« Despite rumors and Ratner, Ledgers staying in Brooklyn | Main | Yankee Lobbyists on Taxpayers' Tab »
July 26, 2006
Yonkers Plan Clears Hurdle, but Still Faces Opposition
The NY Times
By Fernanda Santos
Here's the latest on Bruce Ratner's controversial Ridge Hill development plan in Yonkers.
Now that the developer Forest City Ratner Companies has won approval for its ambitious Ridge Hill Village development here, officials representing the city and the developer are turning their attention to resolving an environmental challenge to the project from neighboring Greenburgh.
Construction on Ridge Hill is expected to begin by the end of the year, according to the developer. The $660 million residential, retail and commercial project, near the New York Thruway in the northern part of this city, is expected to create 7,000 jobs and generate $24 million a year in gross revenue for Yonkers — a virtual lifesaver that might just pluck the city out of its perpetual financial pit, its supporters say.
But Ridge Hill has also generated fierce opposition from the Town of Greenburgh, which abuts the project and has battled Yonkers before over development along the town’s border.
In April, Greenburgh filed a lawsuit in State Supreme Court challenging the adequacy of the project’s environmental review. The pending suit does not prevent the Ridge Hill project from moving forward, but it could deter its progress down the line, city officials said.
The article includes this interesting observation about why the Ridge Hill development proposal has met with so much resistance:
“This process had a number of flaws,” said Andrea Stewart-Cousins, a Westchester County legislator who represents Yonkers. “Many of the parties could have been brought to the table way earlier and many of the deals could have been brokered more transparently so as to avoid a lot of the problems that came up along the way.”
NoLandGrab: To call exposure of cronyism and backroom dealing "a number of flaws" is being polite.
This article also includes a disclosure of the business relationship between Ratner and the Times, not that we're counting...
Posted by lumi at July 26, 2006 7:50 AM