« Gargano to B’klyn: Get big | Main | Inside Ratner’s Atlantic Yards »
July 21, 2006
State big to Brooklyn: You’re Manhattan now
2,000-page report reveals impact of Atlantic Yards
Clock starts on 66-day ‘review’ of massive Yards project
The Brooklyn Papers
By Ariella Cohen
Atlantic Yards will cost more to build and benefit the public less than Bruce Ratner said it would — and carry with it environmental impacts that can not be mitigated, a state analysis disclosed this week.
But the state’s development czar said the publicly subsidized mega-development would be worth the price because it advances the Manhattanization of Brooklyn.
“We are a city of skyscrapers,” said Charles Gargano, chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation, which released the project’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement on Tuesday. “We are a city of towers.”
Gargano promised that if significant environmental impacts of the 16-skyscraper, 18,000-seat arena, residential, hotel, retail and office complex can’t be mitigated, the state “will respond.”
...
Beyond the project’s size and scale, the DEIS revealed the fuzzy math behind Atlantic Yards.
Focusing in on the project's unimpressive fiscal benefits:
Instead of generating $2.1 billion in tax revenue over the next 30 years, as Ratner promised in promotional materials and press releases, the plan certified Tuesday shows that the project would gross just over $1.9 billion — $1.1 billion for the state and $845.5 million for the city — over the next 40 years.
After subtracting $500 million in subsidies already committed by the state and city, the overall benefit to the public drops to $1.4 billion over those 40 years — $35 million a year split between the state and city.
Posted by lumi at July 21, 2006 1:01 PM