February 10, 2006 —Developer Larry Silverstein is striking back at city and state officials in uncharacteristically blunt terms, calling their threat to take back his building rights "a Soviet-style confiscation." WNYC's Andrea Bernstein reports.

Both the Port Authority and the Mayor have been turning up the heat on the developer who controls the land at the world trade center site. They want Silverstein to give up development rights for two office towers and suggest he's being greedy for not doing so.

Earlier this week the Mayor produced a report by his economic development agendy that found Silverstein would have money to build only two of the four office towers planned at the World Trade Center site. Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff reiterated the charge at an LMDC meeting this week.

In a statement, Silverstein called the charges "destructive," "wrong" and "misleading" And he says the city's claim that he'll get a 500 million dollar windfall is "illusory." Governor Pataki has said he wants to resolve the dispute in a matter of weeks. For WNYC, I'm Andrea Bernstein.