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September 28, 2006
Surprise! City Planning approves recommendations and Ratner agrees
Sometimes the press goes out and gets a story that tells the public something they don't already know and other times they just report the next scene in some carefully scripted dialogue. Yesterday's events was a case of the latter.
Predictably the City Planning Commission voted to accept their recommendations for Atlantic Yards:
NY1, City Planning Commission Votes To Decrease Size Of Atlantic Yards Project
The article contains the same dueling quotes as the WNYC press report posted below.
Then, surprise, Forest City Ratner agreed to accept the recommendations:
NY Daily News, Ratner will pare Yards plan a little
"We are committed to doing all the affordable housing," said James Stuckey, Ratner vice president, adding that the cuts will be made to market-rate condos.
Ratner has also agreed to build 550 of the subsidized apartments in the first phase of the development by 2010.
...
Critics called the cuts meaningless and said the project will still be roughly the same size as it was originally proposed in 2003, before it grew.
The NY Times, Atlantic Yards Developer Accepts 8% Reduction in Project
Ms. Burden also said the developer would ensure that at least 30 percent of the apartments built during the project’s first phase will be below-market rental units. A total of 2,250 such rental units are planned for the project, which will have 8.7 million square feet. The developer, according to the letter, has also committed to building the remaining 70 percent during the second phase.
That commitment will be stipulated in housing and infrastructure subsidies that the city is negotiating with Forest City, which is also the development partner in building a new Midtown headquarters for The New York Times Company.
AM NY, Commission recommends Ratner plan passage
A building dubbed 'Miss Brooklyn,' the largest structure in the Frank Gehry-designed arena, should be built as planned -- 10 stories higher than the Williamsburg Savings Bank building, which is currently the borough's tallest, according to the letter the commission sent to the Empire State Development Corporation.
Some proponents of the plan, such as Borough President Marty Markowitz, suggested scaling back that building.
For some reason, we don't get the feeling that the City Planning Commission strong-armed developer Bruce Ratner into making these concessions. According to Forest City Ratner spokesperson Joe DePlasco:
City Planning has been enormously helpful throughout the development process.
Since many aspects of the project and subsequent recommendations defy common sense and current urban planning principles, New Yorkers can only assume that "City Planning has been enormously helpful" in rubberstamping a project that is now just about the same size as originally proposed.
Posted by lumi at September 28, 2006 6:53 AM