but the fate of other Ground Zero projects remains unclear.

From the January issue: Development in Lower Manhattan, perhaps more than anywhere else in the
city, is characterized by big ideas. The biggest and most obvious
developments are related to Ground Zero, a site that at present is more
notable for its building delays than its progress. Still, prominent
World Trade Center-related projects, including the September 11th
Memorial, are expected to be finished within the next few years. Beyond the World Trade Center, big Lower Manhattan projects
underway include the construction of the tallest residential tower in
the city and work on the East River Waterfront. Other developments,
such as towers near the Battery Tunnel and the redevelopment of the
South Street Seaport, have fallen victim to the down market. Here are some of the plans floating around that, if brought to fruition, would fundamentally alter Lower Manhattan.