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August 6, 2006
A Bad Neighbor Editorial Policy
NLG Commentary
Today, The NY Times does a two-fer on its business partner, Forest City Ratner.
The Westchester regional-section editorial on Forest City Ratner's controversial Ridge Hill project ("A Bad Neighbor Policy") seems the epitome of balance and reason, especially when compared to the same editorial board's position on Ratner's Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn.
The Ridge Hill editorial chastizes Ratner and the City of Yonkers:
As Yonkers officials and the developer, Forest City Ratner (which is also the developer of the Times’s new headquarters in Manhattan), bulldoze forward with their Ridge Hill dream, they need to remain acutely aware of the facts on the ground. They can call it a “village,” but that doesn’t make it one. It’s a $660 million mini-city. If they are honest they will acknowledge that concerns about Ridge Hill have been raised by thoughtful critics from the earliest stages of the proposal, and that these concerns still have not been resolved.
The Times could do well to apply these same concerns to the $4.2 billion Atlantic Yards project. Instead, Ratner clearly has the editorial board's ear on the project in Brooklyn.
Though Atlantic Yards would be the densest residential community in the nation, The Times calls for a scale reduction of just 15%, which would still make it a veritable mega "mini-city," and the nation's most dense neighborhood by a long shot.
While calling for all sides to work out traffic concerns in Yonkers, The Times's Atlantic Yards editorial cuts Forest City Ratner a lot of slack as it explains why, ultimately, Ratner isn't responsible for the traffic mess that even Ratner's own Environmental Impact Statement admits will be left in the project's wake:
Traffic will still be an issue when the project is finished, but the developers are not obliged to hold the neighborhood harmless. Their job is to demonstrate that their buildings will not make a bad situation intolerable, and the promises made by Mr. Ratner and his associates seem like reasonable responses to that challenge.
The NY Times editorial board has raised virtually all of the serious and legitimate concerns in the cases of Ridge Hill and the failed West Side Stadium bid. But inexplicably, in the case of Atlantic Yards, there seems to be a pattern of willful disregard for "thoughful criticism" of many aspects of the project, and unwillingness to hold Bruce Ratner accountable for the use of eminent domain to build a basketball arena.
Failure to take into account all impacts of the project, and to accept on blind faith the assurances of Bruce Ratner, only undermines the public's confidence in The Times, as it already has with many of our local politicians.
The duplicity of the NY Times's editorial policy implies that Brooklyn isn't worthy of the same considerations as Manhattan or Westchester. It also does not serve the interest of readers or the public, and is deeply disturbing to those who have spent the past two years trying to bring to light facts about the project, facts not covered by The New York Times or willingly acknowldged by the developer.
Posted by lumi at August 6, 2006 2:11 PM