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June 30, 2005
NYC stadium subsidies hit $1.3 billion and rising
Field of Schemes
by Neil deMause
Neil deMause shatters Andrew Zimbalist's lowball calculations and misunderestimassumptions that appeared in Zimbalist's column in the Sports Business Journal.
NoLandGrab: DeMause looks at the arena portion of the Nets deal for his comparison of stadium deals. This doesn't even include the housing subsidies that Bruce Ratner is seeking for the residential towers portion of the project.
Posted by lumi at 9:01 AM
With West Side Stadium Dead, Bloomberg Does About-Face on PILOT Funds
NY Sun
Mayor Bloomberg signs legislation requiring Payments In Lieu of Taxes (PILOTs) to be paid to the City's general fund, but reserves right for Mayor to request approval for special projects like sports stadiums.
According to the council, the new bill is a modified version of one the mayor vetoed this month.It requires all money collected from PILOTs to go into the city’s general cash pool, but, unlike the previous bill,it allows the mayor to request approval to use some of that money for a specific project, such as a stadium.
Also: The NY Times, Mayor Agrees to Council's Review of Revenue Source He Uses
Posted by lumi at 7:35 AM
Government theft gets Supreme backing
NY Daily News
Be Our Guest (Columnist)
by Julia Vitullo-Martin
Though traditionally no friend of "the left," Vitullo-Martin's city government experience and Manhattan Institute credentials often leave her criticism unanswered. A NoLandGrab must read — here are some excerpts from her opinion piece:
More than any other place, New York is threatened by the Supreme Court decision allowing private property to be condemned and turned over to other private citizens in the name of fostering economic development.
This is bad news for New Yorkers, who have for decades endured the destruction of their neighborhoods - and the demolition of entire blocks - in the name of urban renewal. Indeed, scholar Martin Anderson once noted that New York State accounted for 34% of all urban renewal funds - nearly all of them spent in New York City. East Harlem alone had one-third of its land cleared - destruction from which it is only now recovering.
New York State has one of the most expansive eminent domain laws in the country - and one that has been upheld by the state's Court of Appeals. The only recourse in New York is political.
New Yorkers successfully halted the old urban renewal in the 1970s. Now they must fight to halt the new urban renewal by securing the same protective legislation already enjoyed by four other states whose big cities had had enough.
Posted by lumi at 6:57 AM
WRECKING BALL EQUALS URBAN RENEWAL
NY Press, The News Hole
"I cannot agree," [Justice Clarence Thomas] writes in his dissent, that "a costly urban-renewal project whose stated purpose is a vague promise of new jobs and increased tax revenue, but which is also suspiciously agreeable to the Pfizer Corporation, is for a public use." Change "Pfizer" to "Forest City Ratner" and Clarence Thomas is talking about Brooklyn.
Posted by lumi at 6:45 AM
BEYOND BLOOMBERG’S STADIUM INFATUATION
An economic development plan for the boroughs.
CityLimits.org
by Jonathan Bowles
Mayor Bloomberg gets high marks from the business sector and urban planners for reorganizing local governmental agencies, widening the focus of economic development to the outer boroughs and opening the planning process to community input.
However, there is still much criticism over his "top-down approach" to large-scale development projects that favor prominent local developers:
In almost every neighborhood where prominent real estate developers have expressed an interest--including Greenpoint and Williamsburg, Atlantic Yards, Red Hook, the far West Side of Manhattan and the Bronx Terminal Market--the administration takes a distinctly top-down approach to economic development. Though the prospect of significant private investment in these long-overlooked neighborhoods is in many ways a welcome sight, the administration often seems overeager to cut deals with developers and uninterested in whether a project will displace existing businesses or significantly alter the unique character of a neighborhood.
Posted by lumi at 6:44 AM
The Green Party, Press Release:
Green Party Calls Supreme Court Decision on Eminent Domain a Legalization of Theft
From the Green Party press release on eminent domain abuse and the recent US Supreme Court ruling:
"Working class and low income homeowners will be at special risk, since they provide less tax revenue, and the Court now gives permission for city councils and statehouses to evict and replace them with commercial and residential development for the sake of a wealthier tax base," said Steve Kramer, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States. "The Court has legalized theft -- theft from the poor for the rich."
Posted by lumi at 6:43 AM
Even more news on the Community Benefits Agreement:
Commercial Property News, Nets' $3.5B Brooklyn Project Makes Community Provisions
Brooklyn Downtown Star, (Some) Community Inks CBA
Posted by lumi at 6:14 AM
June 29, 2005
Press Release, Employment Policies Institute:
John Edwards Should Separate Self From ACORN’s Baggage On Columbus Minimum Wage Tour
NoLandGrab: A watchful Brooklynite pointed out that the source of this press release is specious due to the fact that they are a think tank whose true mission is to keep minimum wage low to serve the interest of the business commuity. This explains the inflamatory tone of the study.
EPI Research Director warns John Edwards:
ACORN's history of voter registration fraud, hypocrisy, abuse of federal grant programs, and disregard for sound economics should raise a red flag for John Edwards or anyone lending their name to this group.
[UPDATE, 2/10/06: According to Brian Mellor, the claim of voter registration fraud led to a law suit filed by "lawsuit filed by Mac Stuart against ACORN (Stuart v ACORN Case No. 04-22764-CIv)," which "has been dismissed with prejudice."]
Read the and then read the summary to EPI's report, "The Real ACORN: Anti-Employee, Anti-Union, Big-Business."
Posted by lumi at 8:33 AM
More coverage of Ratner's CBA
Ratner says the Community Benefits Agreement is "legally binding." Bloomberg says, "You have Bruce Ratner's word. That should be enough for you and for everybody else in this community."
We feel better about the whole thing -- don't you?
NY1, Bloomberg Pushes Ahead With Prospect Heights Nets Arena Plan
NY1 reports that:
* the press conference was held nowhere near Prospect Heights where the arena is to be built,
* demonstrators against the plan were barred by police, and
* Ratner's plan has "widespread political support – including members of the Albany board that put the kibosh on a Manhattan stadium."
NY1 online video: dialup/broadband
Field of Schemes, Mets, Nets work the media
Neil DeMause reveals that WCBS-TV and WCBS-News Radio reported that Ratner "giving the Atlantic Yards community where he wants to build the new Nets Basketball stadium $3.5 billion in community improvements."
NoLandGrab: $3.5 BILLION in community improvements? That would make Bruce Ratner the George Soros of Prospect Heights.
The Bergen Record, Nets owner reveals Brooklyn agreement
Posted by lumi at 6:44 AM
Burning Questions
The Newark Star-Ledger
Interview with Rick Eiserman, the chief executive of BrandBuzz, the New York marketing firm that was awarded the account for the Nets' advertising campaign.
But how to you bridge New Jersey and New York, since the team plans to move to Brooklyn in three years?
The current fan base is 50 percent New York, according to the team's data. We're not marketing to New Jersey. We're marketing to the tri-state market. It's the tri-state area's team.
We've got more relationship building to do in Brooklyn. We need to lay the groundwork, but we're really looking at the tri- state area.
NoLandGrab: Anything BrandBuzz does will be an improvement on last season's campaign, "Kidd, Carter and the rest of the Nets. SEE 'EM LIVE!"
Posted by lumi at 6:12 AM
June 28, 2005
Bloomberg Stops Making Sense
"This is a guy, if you don't understand that, you don't know how great this guy has been for Brooklyn and for New York City." — Mayor Mike Bloomberg on Bruce Ratner
Posted by lumi at 10:02 PM
The False Promise of Ratner's Affordable Housing - Redux
OnNYTurf.com demystifies the 50/30/20 affordable housing plan that is being touted by the pols as Bruce Ratner's big win-win for Brooklyn.
Upon closer examination the 50/30/20 is not truly a guaranteed affordable housing plan and turns out to be a big fat handout for developers.
NoLandGrab: In the technocratic world of publicly subsidized affordable housing plans, this is the first explanation written in plain English we’ve come across.
Posted by lumi at 9:49 PM
Big Apple can take a shine to this new threesome of sports facilities
Sports Business Journal
by Andrew Zimbalist
Zimbalist touts the Mets, Nets and Yankees stadium deals:
Compared with the typical deal in the sports industry and previous proposals in New York, the new facility plans for the Yanks, Mets and Nets are good news indeed.
Zimbalist never discloses in the column that he was paid by Forest City Ratner to author an economic analysis of Atlantic Yards. Then he reveals that he has no understanding of the financial structure of Ratner's proposal:
[T]he Ratner project includes not only $500 million of private funds for the arena but also an additional $3 billion in private funds for residential and commercial development.
CORRECTION: By Zimbalist's account the $3.5 billion project will be entirely privately funded. He is forgetting the $1.1 BILLION in public subsidies that Forest City Ratner Executive VP Jim Stuckey claimed the company would seek in hearings before the NYC Council.
Either Zimbalist is still shilling for the man or this leading analyst of sports venue deals doesn't know his facts.
Posted by lumi at 8:37 PM
DDDb Preess Release: Ratner’s So-called “Community” Benefits Agreement
Ratner’s 20-year History of Broken Promises Show Bad Faith
BROOKLYN, NY– On Monday the Mayor's office released a press statement headlined, “Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Forest City Ratner CEO and President Bruce Ratner and Civic Leaders Sign Community Benefits Agreement (CBA).” Some press accounts had visuals showing the Mayor signing a document. The Mayor, as well as the City, are not signatories to this agreement. The agreement is between a smattering of 8 groups and Forest City Ratner (FCR). None of those 8 groups represent the areas that would be directly impacted by FCR’s proposal.
Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) spokesman Daniel Goldstein said, “Bruce Ratner’s firm, for the past 20 years, has left a trail of broken promises through the Borough of Brooklyn. The so-called ‘CBA’ announced yesterday leaves room for FCR to continue breaking promises, as the penalties will simply be the cost of doing business. With the FCR track record, there is no reason to believe there is good faith involved here.”
Goldstein continued, “The Mayor’s little PR dance is dangerously misleading. It pretends that this document has accountability to the City and the Administration. It has no such accountability. The only accountability is between Ratner’s corporation and 8 groups that, overall, do not represent the wide spectrum of community groups* surrounding, and in, the proposed development site.”
Further misleading statements appeared in the Mayor’s press release, including the claim that the FCR proposal “will create 8,500 permanent new jobs, 4,500 mixed-income apartments…” FCR themselves only claim 6,000 jobs and have admitted at a City Council hearing that they cannot guarantee that any new permanent jobs would be created or that local residents would get the jobs. FCR said at the same Council hearing that they now plan on building 6,000 or even 7,300 housing units, with no commitment to make those additional units affordable. This would reduce the percentage of so-called affordable units to a mere 18 percent.
- For a list of Organizations that are Opposed to or Deeply Concerned about the proposed Forest City Ratner Nets Arena, 19-highrise Proposal for Brooklyn, go here: www.dddb.net/opponents.php
Monday's DDDB "CBA" press release: http://www.dddb.net/062705CBArelease.php
Posted by lumi at 8:00 PM
Ridge Hill developer promises money for schools American dream of homeownership into a nightmare.
The Journal News
by Michael Gannon
The developer [Bruce Ratner] of the proposed $600 million Ridge Hill Village has pledged to contribute $100,000 to seed a fund for the city's public schools, a tactic that has some opponents of the project alleging a game of eleventh-hour divide and conquer.
Posted by lumi at 6:11 PM
Ratner, Bloomie tout CBA in press conference
An "historic Community Benefits Agreement (CBA)" was signed yesterday by Bloomberg, Ratner and various developer-acknowledged community groups. What makes this CBA historic was the number of community groups left out in the cold, but that didn't put a damper on the festivity of the occasion. Police kept the good vibes flowing by barring pesty community members of groups opposed to the project.
The event drew a lot of media coverage:
- NY Daily News, Ratner touts Net gains to nabe
- NY1, Ratner Promises Brooklyn Residents Arena Plan Will Include Affordable Housing
- NY Newsday, Agreement for Brooklyn project
- WNYC, Brooklyn Affordable Housing Agreement Signed
- NY Times, Brooklyn: Developer promises benefits
- Crains NY Business, Ratner, city finalize community benefits agreement
This one is particularly complimentary to the developer and quotes Ratner saying "This is the first time a developer has signed a Community Benefits Agreement." * WCBS, New Deal to Move the NJ Nets to Brooklyn
Posted by lumi at 8:52 AM
Joining of hands on Ratner's site
NY Daily News
Denis Hammil's report from the opening of Cold Stone Creamery in the Atlantic Terminal Mall:
Teenagers with vital summer jobs literally sang his praises.
Then the Rev. Herbert Daughtry gave him his blessing.
On top of that, Bertha Lewis, one of the most vocal tenant rights activists in the city and president of ACORN - Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now - was on hand to support real estate developer and Nets owner Bruce Ratner's quest to build a 20,000-seat arena and 4,500 units of housing, 50% of which will be "affordable," on the site of the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn.
Could it get any better than this for Ratner?
Posted by lumi at 8:02 AM
DDDb Press Release: Ratner’s So-called “Community” Benefits Agreement Bypasses Community and Local Elected Officials
"CBA" is Insufficient Band-aid on a Fatally Flawed Development Proposal and Process
BROOKLYN, NY– Four days after a sharply divided Supreme Court decision, perceived to give a green light to Forest City Ratner’s (FCR) use of eminent domain for its private, for-profit, 20 high-rise and arena development proposal in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, the developer announced a so-called Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) with eight signers.
“There are 48 known community organizations (*see below) and three of the district’s four elected officials who are opposed to or very deeply concerned about the FCR proposal,” said Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) spokesman, Daniel Goldstein. “None of these groups have been involved in the ‘CBA’ negotiations, while all of the groups that have been involved have supported the project from the beginning. Those most directly affected by the proposed project have not been involved either. What was announced today may be an agreement, but it is patently not a community agreement.”
The “CBA” concerns itself, primarily, with jobs and housing. Any developer who builds on the Atlantic Yards should negotiate with the community. However this “CBA” is extremely weak and lacking because it has excluded all the concerns that deal with community quality of life which will effect everyone in the area: building scale, character and density, land use, secondary displacement, eminent domain, environmental impact during and after construction, health issues, project urban design and serious traffic and transportation issues–even though these are major concerns of the five communities surrounding the proposed development site. The State approval process also includes no genuine opportunity for community input.
The Ratner “CBA’s” very foundation is in violation of a key principle of effective CBAs–they are meant to be the end result of a negotiation process between the developer and a wide spectrum of community groups opposed to, and supportive of, a development proposal. But in this case, all oppositional and most longstanding community stakeholder groups were excluded from the outset.
“An insufficient band-aid like this 'CBA' does not cure any of the ills of the Ratner proposal or make up for the utter lack of an accountable, democratic process. A ‘community’ benefits agreement that excludes most of the community, ignores serious impact concerns, is negotiated behind closed-doors, and accepts eminent domain that disrupts the bedrock foundation of communities–homes and businesses–is dangerous and destructive to communities,” Goldstein concluded. “And the timing of the Ratner ‘CBA’, on the heels of the Supreme Court’s Kelo decision–a decision that raises serious questions about the legality of using eminent domain for the FCR project–leads us to believe that Mr. Ratner is not intent on genuinely engaging the community but would rather steamroll it with his $1.6 billion taxpayer subsidized, sweetheart deal.”
For more information on CBAs–Community Benefit Agreements: Making Development Projects Accountable by California Partnership for Working Families and Good Jobs First: www.dddb.net/cbahandbook2005.pdf
Organizations that are Opposed to or Deeply Concerned about the proposed Forest City Ratner Nets Arena, 20-highrise Proposal in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
100 Blacks in Law Enforcement
- Boerum Hill Association (BHA)
- Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats (CBID)
- Committee For Environmentally Sound Development
- Creative Industries Coalition (80 local businesses, galleries and collectives)
Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn Coalition, www.dddb.net/position.php, comprised of:
6. Atlantic Avenue Betterment Association (AABA)
7. Boerum Hill For Organic Development
8. Brooklyn Bears Community Garden
9. Brooklyn Vision
10. Cambridge Place Action Coalition
11. Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, Inc. (DDDb)
12. East Pacific Block Association
13. Fans For Fair Play
14. Fort Greene Association (FGA)
15. Friends and Residents of Greater Gowanus (FROGG)
16. Kings County Greens
17. New York Preservation Alliance
18. North Brooklyn Greens
19. Park Slope Greens
20. Revel Arts
21. South Portland Block Association
22. Times Up!
23. Warren St. Marks Community Garden
*Downtown Brooklyn Leadership Coalition (DBLC), comprised of: * 24. Black Veterans for Social Justice (Job Masharaki) 25. Church of the Open Door (Rev. Mark V.C. Taylor) 26. Brooklyn Christian Center (Rev. Dennis Dillon) 27. Brown Memorial Baptist Church (Rev. Clinton Miller) 28. Emmanuel Baptist Church (Rev. Anthony L. Trufant) 29. Hanson Place Central United Methodist Church (Rev. Patrick Perrin) 30. Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church (Rev. David Dyson) 31. Old First Reformed Church (Rev Daniel Meeter)
- Good Jobs New York
- Kings County Affiliate, Libertarian Party of New York
- National Taxpayers Union
- NYCBasketball.com
- Park Slope Civic Council
- Park Slope Neighbors
- Pratt Area Community Council (PACC)
- Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development (PICCED)
- Prospect Heights Action Coalition (PHAC)
Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council (PHNDC), www.phndc.org/about.php comprised of: 41. The Prospect Heights Association 42. The Park Place/Underhill Avenue Block Association 43. The Prospect Place Block Association 44. The Prospect Heights Parents Association 45. The Eastern Parkway Block Association
- Senior and Retirees Committee of Willoughby Walk Cooperative Apts.
- Sierra Club, Atlantic Chapter
- The Fifth Avenue Committee
Posted by lumi at 6:58 AM
June 27, 2005
Yonkers developers talk to NAACP
The Journal News
by Ernie Garcia
In a move towards coalition building or breaking (depending on your feelings about Ratner), reps from Forest City Ratner showed up at a regularly scheduled meeting of the Yonkers NAACP to tout their record of women and minority hiring and the affordable housing component of the controversial Ridge Hill Village development project.
Posted by lumi at 8:18 AM
New York State to Shine Light Into Shadows
The NY Times
by Al Baker
In the waning minutes of the NY State legislative session, Assemblymember Richard Brodsky's (D-Westchester) bill requiring oversight of the state's Public Authorities, such as the MTA and Local Devlopement Corporations (LDCs).
This bill requires that Public Authorities get "fair market value" when selling public land, such as the Atlantic/Vanderbilt Railyards. However public interest groups heed caution because the Inspector General to be appointed to head oversight will be chosen by Governor Pataki.
Posted by lumi at 8:06 AM
'Taking' for public good
Supreme Court's property decision is logical but could easily be abused.
NY Newsday, Editorial
Newday predicts that the recent Supreme Court decision on eminent domain could make it easier for:
crooked pols and dubious developers striking up an alliance somewhere to force honest folks to sell their homes so that a wholly speculative real estate venture - not crucial to the public's interest - might arise
However...
Had this decision gone the other way, some crucial projects, including some here in the New York region, might have suddenly been in jeopardy. Example: A group called Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn has opposed the use of eminent domain as Bruce Ratner works to rebuild downtown Brooklyn.
Ratner's project - complete with a pro basketball arena and office and residential towers - is the most promising revitalization plan Brooklyn has seen in decades. With some public help, he would give the area around the Long Island Rail Road terminal an urban panache it hasn't seen for decades. Ratner needs help. He does not need new legal hurdles to jump.
Posted by lumi at 7:32 AM
June 26, 2005
Stadium, Anyone?
Questions for Bruce Ratner from New York Times Magazine. Here's our question for the New York Times:
WHEN WILL YOU DISCLOSE YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH BRUCE RATNER?
This article is a fluff piece straight out of the clearly deranged Forest City Ratner PR machine.
It has been a bad week for Brooklyn. We can't trust the Supreme Court. We can't trust the New York Times. We already knew we couldn't trust our Borough President and Mayor. But we can still trust our neighbors. It's time to join your neighbors and friends in our fight against injustice. No one will protect Brooklyn but Brooklyn itself.
In Ratner's own words, "Like so many things in life, it was just a matter of money." It's just a matter of money that citizens don't have a say in our own neighborhoods and government? Mr. Ratner needs to realize that everything in life is not about money. Unlike Mr. Ratner, we don't see Brooklyn as a giant piggy bank that needs to be smashed to get at the cash.
Read the article here, if you can stomach it.
Watch DDDB skewer the rat here.
To contact Byron Calame, who represents the readers of The New York Times as the Public Editor, please e-mail public@nytimes.com.
To check out The New York Times Limited Edition Development Partner action figure click here.
Posted by amy at 10:33 AM
June 25, 2005
Ratner Discusses Possibility Of Using Eminent Domain To Help Build Brooklyn Arena
From NY1:
On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that local governments can seize private property against the will of its owner, and give it to private companies to develop. In Ratner's case, that would mean a 21-acre arena for the Nets and an apartment complex in place of the Atlantic Rail Yards and the surrounding properties.While some business and apartment owners have already sold to Ratner, the ones who haven't could be kicked out if the city resorts to eminent domain. Ratner says that could be for the greater good of the neighborhood.
Posted by amy at 12:20 AM
Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Property; Opponents Of Brooklyn Arena Cry Foul
From NY1:
Opponents say the arena does not serve the public interest, and the use of eminent domain would be illegal.Nets owner Bruce Ratner has bought some of the land needed for the arena, but eminent domain may still have to be used to get the arena project done.
The group "Develop, Don't Destroy Brooklyn" says it will keep fighting the project. Members call Ratner's plan, “an illegal and unnecessary use of eminent domain to force tenants, homeowners, and businesses from the footprint."
Posted by amy at 12:17 AM
Relax, Brooklyn
Ben Dover of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle asks Brooklyn to accept our pillaging more gracefully.
Almost all of us are at some time either pedestrians or drivers, and, depending on which one we are the moment, we adopt the attitude of that mode. The drivers within us are going to have to learn that we drive in the city only on sufferance, and that we’ll be paying more both in money and time is we enter downtown.
Posted by amy at 12:10 AM
Supreme Court Decision Could Directly Impact Ratner Controversy
From the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who has been a key swing vote on many cases before the court, issued a stinging dissent. She argued that cities should not have unlimited authority to uproot families, even if they are provided compensation, simply to accommodate wealthy developers.“Justice O’Connor is absolutely correct, and the Ratner project’s use of eminent domain is a poster child for what she describes,” said Daniel Goldstein, spokesperson for Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, a group opposing the Ratner project. “Today the Court has kept and reaffirmed the status quo, but in a severely split decision. The Court has made a federalist decision, which means it is now Albany’s responsibility to curb and restrict New York’s abusive eminent domain laws.”
Posted by amy at 12:01 AM
June 24, 2005
Slope group rips Ratner plan
From the Brooklyn Papers:
A civic group in Park Slope that began by successfully pressuring Commerce Bank into modifying the look of a new branch to fit in with the neighborhood, is now taking aim at developer Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards basketball arena and skyscraper project.Park Slope Neighbors, which formed last October to bring together block associations and residents who felt estranged by other area organizations, made a splash when they convinced the bank to reduce the area allocated to a suburban drive-through design for a more Brownstone Brooklyn facade.
Posted by amy at 11:56 PM
Civic leaders join to fight Ratner
From the Brooklyn Papers:
Claiming that their elected officials have not represented their concerns, a broad-based group of activist, neighborhood, block and civic associations have come together to represent their own concerns about the Atlantic Yards project.Incorporating leaders of the Boerum Hill Association, Atlantic Avenue Betterment Association, Atlantic Avenue Local Development Corporation, Park Slope Neighbors, Fort Greene Association, Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council and Develop-Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, the newly formed Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods (CBN) is in the early stages of identifying the concerns of the communities neighboring the project as it moves through procedures specified in the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA).
Posted by amy at 11:53 PM
Atlantic Yards community deal due Monday
The Brooklyn Papers describes the difference in viewpoints between those drinking the kool-aid, and those who abstain:
Atlantic Yards opponents argue the CBA is merely a ploy by the developer to give the appearance of broad community support for his project. Supporters, meanwhile, say it is the best thing any new development in the city has promised its surrounding community.
Posted by amy at 9:44 PM
TISH RIPS GIFF
From the Brooklyn Papers:
Letitia James is no fan of Gifford Miller.And, the councilwoman said this week, she wants to make that point perfectly clear in light of mailings to Democrats in her district — paid for by taxpayers — that imply an alliance between the City Council speaker, who is running for mayor, and the Fort Greene-Prospect Heights legislator.
It’s not so much that the mailings carry the air of impropriety — despite emanating from the City Council they amount to little more than campaign literature for the Upper East Side councilman — although that, too bothers James. No, in this case it is the implication that the councilwoman is an ally of someone who supports a project which she has risked her politcal career fighting — developer Bruce Ratner’s proposed Atlantic Yards.
“I have not endorsed Gifford Miller,” James told The Brooklyn Papers this week. “I want that stated unequivocally, and will not be endorsing Gifford Miller unless he changes his position on the Atlantic Yards.”
Posted by amy at 9:42 PM
Unfair & un-American, biz cries
From the Daily News:
Down the block, Henry Weinstein could lose an eight-story building he bought over 20 years ago. "It's un-American," seethed Weinstein, who recently renovated the old warehouse and plans to rent out office space."How can you take property from one person and give it to another?" he asked.
Posted by amy at 9:36 PM
Mattera Campaign Calls On Brooklyn Borough Hall for Restraint After Supreme Court Ruling
From Hot Indie News:
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s eminent domain ruling Thursday, Green Party Candidate for Brooklyn Borough President Gloria Mattera called on Borough Hall to issue a binding declaration of restraint on the Ratner Arena proposal."The community is asking Borough President Markowitz to honor his commitment to the citizens of Brooklyn by promising us that eminent domain will not be abused," Ms. Mattera said. She noted that the Mattera campaign is asking for an official acknowledgment from Brooklyn Borough Hall.
"We completely disagree with the Supreme Court," she added. "When government officials have free reign to bulldoze people’s homes and destroy communities so that a few well-connected people can make a lot of money, something is terribly wrong."
article
Gloria Mattera for Brooklyn Borough President
Posted by amy at 9:31 PM
Some Prospect Heights Residents Fear "Future Brooklyn"
WNYC reveals what's REALLY happening to residents in the footprint, and being made an instant millionaire is not part of the deal:
YOST: I would love for them to come to me and say we’re sorry about you having to move, we realize the inconvenience we’re going to give you an apartment on the 31st floor facing west by southwest so you can see the sunset, a small little terrace so you’ll be able to charcoal your lamb chops out there.REPORTER: Instead, Yost says, he’s moving to a small basement apartment nearby at the end of this month, where his rent will essentially double.
Posted by amy at 9:21 PM
Local coverage on Kelo and the Atlantic Yards Land Grab
Supreme Court's Kelo v. New London ruling mean for Bruce Ratner's plans for NY State to evict homeowners in the footprint of his Atlantic Yards development proposal? Here's the local coverage:
NY Sun, Property Ruling Could Affect N.Y. Development
One of the nation's pre-eminent legal scholars of eminent domain, Columbia University Law Prof. Thomas Merrill, had some cautionary words for jubillant politicians and developers:
[Merrill] said the court warned it would apply more stringent standards in cases where a local government invokes eminent domain for a project by a private developer, such as with the Atlantic Yards development.
“The court responded more favorably to New London than they would have if it had been the Ratner plan they were considering,” Mr. Merrill said. “The overall message of the case is a cautionary one, that the court is willing to go along with the use of eminent domain this time, but if something extreme happens, they could change their mind.”
NY Daily News, Home's up for grabs. Ruling raises anxiety in the city
Quotes from Councilmember James, DDDb spokesperson Goldstein, civil-rights attorney Norman Seigel and esteemed eminent domain attorney Michael Rikon. No comment from Ratner spokesperson Joe DePlasco.
NY Sun Opinion, Eminent Danger
It's hard to imagine a Supreme Court decision more fraught for New Yorkers than that handed down yesterday in Kelo et al v. City of New London et al, in which the court signaled that no property is safe from the government seizing it for vague "economic development" purposes.
Brooklyn Papers, SUPREME COURT OKS HOME SEIZURES
Quotes from Tish James and Dan Goldstein and assurances from Marty.
Patti Hagan makes a good point about the use of eminent domain for larget-scale private development:
Supposedly it’s [to bring in] more taxes, but in fact, every one of these developers get such enormous tax subsidies and tax exemptions on property taxes, that I’m not sure exactly how much of a benefit it is. At least for the first 25 years.
NY Newsday, Reaction to Thursday's U.S. Supreme Court eminent domain decision
NY Post, SUPREMES GIVE NETS HOME-COURT EDGE
Posted by lumi at 8:43 AM
Nationwide headlines on Kelo decision
News of the high court's decision on Kelo v. New London lead nearly every national and local TV news broadcast yesterday evening and this morning and is featured on page 1 of most of the dalies. Here's a sampling of the coverage:
- NPR, All Things Considered, LEGAL AFFAIRS: Development Trumps Property, Says High Court
- NPR, Morning Edition, LEGAL AFFAIRS: Eminent Domain and Property Rights
- The NY Times, Justices Uphold Taking Property for Development
- The Chicago Tribune, Eminent domain expanded. Courts rule cities can sieze homes for economic development
- The NY Sun, Ruling Allows Governments To Wrest Property From Citizens
- NY Newsday, Land's not your land
- The Washington Post, Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes
- USA Today, Property seizures must be in public's good, court warns
- Christian Science Monitor, Court widens scope of property seizure
And, don't forget the op-ed pages:
* The Washington Post, Eminent Latitude
* NY Times, The Limits of Property Rights
* NY Sun, Eminent Danger
* NY Post, George Will, NO LIMITS
* Wall Street Journal Editorial
(Text of the Wall Street Journal Editorial)
The Supreme Court's "liberal" wing has a reputation in some circles as a guardian of the little guy and a protector of civil liberties. That deserves reconsideration in light of yesterday's decision in Kelo v. City of New London. The Court's four liberals (Justices Stevens, Breyer, Souter and Ginsburg) combined with the protean Anthony Kennedy to rule that local governments have more or less unlimited authority to seize homes and businesses.
No one disputes that this power of "eminent domain" makes sense in limited circumstances; the Constitution's Fifth Amendment explicitly provides for it. But the plain reading of that Amendment's "takings clause" also appears to require that eminent domain be invoked only when land is required for genuine "public use" such as roads. It further requires that the government pay owners "just compensation" in such cases.
The founding fathers added this clause to the Fifth Amendment -- which also guarantees "due process" and protects against double jeopardy and self-incrimination -- because they understood that there could be no meaningful liberty in a country where the fruits of one's labor are subject to arbitrary government seizure.
That protection was immensely diminished by yesterday's 5-4 decision, which effectively erased the requirement that eminent domain be invoked for "public use." The Court said that the city of New London, Connecticut was justified in evicting a group of plaintiffs led by homeowner Susette Kelo from their properties to make way for private development including a hotel and a Pfizer Corp. office. (Yes, the pharmaceutical Pfizer.) The properties to be seized and destroyed include Victorian homes and small businesses that have been in families for generations.
"The city has carefully formulated a development plan that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including, but not limited to, new jobs and increased tax revenue," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority. Justice Kennedy wrote in concurrence that this could be considered public use because the development plan was "comprehensive" and "meant to address a serious city-wide depression." In other words, local governments can do what they want as long as they can plausibly argue that any kind of public interest will be served.
In his clarifying dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas exposes this logic for the government land grab that it is. He accuses the majority of replacing the Fifth Amendment's "Public Use Clause" with a very different "public purpose" test: "This deferential shift in phraseology enables the Court to hold, against all common sense, that a costly urban-renewal project whose stated purpose is a vague promise of new jobs and increased tax revenue, but which is also suspiciously agreeable to the Pfizer Corporation, is for a `public use.'"
And in a separate dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor suggested that the use of this power in a reverse Robin Hood fashion -- take from the poor, give to the rich -- would become the norm, not the exception: "Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."
That prospect helps explain the unusual coalition supporting the property owners in the case, ranging from the libertarian Institute for Justice (the lead lawyers) to the NAACP, AARP and the late Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The latter three groups signed an amicus brief arguing that eminent domain has often been used against politically weak communities with high concentrations of minorities and elderly. Justice Thomas's opinion cites a wealth of data to that effect.
And it's not just the "public use" requirement of the Fifth Amendment that's undermined by Kelo. So too is the guarantee of "just compensation." Why? Because there is no need to invoke eminent domain if developers are willing to pay what owners themselves consider just compensation.
Just compensation may differ substantially from so-called "fair market value" given the sentimental and other values many of us attach to our homes and other property. Even eager sellers will be hurt by Kelo, since developers will have every incentive to lowball their bids now that they can freely threaten to invoke eminent domain.
So, in just two weeks, the Supreme Court has rendered two major decisions on the limits of government. In Raich v. Gonzales the Court said there are effectively no limits on what the federal government can do using the Commerce Clause as a justification. In Kelo, it's now ruled that there are effectively no limits on the predations of local governments against private property.
These kinds of judicial encroachments on liberty are precisely why Supreme Court nominations have become such high-stakes battles. If President Bush is truly the "strict constructionist" he professes to be, he will take note of the need to check this disturbing trend should he be presented with a High Court vacancy.
Posted by lumi at 8:20 AM
US Supreme Court hands down decision from surreal parallel universe
The US Supreme Court decision in Kelo v. New London is viewed as a set back for private property owners nationwide. The decision gives the green light for cities and states to make the claim that economic development to revitiliize the local economy by bringing more jobs and increasing the tax base is a reasonable "public use."
In the world of legal abstractions, it came as no surprise to court watchers that the liberal justices further broadened the definition of "public use" of the Fifth Amendment's takings clause, while conservative justices expressed concern that it would lead to further abuses. However, in this surreal parallel universe, the liberal penchant for social engineering has turned away from the concept of government-mandated social equity and protection of those less fortunate, leaving conservative justices such as Clarence Thomas to express the concern that the Kelo decision would lead to abuses whose affect would fall "disproportionately on poor communities."
GUIDANCE FOR LOWER COURTS
At this time property-rights advocates are carefully examining the ruling for guidance from the high court on how to distinguish between reasonable public use and "public abuse."
Though the majority opinion, written by Justice Stevens, dismisses the effects of New London homeowners' case as "hypothetical," the separate consenting opinion, written by Justice Kennedy, provides more clarity on where courts must draw the line in the sand to protect property owners from the coercive governmental powers of eminent domain.
According to Kennedy, "a court applying rational-basis review under the Public Use Clause should strike down a taking that, by a clear showing, is intended to favor a particular private party, with only incidental or pretextual public benefits" Kennedy's opinion goes further to state that "plausible accusation of impermissible favoritism to private parties should treat the objection as a serious one," though he balances that statement with the view that any examination should take into account the "presumption that the government’s actions were reasonable and intended to serve a public purpose."
For more on Kennedy's concurring opinion check out SCOTUSblog: Kennedy: A limit on Kelo's reach
Dope on the Slope's take on the prospects of eminent domain abuse in Brooklyn, "Giff Grilled on Air America".
Posted by lumi at 6:57 AM
Exceprts from the Justices' opinions on Kelo v. New London
Download the Court's opinion here
| Justice Stevens (Opinion of the Court): Promoting economic development is a traditional and long accepted function of government. Clearly, there is no basis for exempting economic development from our traditionally broad understanding of public purpose. The city has carefully formulated an economic development that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including, but by no means limited to, new jobs and increased tax revenue. |
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| Justice Kennedy (Concurring Opinion): A court confronted with a plausible accusation of impermissible favoritism to private parties should treat the objection as a serious one and review the record to see it if has merit. |
 |
Justice O'Connor (Dissenting Opinion):
As for the victims, the government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those with more. The Founders cannot have intended this perverse result.
The specter of condemnation hangs over all property. Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall or any farm with a factory.
The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms.
Under the banner of economic development, all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded.
Justice Thomas (Dissenting Opinion):
The court has erased the Public Use Clause from our Constitution.
Today's decision is simply the latest in a string of our cases construing the public use clause to be a virtual nullity, without the slightest nod to its original meaning.
Posted by lumi at 6:29 AM
DDDb Press Release: The U.S. Supreme Court Misses Historic Moment
Develop Don’t Destroy Urges Albany to Curb Eminent Domain Abuse
For Immediate Release: June 23, 2005
BROOKLYN, NY– Today the U.S. Supreme Court rendered a 5-4 decision in Kelo v. City of New London, deferring to the City of New London’s determination that the destruction of homes in a working class neighborhood in order to build a commercial development is not unconstitutional. The decision stands in sharp contrast to the unprecedented public outrage over eminent domain abuse across the U.S. Nevertheless, the decision will do little to dim civil rights advocates' efforts to curb the actions of developers–and their sponsoring state and municipal agencies–who intend on making the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment a dead letter.
"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random," Justice O'Connor wrote in the dissenting opinion. "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."
O'Connor's words should strike fear in the hearts of all citizens around the United States. "Justice O'Connor is absolutely correct, and the Ratner project's use of eminent domain is a poster child for what she describes. Today the Court has kept and reaffirmed the status quo, but in a severely split decision. The Court has made a federalist decision, which means it is now Albany's responsibility to curb and restrict New York's abusive eminent domain laws; here in Brooklyn, and all over the state, where private, politically-connected, corporate powers are benefitting off the backs of everyday citizens."
In December 2004, Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) was one of 25 organizations that filed amici curiae briefs in support of the homeowners in Kelo. The briefs represented an extraordinary expression of solidarity among the disparate groups, cutting across racial, political, and social lines. The briefs in support of the City of New London, in contrast, were predictably filed in large part by developers and municipal agencies. To legal observers, the overwhelming public support for the homeowners and recent state court decisions reining in eminent domain abuse signaled a sea change, which the Supreme Court would likely acknowledge in its decision. Regrettably, the Court failed to seize the historic moment and tamely deferred to the City of New London’s determination that an increase in tax revenues justifies the destruction of homes.
Despite the ruling, Bruce Ratner’s plans to build a high-rise and arena complex in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn still contemplate an illegal and unnecessary use of eminent domain to force tenants, homeowners, and businesses from the footprint. DDDB spokesperson Daniel Goldstein said, “If Ratner uses eminent domain, it will be up to him to make the case that the neighborhood is blighted, which it patently is not, or the project makes economic sense, which is pure fantasy. We will pursue all legal channels available to us, and we are confident that a court of law will see the project for the boondoggle that it is.” Indeed, Goldstein sat on a panel on Kelo held at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York on June 8 where even pro-eminent domain panelists were deeply disturbed by the Ratner project’s reliance on eminent domain.
DDDB calls on Albany to follow the lead of states like Utah, whose Governor on March 17 signed into law a bill effectively banning the use of eminent domain for economic development. As DDDB’s retained counsel Norman Siegel said, “So long as the Supreme Court will defer to the states, it is up to our legislators to take up the challenge in putting an end to egregious eminent domain abuse.”
Posted by lumi at 5:52 AM
National Taxpayers Union (NTU) Press Release
Supreme Court's Kelo Decision Trashes Taxpayer Rights as Well as Property Rights, Citizen Group Says
The NTU press release in reaction to the Kelo decision makes a notable observation that pertains to the situation in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.
From shopping malls to sports stadiums, the Court has unjustly given its blessing to many crony-capitalist projects that depend more heavily on public funding than free-market principles to succeed.
Supreme Court's Kelo Decision Trashes Taxpayer Rights as Well as Property Rights, Citizen Group Says
6/23/2005 1:13:00 PM
To: National Desk
Contact: Pete Sepp or Annie Patnaude, 703-683-5700, both of the National Taxpayers Union
ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 23 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The U.S. Supreme Court's narrow 5-4 ruling in the Kelo v. City of New London case today has wide implications for taxpayers, not just property owners, according to the 350,000-member National Taxpayers Union (NTU), a non-partisan citizen group that filed a "friend of the court" brief in the case on behalf of the homeowners. John Berthoud, President of NTU, offered the following reaction on the heels of the decision:
"By giving governments a green light to bulldoze citizens' homes in the name of development schemes that supposedly promise higher revenues, the Supreme Court is also granting politicians a license to trample on overburdened taxpayers. Property rights have always been inseparable from taxpayer rights, which is why this ruling is one of the most shocking setbacks for economic freedom and limited government in a decade.
Within hours of this decision being issued, overreaching bureaucrats and their political allies around the country began declaring victory on behalf of subsidized development schemes that will not only cost citizens the residences and businesses they worked hard to build, but will also cost taxpayers the money they worked hard to earn. From shopping malls to sports stadiums, the Court has unjustly given its blessing to many crony-capitalist projects that depend more heavily on public funding than free-market principles to succeed.
Justice O'Connor was absolutely right when she pointed out that the beneficiaries of this ruling 'are likely to be those with disproportionate power and influence in the political process.' Even the majority of Justices acknowledged that states are free to enact restrictions on eminent-domain power grabs. At least these two facts give taxpayers hope, and give NTU a mission. As an organization that has fought back against big government for 35 years, we will not surrender our property rights or taxpayer rights because of this ruling. We the people will take back the Fifth Amendment, state by state, community by community, if necessary."
NTU was founded in 1969 to work for lower taxes and smaller government at all levels. In addition to joining an amicus brief with eight other groups on behalf of the property owners in Kelo, NTU also signed an October 2004 coalition letter from over 40 organizations urging the Bush Administration to "affirm its support for property rights and refrain from filing a brief in Kelo." Note: Copies of the brief and the letter are available online at http://www.ntu.org.
Posted by lumi at 5:40 AM
June 23, 2005
Institute for Justice Press Release
Homeowners Lose Eminent Domain Case
Institute for Justice Warns:
Supreme Court Leaves Homeowners Vulnerable
To Tax-Hungry Bureaucrats & Land-Hungry Developers
Washington, D.C.- Today, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a blow to home and small business owners throughout the country by allowing the government to use eminent domain to take homes so that businesses can make more money off that land and possibly pay more taxes as a result.
The Institute and its clients issued the following statements after learning of today’s decision.
Chip Mellor, the president of the Institute for Justice, said, “The majority and the dissent both recognized that the action now turns to state supreme courts where the public use battle will be fought out under state constitutions. The Institute for Justice will be there every step of the way with homeowners and small businesses to protect what is rightfully theirs. Today’s decision in no way binds those courts.”
“The Court simply got the law wrong today, and our Constitution and country will suffer as a result,” said Scott Bullock, senior attorney for the Institute for Justice. “With today’s ruling, the poor and middle class will be most vulnerable to eminent domain abuse by government and its corporate allies. The 5-4 split and the nearly equal division among state supreme courts shows just how divided the courts really are. This will not be the last word.”
“One of the key quotes from the Court to keep in mind today was written by Justice O’Connor,” Bullock said. “Justice O’Connor wrote, ‘Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms.’”
Dana Berliner, another senior attorney with the Institute for Justice, said, “It’s a dark day for American homeowners. While most constitutional decisions affect a small number of people, this decision undermines the rights of every American, except the most politically connected. Every home, small business, or church would produce more taxes as a shopping center or office building. And according to the Court, that’s a good enough reason for eminent domain.”
Mellor said, “Today’s decision doesn’t end the Institute for Justice’s fight against abuses of eminent domain. We will work to ensure not only that the property owners in New London keep their homes, but that all home and small business owners are protected from these unconstitutional land grabs by governments and their business allies. This is a terrible precedent that must be overturned by this Court, just as bad state supreme court eminent domain decisions in Michigan and Illinois were later overturned by those courts.”
Susette Kelo, one of the homeowners challenging eminent domain abuse, said, “I was in this battle to save my home and, in the process, protect the rights of working class homeowners throughout the country. I am very disappointed that the Court sided with powerful government and business interests, but I will continue to fight to save my home and to preserve the Constitution.”
Mike Cristofaro, another one of the homeowners whose family has owned property in Fort Trumbull for more than 30 years, said, “I am astonished that the Court would permit the government to throw out my family from their home so that private developers can make more money. Although the Court ruled against us, I am very proud of the fight we waged for my family and for the rights of all Americans.”
#
Posted by lumi at 1:49 PM
Letters to the Editor: All eyes in Brooklyn
Metro
Read the letters to the editor (published, June 14) in response to Amy Zimmer's article, "All eyes in Brooklyn" on the Borough Hall/City Hall March and Rally.
Posted by lumi at 8:19 AM
June 22, 2005
COMMISH'S CRANE CAUSES COLLAPSE
Dolly Williams's construction company A. William's Constuction was slapped with two violations when a crane owned by the company was cited in a Brooklyn building collapse.
NoLandGrab: Williams is the City Planning Commissioner appointed by Borough President Marty Markowitz and Bruce Ratner's business partner in the NJ Nets. In response to accusations of conflict of interest, the City Planning Commission has already announced that the bleach-blonde bombshell must recuse herself from any discussion of the Atlantic Yards proposal by the City Planning Commission.
Posted by lumi at 9:47 PM
URBAN RENEWAL: STADIA MANIA
The New Yorker, The Talk of the Town
by Nick Paumgarten
Ry Cooder gets it. Here's the socially conscious musician's take on Ratner's arena complex:
“I got the idea that there was some kind of controversy about all this in New York,” Cooder said last week, from his home in Santa Monica. “Is it all driven by this multi-use concept, where they have the corporate boxes and the restaurants and the stores? In other words, a mall?”
Read about Cooder's musical lament for the neighborhood demolished for the LA Dodger's stadium. Ironically, the ballpark was built when Robert Moses refused to let O'Mally build a Brooklyn ballpark at Atlantic and Flatbush.
Posted by lumi at 7:58 AM
The Planning Vacuum
New York stumbles into a good stadium deal
Wall St. Journal, Opinion
by Ada Louise Huxtable
Huxtable's post mortem of Jets stadium and the state of large-scale development in NYC.
Here's her little bit on Ratner:
Savvy developers know how to navigate the civic shoals with singular skill. Forest City Ratner, currently engaged in a vast project for the Atlantic Yards on the Brooklyn waterfront, which includes a basketball stadium for the Nets designed by Frank Gehry, has made token changes in cooperation with community representatives, although questions remain about densities and scale. There are builders who sugarcoat their proposals with big-name architects, irresistible bait in a city that shamefully settles for the ordinary. New York has never managed, as Chicago has, to make Donald Trump use a different architect in exchange for a prime site.
NoLandGrab: Maybe someone could point the Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic in the right direction.
In case anyone else is muddled up over Brooklyn development controversies:
* Brooklyn waterfront controversies are in Greenpoint/Williamsburgh and Brooklyn Bridge Park.
* Atlantic Yards is planned for Prospect Heights & Park Slope (nowhere near the waterfront).
Posted by lumi at 7:18 AM
Forest City Splits Stock 2-for-1 and Increases Quarterly Dividend
Good news for FCEB stockholders -- Board of Directors announce split and increase in dividends.
Posted by lumi at 6:38 AM
June 21, 2005
SCARY GEHRY: Frank Gehry's Sexy Lingerie
Curbed.com takes a well deserved pot shot at this publicity pic of Gehry's Net's Arena.
Click here for a chill or thrill (depending on what turns you on).
Posted by lumi at 8:29 AM
Are stadiums worth it?
This NY Newsday article by Liam Pleven looks at the plans for local sports teams to spend their own money to build new facilities.
Forest City Ratner scores a publicity coup -- the article considers the $100-million subsidy from the City and State to be "relatively small," in comparison to the Jets Stadium deal. Pair that with the additional taxes generated by relocating a team from out of state and the "roughly 6,000 housing units" and "it looks like it would be a positive flow to the city," according to Independent Budget Office Spokesperson Doug Turetsky,
NoLandGrab: Seriously, if you add in the 17-19 high-rise towers (the 6,000-7,300 housing units) to the financial equation, then you must consider the additional subsidies that apply.
The total subsidy is $1.1 BILLION by Forest City Ratner's accounting and $1.6 BILLION according to Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn. Since details of these additional subsidies have yet to be provided, how is Doug Turetsky making his assesment?
TODAY'S ESSAY QUESTION:
Considering the billion-dollar-plus subsidy for Atlantic Yards, does Bruce Ratner's plan really square with the analysis made by Newsday staff reporter Liam Pleven?
Hand in your assigment to letters@newsday.com.
Posted by lumi at 7:31 AM
June 20, 2005
No Room at the Inn: Ratner Continues to “Game” Officials and the Public
The Brooklyn Rail
by Brian Carreira
The latest update in Carreira's series on the fight over Atlantic Yards published in The Rail covers:
* the City Council Public Hearings (including a poignant observation by a security guard who was overheard commenting to his colleague that there was, "No room at the inn."
* the Affordable Housing MOU between FCRC & ACORN (that's "Memorandum of Understanding between Forest City Ratner Companies and Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now"), and
* a sneak peak at the Employment MOU that has yet to be released.
Posted by lumi at 9:32 AM
Ratner Publishes Tabloid Paper Pushing Atlantic Yards
NY Sun
by Jacob Gershman
A glimpse at the Brooklyn Standard, the borough’s newest community newspaper, reveals a publication adamant about the goodness of Bruce Ratner’s development plans.
“Brooklyn’s Booming,” the front page cries out. “Atlantic Yards Will Bring Jobs, Housing and Hoops.” Another article touts the firm’s purchases of property without resorting to eminent-domain proceedings. The tone extends to the op-ed page, which features a piece by the Reverend Herbert Daughtry Sr. about the “new hope” provided by Mr. Ratner’s proposal. It’s headlined: “Building Blocks of Life.”
Indeed, if Mr. Ratner could a design a newspaper that captured his sense of excitement and optimism about his $3.5 billion Atlantic Yards project, the Brooklyn Standard would seem to be it. And it is.
The newspaper’s publisher is Mr. Ratner and its editors in chief are Forest City Ratner Companies vice presidents Barry Baum and Scott Cantone. The company paid Manhattan Media, which publishes four Manhattan community newspapers and Avenue magazine, to produce and write the content. The developer, however, has ultimate editorial control.
Posted by lumi at 7:58 AM
Atlantic Terminal Chuck E' Cheese site of stabbing
These pages are usually devoted to the fight over Ratner's developments, not fights IN his developments. However, this wekend, amidst growing concerns over security in Forest City Ratner's retail complexes, a fight between two girls at Chuck E' Cheese quickly developed into an all out melee with two samaritans getting stabbed while trying to save another man who was being beaten by three others.
Both stabbing victims were reported be in stable condition.
The Daily News, Stabbed trying to end fight. Kid's pizza place melee.
NY Daily Sun, TWO STABBED IN FIGHT AT CHUCK E. CHEESE
Posted by lumi at 7:04 AM
June 19, 2005
A Moment of Truth in Dodgerless Brooklyn
NoLandGrab: The New York Times provides the nostalgia reason for why we need unprecendented amounts of development in Brooklyn. "I remember as a youth in Brooklyn when there were clusters of skyscrapers on every block..."
My friend and his guests were appalled at the idea. The arena, they said, would mean traffic, noise and development too grand for a neighborhood whose great attraction was block after block of affordable brownstones, modest backyards and a communal life that faced out onto the street. Vindication for the Dodgers? That idea moved them not at all.
Read the article here.
Write letters to the editor here.
Posted by amy at 9:28 AM
June 18, 2005
New Democratic Majority Meet and Greet w/ Mayoral Candidate, Anthony Weiner.
Saturday, June 18, 4pm.
Magnetic Field. 97 Atlantic Ave. (btwn Henry & Hicks), Brooklyn.
New Democratic Majority invites you to meet Congressman Anthony Weiner, candidate for Mayor last week. Congressman Weiner will be there to tell you more about himself, his record, and his vision for our city. Candidate Weiner support Ratner's proposal.
-You can read Weiner's statement on Atlantic Yards here
Posted by amy at 11:28 AM
YARDS AWAY
From the Brooklyn Papers:
If he wants to build a new home for his New Jersey Nets basketball team atop rail yards at Atlantic and Flatbush avenues, developer Bruce Ratner will have to pay for more than air space over the Long Island Rail Road tracks — he’s also going to have to help pay to move those tracks.According to an agreement negotiated among the city, state and Forest City Ratner Companies, the developer’s Atlantic Yards plan calls for moving the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) train storage yards.
Posted by amy at 10:36 AM
Dumped by beep, member is back
From the Brooklyn Papers:
It’s a hard battle, fighting the man. Especially if that man has veto power, and many of your opinions are diametrically opposed to his.That is a lesson Ken Diamondstone — a briefly former, and now reinstated, Community Board 2 member — learned this week.
Diamondstone, whose appointment was tenuously renewed for one year June 9, less than a week after Borough President Marty Markowitz discharged him from his 11-year tenure on the community board, held a press conference Monday to shed light on what he characterized as an epidemic of shutting out dissenters. Diamondstone said he was dismissed for disagreeing with Markowitz over developer Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards plan.
“I am a former vice chair and a current member of Community Board 2. Or, rather, I was a member of Community Board 2 until I made the mistake of disagreeing with Marty Markowitz about the Brooklyn Atlantic Yards project,” said Diamondstone.
Posted by amy at 10:33 AM
Nets' yard sale
And now for something completely different...while we in Brooklyn are being threatened with an arena in the next few years, across the river in New Jersey, fans hear this: "What we're telling people is for the next few years we're going to be here. We're going to market like we've never marketed before as if we're staying for another 20..."
Oh yeah, and if you buy season tickets, Bruce Ratner will come to your house. I don't know if that's more of a threat or a promise, but when you are holding "Howard Dean" style house parties to sell tickets, I'd say your franchise is in trouble.
Posted by amy at 10:23 AM
'Young, Educated Black Man’ From Ft. Greene Says Bertha Lewis Doesn’t Represent His Interests
Letter to the Editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle from Daniel McCalla of Fort Greene speaking of Bertha Lewis of Acorn:
I do know several things Bertha Lewis does not represent my interest, I 'm an unemployed, educated black man, I honestly can't afford to live in my own neighborhood. Almost everyone I grew up with in Fort Greene can't live here any more.My block association will have to put up with the Ratner proposal. How can we trust a real estate company, that still operates behind our backs? We still have a number of black members, but I rarely see Miss Lewis at our meetings. Bertha’s statement 'All they care about is preserving their precious Prospect Heights community' is a disgrace. FCR pushed their Atlantic Center and Atlantic Terminal Malls on the Fort Greene Community. Ratner is obsessed with destroying historic neighborhoods, so if the white liberals, according to Lewis want to scream they can—it’s America.
Posted by amy at 10:15 AM
Official Report Sees Downtown Traffic Nightmare
From the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, notes from the Downtown Brooklyn Transportation Blueprint (DBTB)'s "Technical Memorandum":
“If future employees in projected office developments commute by auto at rates near existing rates, existing travel levels combined with future vehicular demand would not be accomodated on the existing roadway network.”“If existing through traffic follows current patterns of using the downtown network, these additional trips will push demand well beyond available capacity at major intersections such as Flatbush-Tillary, Adams-Tillary, and Flatbush-Atlantic Avenues.”
The memorandum contains a lot more of the same, and some traffic consultants suspect that this frightening memorandum might even be understated.
Posted by amy at 10:09 AM
June 17, 2005
Central Brooklyn Independent Dems (CBID) get their mojo back
Dipping into their old mojo and reminding folks why they're "Independent Democrats", CBID passed a resolution last night in opposition to Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards proposal.
CBID Resolution:
Whereas the Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats (CBID) support the following development guidelines:
Eminent domain or the threat of eminent domain should be used sparingly if ever and should never be used on a private profit project.
Major development projects should go through stringent, inclusive community review process.
The dispensing of all public property should be done to maximize the financial health of the government agency.
RFPs should be issued at the beginning of a disposal process.
All projects in The City of New York should comply with both he letter and spirit of NYC’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) and not destroy the character and scale of a neighborhood.
Due to the density of New York City, the environmental rules should be strictly adhered to and enforced.
Therefore, let it be understood that the position of CBID is that failure on any one of these grounds would be sufficient for this club to reject any project and, as the Forest City Ratner (FCR) proposal does not adequately address the above-referenced issues or fails said issues, CBID rejects and opposes the FCR Atlantic Yards proposal.
www.cbidems.org
Posted by lumi at 8:11 AM
Ratner rolls out tabloid to sell $3.5 billion arena plan
NY Daily News
by Deb Kolben
Just weeks after a group of Brooklyn clergy published a newspaper bashing the proposed downtown Brooklyn Nets arena complex, developer Bruce Ratner has gotten into the newspaper game.
The Brooklyn Standard, a glossy 16-page tabloid with information about the $3.5 billion project, is scheduled to hit the stands today.
The News quoted Ratner spokeperson Joe DePlasco's attempt to negate the impression that "The Brooklyn Standard" was published to neutralize the message of a tabloid recently published by the Downtown Brooklyn Leadership Coalition.
"We said from the beginning that we are going to provide as much information as humanly possible," said Ratner spokesman Joe DePlasco. "This has been in the works for a long time, and certainly way before they came out with their newsletter."
Posted by lumi at 7:40 AM
Greenburgh backs anti-Ridge Hill mailing
The Journal News
by Michael Gannon
And speaking about dueling publicity pieces...
The Westchester township of Greenburgh has spent $50,000 to send "a four-page glossy mailer to 10,000 registered Yonkers voters this week" in opposition to Forest City Ratner's Ridge Hill Village proposal.
[Chairperson of the Ridge Hill Citizen's Committee Mary Jane] Shimsky said the pamphlet was an attempt to combat Ridge Hill developer Bruce Ratner's deep pockets. Ratner has spent an undisclosed sum on cable television advertising and a 12-page mailing of his own in recent months, intended to offset criticism of the project.
Posted by lumi at 7:15 AM
June 16, 2005
Bertha Lewis = Moron
I Love Capitalists If I Can Use them To Screw White People
The Noble Savage
The words of one African American who is not down with Big-Time Bertha playing the race card while shilling for an Upper-Eastside Billionaire developer:
Its a shame that Bertha Lewis is soiling the image and reputation of ACORN. When I heard about the MOU between ACORN and Bruce Ratner, I was shocked; but after hearing her words on the MOU, I knew she saw this as a way to screw those she saw as gentrifying the area -- in other words the white people.
Posted by lumi at 9:11 PM
COMMUNITY COMMENTARY: “The Farce is With Us"
By Doug Hamilton
A new blockbuster sequel opened on May 24th in Brooklyn when the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) quietly issued its Request for Proposals (RFP) for development of the Brooklyn Atlantic Yards. In this case, the original hit show was the MTA’s tragi-comedic RFP for the Hudson Yards on Manhattan’s west side.
In Episode One, the MTA bowed to public pressure for competitive bidding on its West-side property by issuing an RFP heavily slanted towards the Jets’ stadium proposal which enjoyed the advantages of an approximately two-year discussion and design period as well as support from the mayor and governor. The time period allowed for responses was ridiculously short and the only competition came from organizations with obvious political axes to grind. Not surprisingly, their hastily thrown-together submissions were roundly rejected by an MTA board packed with the governor’s appointees. The lack of genuine public debate on budgetary priorities and the site’s future is evidenced by the recent refusal of Democratic Speaker Silver and Republican Majority Leader Bruno to support the project.
Now in Episode Two, the MTA is following the same tired formula. After a virtually clandestine announcement in the back pages of the Times, the embattled state transportation agency is allowing only 43 days for potential competitors to prepare bids on a spectacularly valuable and very complicated Greater Downtown Brooklyn site that the State’s preferred developer has been working on for more than a year-and-a-half.
For those who have not been following this saga, Forest City Ratner Companies – Brooklyn’s largest developer – has been engaged for the past two years in preparing and promoting a proposal to develop 7.8 million square feet of residential, office, and retail space on the site of the Vanderbilt rail yards at Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn. At the urging of Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, Bruce Ratner – CEO of the Forest City Ratner Companies – put together an investment group that bought the New Jersey Nets in 2003 with the express purpose of moving the team to Brooklyn. The real estate deal provides a way for Mr. Ratner to cross-subsidize the arena with profits from Brooklyn’s largest development since FCRC’s MetroTech in the late ‘80s. In addition, New York City will kick in at least $143 million in direct subsidies for the arena as well as unknown millions in tax abatements. New York State, for its part, is adding $100 million to the pot for infrastructure improvements, plus its backing for a $500 million bond to finance arena construction. Finally, since the whole project is outside the Manhattan exclusion zone, it qualifies for 421a property tax abatement for a period of thirty years. The developer will defray some of this expense over time through Payments-In-Lieu-Of-Taxes (PILOTs), but any way you look at it, the amount of public money involved is huge, at a time of citywide fiscal belt-tightening.
The six-week period that the MTA is allowing for this project is laughably brief, given the size and complexity of the site, and falls seriously short of standard practice. If the MTA was serious about receiving competitive proposals, it would have sent RFP packages to a number of major developers directly and it would have allowed them about three months to prepare submissions. It will be a miracle if any viable developer steps up to the plate given the transparently non-competitive nature of this RFP. Nevertheless, that is what the community is trying to do. If it can find interested parties, they will at least have the benefit of several months of groundwork by dedicated neighborhood activists, including experienced urban design and transportation professionals.
Another grave shortcoming of this process is the lack of a publicly approved zoning framework for the Yards site. Currently zoned for manufacturing, our Planning Department has abdicated its responsibility to provide rational land use planning and development guidelines for this site. Consequently, Forest City Ratner has been allowed to set the terms for the debate with a grossly over-scaled proposal. If the chief criterion for a winning bid is the size of its payout, then competitors will likely be forced into the same quality of giantism that has Prospect Heights and Fort Greene up in arms over the Forest City Ratner scheme. The RFP contains some vague language about “taking into account the respective goals and needs of the MTA, the State . . . the City . . . and the community . . . “ but what this means is anyone’s guess. Does it mean that unless you have another arena in your back pocket you will not be considered? Does it mean that the community’s quality-of-life concerns will be taken seriously? These issues will not be interpreted by our elected officials because the Mayor has allowed the approvals process to be hijacked by the State, despite the inclusion of several acres of City and private land within the project footprint.
The New York business community should be deeply concerned about the message that this kind of back-room deal-making sends to the larger world of commerce. In essence, we are posting signs at all ports of entry to New York saying, “CLOSED FOR BUSINESS (Unless you have inside connections)”. A truly free and democratic market is essential to the efficient functioning of our economic system. Unfortunately, the actions of our mayor and governor simply prove that, despite the march of time, the ghosts of Tammany Hall and Robert Moses are still lurking in the back corridors of City Hall and the Statehouse.
R. Douglas Hamilton, RA
Fort Greene resident and Senior Design Strategist, Street-Works LLC
Posted by lumi at 10:09 AM
BCAT, Brooklyn Review: Atlantic Yards
"If you’ve visited the neighborhood of Prospect Heights in the past year, you’ve no doubt seen the signs opposing Bruce Ratners Atlantic Yards project. They’re the signs of a coalition of community organizations opposing the proposed Nets Arena and surrounding development. Up next Megan Donis takes us to meet the people behind the protests."
Posted by lumi at 9:24 AM
PILOTS for Dummies
(or those who are kinda smart but can hardly believe it's true)
Here's how PILOT financing works in a nutshell: * Ratner's project is declared exempt from property taxes. * A local development corporation (LDC) is set up to issue bonds to finance the construction of Ratner's project. * Property taxes Ratner's project would have generated (if they weren't exempt) go to the PILOT fund instead. * PILOT fund pays back bonds.
An analogy for property owners
Imagine not having to pay property taxes and using that money to pay off your mortgage instead.
PUBLIC SUBSIDY?
NO WAY: Developers and politicians who support their plans emphasize that the bond repayment does not come from the general fund. Furthermore, this investment in the future of the City will generate additional sales and income taxes that will eventually flow into the general fund coffers.
HELL YEAH: Detractors and many good-government watchdogs point out that it's a great deal for the developer (who assumes no risk, unlike regular property-owning folks) that diverts revenue from the general fund. So what if the bucks comes from one account or another? If this project goes forward, it will still means less money for schools, while the City is financing Ratner's plan.
More info:
NY Observer, The Jets vs. Nets: Brooklyn Arena Deal Template for Stadium
Local coverage, City Council legislation to restrict Mayor's control over PILOTs
NY Sun, Flying Solo With PILOTS
Field of Schemes, Nets arena questions and answers (and more questions)
NY Newsday, Scrutiny for stadium funding
The Bond Trader, N.Y. Jets out, PILOTS in?
Pay your property taxes online
While we're on the topic, you can now conveniently pay your property taxes online (http://nycserv.nyc.gov/NYCServInquiry/NYCSERVMain).
Posted by lumi at 9:23 AM
N.Y. Jets Out, PILOTs In?
New Type of Debt May Outlive Stadium Deal
The Bond Buyer
June 10, 2005
By Elizabeth O'Brien
What the hell are Payment In Lieu of Taxes (PILOTs), why does the City Council care and what does the Jets stadium financing have to do with Ratner's arena and 17 (or is it 19?) high-rise tower proposal?
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's proposal to pay for New York's portion of the stadium costs called for a type of debt that officials and market participants say has not been used before in the city. The plan involved the creation of a local development corporation to issue bonds backed by PILOTs - payments in lieu of taxes - which are offered as incentives for companies to stay in the city and generally are lower than property taxes. While PILOT-backed deals have occurred in other parts of the country, such transactions remain rare, market participants say.
Regardless of whether the stadium is ultimately built - the Jets and the city have both said they are weighing alternate funding - this new type of PILOT-backed debt will likely find other uses in New York City for city- and state-financed projects.
(complete article)
N.Y. Jets Out, PILOTs In?
New Type of Debt May Outlive Stadium Deal
An unusual approach to debt involving payments in lieu of taxes might become the public finance legacy of New York City's thwarted attempt to build a stadium in Manhattan for the Jets football team.
The city's plan to construct the stadium on the far West Side suffered a serious and perhaps fatal blow last week when a state panel quashed the $2.2 billion project. The stadium proposal also served as the centerpiece of New York's bid to host the 2012 Olympics, and many believe last week's setback effectively killed the city's candidacy. The International Olympic Committee is scheduled to choose from among New York, Paris, London, Madrid, and Moscow on July 6.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's proposal to pay for New York's portion of the stadium costs called for a type of debt that officials and market participants say has not been used before in the city. The plan involved the creation of a local development corporation to issue bonds backed by PILOTs - payments in lieu of taxes - which are offered as incentives for companies to stay in the city and generally are lower than property taxes. While PILOT-backed deals have occurred in other parts of the country, such transactions remain rare, market participants say.
Regardless of whether the stadium is ultimately built - the Jets and the city have both said they are weighing alternate funding - this new type of PILOT-backed debt will likely find other uses in New York City for city- and state-financed projects.
Critics charge that PILOT-backed debt is a potentially risky financing mechanism that gives the mayor too much control over the revenue as well as the ability to shape development without legislative oversight.
The proposed West Side stadium is only one of many development projects the Bloomberg administration has proposed for the city and its waterfront, and deputy mayor Daniel L. Doctoroff told The Bond Buyer last week that PILOT-backed bonds may be used to finance some of these other projects.
Dedicated PILOTs are the main source of backing for $3 billion of bonds to be issued by the Hudson Yards Infrastructure Corp., another local development corporation, to finance redevelopment of rail yards just east of the stadium site. The project involves the extension of a subway line and the creation of as much as 24 million square feet of office space and will continue even though the stadium's future remains uncertain, Doctoroff said.
"We're moving full steam ahead," Doctoroff said of the development on what's known as the eastern rail yards parcel controlled by the state's Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
In addition, PILOT-backed debt has been proposed to finance a new basketball arena in Brooklyn for the New Jersey Nets and a new baseball stadium for the Yankees in the Bronx. A PILOT-backed financing proposal for the Nets project has already been made public, and a banker familiar with the less-advanced Yankees plan said it would also involve PILOTs.
Moody's Investors Service analyst Robert Kurtter said that while he talked to city officials about this new type of PILOT-backed debt, Moody's hadn't received a formal presentation on it because neither the Hudson Yards agency nor the local development corporation for the West Side stadium bonds had been close to going to market.
"We didn't develop an approach to it," Kurtter said, adding that PILOT-backed debt will be rated on a transaction-by-transaction basis.
"It would be a brand-new security type," said Standard & Poor's analyst Robin Prunty. She said her rating agency also had not yet developed criteria for such financings.
Potential credit concerns involving PILOT-backed debt include whether the entities making the PILOT payments are creditworthy, Kurtter said. Depending on its structure, a particular PILOT-backed deal may be assigned a corporate credit instead of a public finance one, he added, since most of the entities paying the PILOTs are companies.
Under the stadium-financing plan, debt issued by the unnamed local development corporation to fund the city's $300 million contribution would have been backed by broad PILOT payments that the city collects, as opposed to dedicated revenue from the site.
Roughly $40 million in PILOT payments goes into the city's general fund annually, and this revenue stream is expected to grow to $70 million by 2009, according to city officials. The $30 million of incremental growth was to go towards debt service on the city's $300 million of bonds, said Raymond Orlando, spokesman for the city's budget office.
The Bloomberg administration has argued that state and city law empower the mayor to receive and dispense PILOTs. The city has termed PILOTs "non-surplus personal property" instead of "revenue," a legal distinction that allows the aggregate payments to be absent from the budget's accounting of revenue and expenses.
This interpretation has serious implications, attorney Eugene W. Harper Jr. said in an opinion piece last month in the New York Sun. Say "the mayor has a pet project," he wrote. "... He has no money in the capital budget. Borrowing has exceeded the city's debt limit. He needs over $100 million to finance the project. Annual debt service exceeds $5 million for 30 years. Simple: He identifies property producing the requisite level of debt service in taxes, instructs an agency to negotiate a PILOT arrangement (or allocates existing PILOTs), and then 'assigns' the PILOTs to bondholders willing to finance the project."
Under this system, mayors can set their own development agenda for the next 30 years while depriving the city of a revenue source, Harper argued.
Some critics have derided PILOTs as the mayor's "slush fund," saying he should not be allowed to divert this revenue stream from the city's general fund. The first person to use that term was City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, a Democrat who is expected to challenge Bloomberg when he runs for re-election this November.
Budget watchdogs also have bemoaned the lack of a central, public accounting of PILOT payments that the city bills and receives. They say that while the city's general fund takes in $40 million of PILOTs per year, the total that the city collects remains unclear.
"We have a big transparency concern," said Stephanie Greenwood, research analyst at Good Jobs New York, a nonprofit organization that promotes accountability in the use of government subsidies.
Doctoroff countered that PILOTs are a valuable resource.
"We've used PILOTs to finance projects for a long time," Doctoroff said, even if they weren't previously securitized. "People have benefited from that use."
The City Council passed legislation last month requiring that PILOTs go through the normal budget process. Another part of the legislation would require the mayor to provide the council a monthly report detailing the amount of PILOTs received, the source of the payments, the amount of the real property or other tax for which the entity paying the PILOTs would have been responsible, and other information.
The administration's proposed use of PILOTs is expected to wind up in court. Yet even if the City Council's legislation stands, the law would not preclude the use of such payments to back debt, according to council Finance Committee chairman David I. Weprin. A majority of city lawmakers support the stadium, he said, and if the city gets another shot at building it, they would likely support the use of PILOT-backed debt to fund part of it.
Weprin disputed the view that PILOTs, which are set by the city's Industrial Development Agency, constitute a risky revenue stream.
"Once the City of New York enters into a contract with a developer, these are long-term contracts, and to me, that's a very good backing for bonds," Weprin said.
Posted by lumi at 7:45 AM
June 13, 2005
How Can New York Get Its Groove Back
The NY Times
After last week's fatal blow to the West Side Stadium, the Times asked prominent New Yorkers about what NYC's next steps should be. Apparently no one asked Bruce Ratner, because his development scheme for Prospect Heights Brooklyn is not on anyones radar (though Donald Trump whines about "contextual zoning" and community boards).
Philip K. Howard, chairman of the Municipal Arts Society, makes the case that the City should rethink the way it deals with Land Use issued since the current process results primarily in one-developer-driven megalopolises like Ratnerville.
Today, however, instead of investing in public buildings the government tries to cut corners and generate financing for projects like the Moynihan rail station by selling zoning rights so that public buildings and parks find themselves in the shadow of oversized private development. This approach also leads to single-developer schemes with super-blocks and large plazas, which destroy the organic vitality of the city. Their public space is too calculated and cold. Just as important as placing a higher priority on public buildings and parks, we must ensure that private development is set in the traditional street grid, so that it is easily adapted for new uses as the economy and city evolve.
Posted by lumi at 8:19 AM
Handicapping the Kelo Case is a Difficult Call
The Day [New London, CT]
by Kate Moran
The US Supreme Court will soon announce their decision on Kelo v. New London, an eminent domain case that could affect projects like Bruce Ratner's arena and high-rise tower proposal. As interested parties await the decision, they are wondering if the court's ruling in Lingle v. Chevron indicates how the Justices might rule in Kelo.
Handicapping The Kelo Case Is A Difficult Call
Supreme Court ruling in New London eminent domain case could come tomorrow
By KATE MORAN
Day Staff Writer, New London
Published on 6/12/2005
New London — Attorneys on opposing sides of the Kelo v. New London case dispersed onto the plaza outside the U.S. Supreme Court immediately after oral arguments ended Feb. 22 to take questions from reporters on the proceedings in the most important property rights case in two decades.
Inside the court, the justices were hearing arguments in a second property rights dispute, Lingle v. Chevron, a sleeper of a case that was eclipsed in the media by Kelo but which will have profound effects on the way government can regulate private property.
At issue in Lingle was whether courts can toss out regulations they deem to be bad law — not law that is simply unfair but law too poorly conceived or crafted to accomplish its objective. If the justices had allowed courts to meddle in lawmaking in such a way, they would have touched off a flurry of challenges to laws that regulate land use, enact rent caps and protect the environment.
But the court took a hands-off approach with its unanimous decision on May 23 that the judiciary should let the legislatures conclude whether a particular regulation will be effective. The ruling, possibly a harbinger of what will happen in Kelo, was a disappointment to conservative groups who would limit the government's ability to decide how individuals can use private property.
Attorneys in Connecticut who have followed both cases were hesitant to predict what Lingle might mean for the outcome of Kelo, which should be decided by the court on a Monday in June. But they said the decision does not contain much good news for the homeowners who are trying to prevent New London from taking their property by eminent domain to make way for offices.
The best the homeowners can hope for, attorneys said, is that the Lingle ruling is a neutral indicator of what might happen in the Kelo case.
“It's very hard to read the tea leaves. To predict what's going to happen based on what the court said in Lingle would be risky,” said Michael Shea of the firm Day Berry and Howard, who wrote an amicus brief in the Kelo case for the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities. “Having made that disclaimer, I'd say as somebody who supports the city that we were pleased by the decision in Lingle and what it says about the standard of review the court is going to use for takings claims.”
The Lingle case arose after the Hawaii legislature passed a law in 1997 that capped the amount oil companies could charge dealers who rented retail gas stations from them. The state's isolation meant competition was limited, and the legislature hoped that the rental caps would help to deflate the price of gas for consumers.
Chevron, the oil company that controlled 60 percent of the market in Hawaii, sued the governor and the attorney general, claiming the rent ceiling amounted to a taking of property. The company also argued that the taking was improper because it did not advance the interest of the state. Consumers never saw a reduction in price so the law was ineffective.
The trial court and a federal circuit court sided with Chevron. In their decisions, both relied on a 1980 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that gave judges the right to examine whether a law “substantially advances” the interest of the state. When the Lingle case went to the Supreme Court this term, however, the justices used it to repudiate their earlier decision and renew the practice of deferring to legislative judgment.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the author of the unanimous decision, said courts would be unduly burdened if they had to review every challenge to a regulation that limited what could be done with private property.
“If so interpreted, it would require courts to scrutinize the efficacy of a vast array of state and federal regulations — a task for which courts are not well suited,” O'Connor wrote. “Moreover, it would empower — and might often require — courts to substitute their predictive judgments for those of elected legislatures and expert agencies.”
Here is where some prognosticators believe the Lingle decision bodes poorly for the homeowners in the Kelo case. The attorney for the homeowners, Scott Bullock of the Institute for Justice, asked the court to rule that governments never have the right to seize private property to generate land for business development, even if such projects help the public by producing jobs and tax revenue. If the justices reject that argument, Bullock asked them to review whe