Such port commission also shall
(1) Have power to confer with the governing bodies of each of the municipalities within the port district and dock, port, harbor, channel and improvement commission and any other body or official having to do with port and harbor facilities within and without the district and hold public hearings as to such facilities;(2) Have power to confer with the railroad, steamship, warehouse and other officials in the district with reference to the development of transportation facilities in such district and the co-ordination of the same;(3) Confer with the proper state officials as to means and measures for stimulating the use of the barge canal;(4) Formulate and adopt a financial, building and operation program, which shall be submitted to the mayor of each city, in the district, who shall be entitled to be heard thereon before formal adoption, notice of such hearing to be given in writing at least twenty days before the day of such hearing;(5) Have power to adopt a comprehensive plan, and to change or revise the same, for the development of port facilities in such district, which plan may provide separately for the work of initial development, and shall include an estimate of the total cost of all the work and/or of the work included in such initial development, and to apportion the cost thereof, as provided in section eight, and not oftener than once in three years to revise such apportionment to accord with any changes theretofore made in the comprehensive plan, as required by said section eight; and as part of such comprehensive plan, or pursuant thereto, to determine upon the location, type, size and construction of requisite port facilities, subject, however, to the approval of the secretary of war and chief of engineers, United States Army, where federal statute or regulation requires it;(6) Have power to acquire, lease, erect, construct, make, equip and maintain port facilities within or outside the district, either on land owned by the district or upon land set aside for its uses and control, as provided in section thirteen, and for any such purpose to acquire and improve real property, including easements therein, lands under water and riparian rights, by agreement or by condemnation, and to sell, rent, exchange or dispose of any property, real or personal, as may seem advisable;(7) Have power to contract with any municipality in the district for the construction by the municipality of one or more docks, wharves, terminals or warehouses, to belong to the municipality and be maintained by it, whereby a part of the cost of construction shall be borne by the district, in cases where the commission, after a public hearing, determines that such work is of common benefit to the municipalities, inhabitants and property in the district;(8) Have power to execute contracts within the provisions and limitations of this act;(9) Have power to fix rates, charges and wharfage for the use of all port facilities, or to rent the same or grant the use thereof for limited periods, and collect rates, rents, charges and wharfage for such facilities owned or controlled by the district;(10) Operate and maintain all port facilities owned or controlled by it, including a general terminal railroad connecting with any railroad within said district, use the revenues therefrom for the upkeep thereof and the expenses of the commission and the residue, if any, on hand at the end of any fiscal year, for further construction and port development, or in reduction of taxation;(11) Have power to regulate and supervise the construction and operation of all port facilities, by whomsoever constructed, installed or owned;(12) Expend moneys, if any, appropriated by the state for the purposes of this act on account of benefits accruing thereunder to the state or its property;(13) Have power to create and maintain a traffic bureau;(14) Have power to employ such clerical, engineering, legal or other professional assistants as it may deem necessary for the purposes of this act, fix their compensation and at pleasure discharge any of them;(15) Have power to do all things necessary to make the deeper Hudson project useful and productive. The terms "facilities," "port facilities," "terminals," and "terminal work" as used in this act, shall include, among other things, wharves, docks, piers, terminals, railroad tracks on terminals, cold storage and refrigerating plants, warehouses, elevators, and such facilities, operations or things as may be incidental or appurtenant thereto, and such property real or personal as may be acquired or used in connection therewith, personal service, freight handling machinery and such equipment as is used in the handling of freight and the establishment and operation of a port, and the appurtenances thereto, and work of deepening parts of the Hudson river adjacent to the terminal, exclusive of the channel, within the port district.
N.Y. Port of Albany Law § 5