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November 27, 2004
DUELING DEVELOPERS: Boymelgreen’s plans put Ratner’s ’Yards’ in peril
The Brooklyn Papers:
The developer of the Newswalk building, Leviev Boymelgreen, and Pacific St. property owner, Henry Weinstein, have partnered on a plan to build market-rate housing with in the proposed footprint of Ratner's arena office-housing tower complex. This could throw a "monkey wrench" in Ratner's hopes to have the State use eminent domain to condemn private property he plans to build upon.
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Quotes from Pacific Street property owner, Herny Weinstein:
“I’ve lived here 30 years, and I don’t take kindly to people kicking me off my property.”
“The area’s doing very well without a stadium,” criticizing Ratner’s linkage of needed housing to a privately owned arena in order to seize property, “I don’t know why that stadium has anything to do with building houses.”
“We’re certainly not going to go away quietly, that’s for sure. We’re going to spend any amount of money to keep my property.”
Background: The issue of eminent domain became more complicated two weeks ago when Forest City Ratner (FCR) VP Jim Stuckey declared during Markowitz's Closed-Door Meeting: Part II, that the case pending in the US Supreme Court of Kelo v. New London does not apply to FCR's Atlantic Yards proposal because Ratner and NY State will seek to have the private property they seek declared as "blighted."
This a break from FCR's past strategy where the use of eminent domain would be in the public interest since any redevelopment would increase the tax base. Even Marty Markowitz admitted last month that the Supreme Court case "would make or break the plan."
This is also a break from Ratner's assurances that he would attempt to minimize the use of eminent domain by buying out the property owners* and asking architect Frank Gehry to redesign the site plan to save existing buildings**.
*5/8/2004, "Coalition cracking"
**4/3/2004, "Ratner, Gehry looking to scale back plans"
Posted by lumi at November 27, 2004 8:44 AM