« DEIS Bogus Points: Bogus Blight | Main | ESDC: Community Forums (Additional) »
August 28, 2006
The mysteries of Site 5: blight and development rights
Atlantic Yards Report
Recently, AYR pointed out that to call state-owned railyards "blighted" was a stretch, because they're RAILYARDS in active use by the Long Island Railroad (see "Bogus Blight" below for peek at the footprint map without the "blighted" railyards). One might just as easily call any street with a pot hole "blighted" under the same reasoning and take those too.
Today, AYR examines Site 5. This lot was deemed "blighted" back in 1960. What has happened since Forest City Ratner built the PC Richards and Modell's? It's still blighted.
According to the blight study:
Although the 30,780 sf lot can accommodate up to 184,680 zsf of built space under current zoning, it hosts a single-story 30,300 gsf building, utilizing only about 16 percent of the lot’s development potential. At the time the lot was developed, the market conditions would not support a large-scale development using all of the development rights... Given its key location in the midst of one of the largest commercial districts in Brooklyn, lot 1 is critically underutilized.
And who owned the air rights to this "critically underutilized" (read "short") piece of land? The City.
So according to the blight study, "market conditions" are to blame for the "blight" caused by the "critically underutilized" city-owned air rights.
Posted by lumi at August 28, 2006 8:03 AM