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November 30, 2006
DDDB PRESS RELEASE: Comptroller Hevesi’s Statement Means Projects Like “Atlantic Yards” Need Proper Amount of Time for PACB Analysis
Argument Made for Spitzer to Review Projects
NEW YORK, NY— Last week, New York State Comptroller Hevesi issued a press statement warning that the Public Authorities Control Board (PACB) is moving much too fast on development project approvals. The PACB is the body that will have to consider the $4.2 billion “Atlantic Yards” proposal. On Monday the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) took another step towards rushing PACB consideration before the Pataki Administration ends, and before the PACB has a reasonable amount of time to fully scrutinize the largest development proposed by a single developer in the history of New York City.
"Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) agrees with Comptroller Hevesi one hundred percent. Bruce Ratner’s 'Atlantic Yards' proposal in Brooklyn could misuse and waste at least $2 billion in public money, and is a prime example of the Comptroller's concerns," said DDDB spokesperson Daniel Goldstein. "For this reason, and many other concerns about the project, we believe that the PACB should take ample time to review the Ratner plan as it is nowhere near ready for prime time with its numerous financial unknowns, deficient environmental review, and because it is based on a use of eminent domain whose constitutionality is currently under review by the courts."
Comptroller Hevesi’s warning, about numerous projects around the State, speaks directly to the lack of financial information on the Ratner development plan and the clear attempt by the ESDC to fast track the proposal through PACB approval. From the Comptroller’s release:
"The State should take the proper amount of time to make certain that it is entering into sound fiscal commitments that have been thoroughly vetted and analyzed with the PACB as the last step in the process of reviewing a final and complete plan. Also, the Spitzer administration should be given the opportunity to include these projects in a comprehensive plan."
"I’m not suggesting that any of these projects are not worthy or should be blocked. But when they are rushed through in a long list, it is impossible to know if they are as good as they can be." (Emphasis added)
“We can clearly see that, like Mr. Hevesi is saying, the ESDC is trying to force a fast-tracked PACB review of ‘Atlantic Yards.’ They are doing this in an attempt to assure approval in the waning days of the Pataki administration to avoid serious scrutiny,” said Goldstein. “Incoming Governor Spitzer, under whose watch the ‘Atlantic Yards’ controversy will play itself out, deserves ample time to review the project in his role as one of three PACB vote holders. Mr. Spitzer and Mr. Silver shouldn’t be eager to rush ahead with a project whose approval would be under the watch of ESDC Chairman Gargano, who http://dddb.net/php/latestnews_Linked.php?id=332Speaker Silver called ‘the most corrupt member of the Pataki Administration’ just two weeks ago.”
Amongst other financial arrangements, the PACB would have to approve triple tax-free bonding for the Ratner plan, including the bond on the arena portion of the project, of at least $647 million plus the debt service.
Mr. Hevesi also said, “New York State is already suffering under huge amounts of debt, and now in the last days of the current administration, there is a rush to push through billions of dollars of projects that will load the State with billions more in debt, in many cases without getting a proper review. It is wrong to limit the freedom of the new administration through rushed last minute decisions.” (Emphasis added)
Posted by lumi at 12:59 PM
3,600 People Vs. Three Men in a Room
Matthew Schuerman is reporting on The Real Estate Observer that:
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn has collected 3,600 form letters, online and on the street, urging the Public Authorities Control Board to postpone its vote on Atlantic Yards until after "the courts" rule on its eminent domain lawsuit -- which, frankly, could take a few years, especially if the case goes all the way to the Supreme Court.
Most of them, spokesman Daniel Goldstein said, were collected in Brooklyn, but there are 400 signers from state Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver's Lower Manhattan district among them.
NoLandGrab: Schuerman implies that the letterwriting campaign is a stall tactic. But there is a valid community concern here.
Developers will often raze properties that have been successfully seized, demolishing the neighborhoods around a few remaining homes or buildings where the property owners are appealing the eminent domain action. If the property owners prevail, the damage to the community has already been done. The most recent example is the case in Norwood, OH.
Bruce Ratner has already demolished all of the buildings for which he was able to get an engineer to declare the property to be a public health threat. There is no reason to believe that he won't quickly do the same to properties he controls if the project is approved by the Public Authorities Control Board.
Posted by lumi at 12:28 PM
TONIGHT: Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods Public Information Forum
The Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods will hold a Public Information Forum this week to summarize the findings and concerns discussed in their response to the Atlantic Yards Final Environmental Impact Statement:
Thursday, November 30th, 7:30 p.m.
Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church
85 South Oxford Street
Fort Greene
NoLandGrab: That's the Corrected and Amended Final Environmental Impact Statement to you!
Posted by lumi at 11:48 AM
On Gargano, Pataki, Silver, Spitzer, and Hevesi
Picketing Henry Ford
Stuart Schrader can't seem to find a fancy French intellectual catchall phrase for "follow the money" and "politics makes strange bedfellows." What he does turn up is a political soap opera in which everyone ultimately has a price.
 |
So what is really going on with the approval of this project? Why so rushed? Simple: Governor Pataki, perhaps the most deluded politician alive (Rumsfeldian might be an apt description), has ambitions to be president... The bonus for Pataki is that Ratner has incredibly deep pockets, which all national candidates require.
...
Hevesi’s fate ultimately sits in Spitzer’s hands. The lame-duck governor screwed Hevesi by not allowing his clearly stupid but ultimately forgivable financial impropriety to be swept under the rug. So Hevesi wants to screw Pataki back. A perfect way to do so is to delay the decision about the Atlantic Yards until after Pataki is out of office... If delayed, the vote gives Spitzer an opportunity to assert himself and set the character of his new administration. Hevesi surely hopes that by giving Spitzer this opportunity.... The problem in Brooklyn, however, is that Spitzer might not vote the way we want him to.
Posted by lumi at 11:47 AM
High crime in footprint? FEIS ignores the criticism
Atlantic Yards
The Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) in the Response to Comments section of the Atlantic Yards Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS), aims to offer "a summary of these relevant comments and a response to each." (Emphasis added)
Many responses might be seen as incomplete, but at least they're responses. When it comes to dubious charges of high crime in the Atlantic Yards footprint, charges raised in the ESDC's Blight Study but severely criticized (by me, at first), the ESDC has ignored the issue.
Essentially, the ESDC responded to criticism of their conclusion that there is higher crime in the footprint than the surrounding area, by stating that: * there are other reasons to declare the footprint blighted and * they didn't say that the surrounding area was blighted.
Posted by lumi at 11:06 AM
A Ratner-related contribution to Roger Green
Atlantic Yards Report
While Norman Oder was stalking political contributors who are likely representing the interests of Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards project (Bruce Ratner claims to have stopped contributing to campaigns after the 1997 election), he came across a new name:
[Roger] Green was deeply involved in the Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement and has spoken enthusiastically for the project. So maybe it's not surprising that campaign disclosure forms show additional ties to developer Forest City Ratner. Green got $2000 on 7/27/06 from FCR executive Gary Lieberman, who also owns a piece of the Nets.
Posted by lumi at 10:40 AM
Newark City Hall Receives Subpoenas Over Land Sales
If Bruce Ratner wanted a free ride, he should have sowed some seeds in Newark.
From yesterday's NY Times:
Federal agents investigating the finances of the administration of Newark’s former mayor, Sharpe James, have subpoenaed City Hall for records on the discounted sale of city properties to some of his closest supporters, people who have seen documents related to the inquiry said on Tuesday.
NoLandGrab: Though he was the lowest bidder, Bruce Ratner has struck a deal for the railyards for well under market value. He also secured the rights for the Atlantic Terminal building from the MTA for free. But unlike in Newark, these deals are legal(?).
Posted by lumi at 10:22 AM
Michael Ratner offers contributions (Lopez, etc.), office for meeting
Somebody explain to us how Michael Ratner avoids criticism over his Atlantic Yards connections?
Sure, he's a favorite son of the Left, champion of constitutional rights.
But, he's also: * part owner of the NJ Nets, a team that's slated to move into an arena to be built on property seized via eminent domain (a Fifth Amendment abuse), * the main political donor for the Brooklyn operation of the family real estate empire, and * even lets his office be used for Atlantic Yards project-planning meetings between City Planning officials, Frank Gehry's studio and Forest City Ratner employees.
Norman Oder uncovers yet more donations made by Michael Ratner and his wife Karen Ranucci (remember, Bruce Ratner doesn't contribute to candidates to avoid the appearance of favoritism) and an email that confirms an Atlantic Yards team meeting in Michael Ratner's Brooklyn office.
NoLandGrab: Property rights is a civil right. Anyone familiar with nation building or working with groups who are striving towards rebuilding a civil society understands that along with rule of law, the first thing a society must establish is the right to property. Without property rights, there is no incentive to invest one's labor, thus underminding the stability of society.
Our Founding Fathers understood this concept and, in the Fifth Amendment, included protection of private property, along with protection of life itself, against the coercive powers of the state.
Michael Ratner is very familiar with the first part of the Fifth Amendment, and has argued the concept of Due Process in his campaign to protect the human rights of detainees held at Guantanamo. We recommend that he reacquaint himself with the entire amendment — the Eminent Domain part is at the end.
Posted by lumi at 9:35 AM
What Went Wrong With “Atlantic Yards?”
Civic News (newsletter of the Park Slope Civic Council), via Streets Blog By Ezra Goldstein
The Municipal Art Society head Kent Barwick has figured out what's wrong with "Atlantic Yards." It's not extreme density, superblocks, eminent domain, the arena or traffic.
To Barwick... process is paramount, and Atlantic Yards is the poster child for what goes wrong when process is ignored.
NoLandGrab: To be fair, in theory, Barwick is right, in that the multitude of issues and concerns clustered around this project could've been openly discussed if there had been a process in place to begin with.
But, has the lack of process gone too far?
The project can be saved, he says, but only if people are given the chance not just to speak but to be heard. That would happen if the state recognizes that, properly, its client at Atlantic Yards is the citizens and government of New York City, not a private developer.
Posted by lumi at 9:02 AM
"Atlantic Yards" as synonym...
Daily Intelligencer, the New York Magazine city blog, was being sarcastic in yesterday's headline in reference to The Gowanus Lounge's comparison of the Coney Island developer Joe Sitt to Bruce Ratner, "Let's Just Call Every Land Deal ‘Atlantic Yards’ From Now On."
But that got us thinking. "Atlantic Yards" is has become the poster child for overdevelopment, boondoogles, sorely needed reform of public authorities, Frank Gehry kitsch, extreme density, and eminent domain abuse.
Is it enough to use "Atlantic Yards" as a synonym? Ex., "Coney Island will be so like Atlantic Yards." Or is there enough room to create adjectival or verb forms of the project name?
In reference to threatening to use eminent domain one could say, "Don't make us do an Atlantic Yards." Or when considering a project that is 20 times bigger than anything across the street, one could say, "Whoa! It's so Atlantic Yards."
Naturally, we're reserving "Ratnerian" for any situation involving a politically connected powerbroker who feeds at the public-subsidy trough or is awarded public land for dirt cheap.
Posted by lumi at 8:43 AM
King Alfred: so dense it's daft
The Argus Newsletter
Bt Peter McKenna, Fourth Avenue, Hove
Blimey! Frank Gehry is designing a high-density project that is out of context with the existing enviroment and everyone's knickers are in a twist. But no worries, there's affordable housing, a community center and an insipid narrative (some birds sporting glass and steel).
Is it Brooklyn, or is it Hove? Whichever, it's "daft!"
Posted by lumi at 7:53 AM
Security study for Atlantic Yards? Sure, but it's Ratner's
Atlantic Yards Report
The Municipal Art Society held a forum on the issues related to creating great public spaces during the age of terrorism concerns. Norman Oder was in attendance and popped the question about Atlantic Yards in the Q&A.
One question on the minds of Brooklynites is why the base of the Freedom Tower was redesigned to address vunerability to truck bombs, while Ratner is proposing to build a glass-and-steel skyscraper and arena attached to the densest residential community in America, over a transit hub that was the target of a foiled terrorist attack? Where's the security study? The public wants to know how terrorism and security concerns are being addressed.
You're probably used to not receiving answers to your questions and concerns about Atlantic Yards, so the non-answer to Oder's question won't be a surprise.
Posted by lumi at 7:07 AM
November 29, 2006
Is Coney Island the New Atlantic Yards and Joe Sitt the New Bruce Ratner?
The Gowanus Lounge is bristling at the notion of building Brooklyn from scratch (we're envisioning Disney redeveloping the Gowanus Canal):
The moment we saw the item late yesterday afternoon about the sale of Astroland to Thor Equities we realized why we started doing a "Coney Island Deathwatch" months ago: because Thor's plan is to erase virtually every element of Coney Island's past and to rebuild it from scratch.
With the sale of Astroland to Thor Equities, the massive Coney project is starting to look like the new Atlantic Yards and, inevitably, developer Joe Sitt is looking like Nouveau Ratner. The only thing missing is the Empire State Development Corp., but the Coney Island Development Corp. may yet prove itself to be a spiritual equal.
NoLandGrab: Thor Equities big move to gobble up as much of Coney Island as possible for redevelopment explains why, despite the fact the location would make a great site for a new Nets arena and that local politicians and even Bruce Ratner initially thought so too, the subject has been taboo.
Of course, if they had to, the government could use eminent domain to take land from Thor, but why bother when you can just take property from the little guy.
Posted by lumi at 10:53 AM
Reduce the project? ESDC says density works for Times Square
Atlantic Yards Report
As Norman Oder is scouring the Empire State Development Corporation's responses to the public's comments on the Environmental Impact Statement, he's picking up clues to what Bruce Ratner's ultimate vision is for the neighborhood.
How big should Atlantic Yards be? Numerous individuals, organizations, and elected officials told the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), in response to the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), that the project should be reduced drastically.
...
In the Final EIS, however, the ESDC gave very little quarter--and suggested that, because areas like Times Square and Penn Station support high density development, so should the area around Atlantic Terminal.The difference, however, is that most of the high-density development touted is commercial, not residential, and neither of those areas are as close to rowhouse residential districts like the Atlantic Yards site.
NoLandGrab: The ESDC and Ratner are proposing to bring a level of density previously limited to commercial districts to a mostly residential neighborhood. Remember, not only is the area surrounding the proposed Atlantic Yards site largely residential, but so is the Atlantic Yards plan itself.
The Atlantic Yards project is proposing density of historic proportions for a residential community. If built, urban planners from all over the world will eye our community, which will be the petri dish for a historic experiment in extreme density.
Posted by lumi at 10:20 AM
Jeffries Watch
Three current State Assemblymembers just went on record withholding their support for Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards, pending more review and reductions in size.
But what about Hakeem Jeffries, the incoming State Assemblymember, whose district would balloon in size if the project were to be built as proposed?
The Real Estate Observer, Jeffries To Silver: Atlantic Yards' Density Worries Me
Observer reporter Matthew Schuerman caught up with 57th District Assemblymember-elect Hakeem Jeffries during a telephone interview yesterday:
Jeffries told The Real Estate on Tuesday that he had a conversation about a week to 10 days ago to express many of the same concerns as Assembly members Jim Brennan, Joan Millman and Annette Robinson did. In the order Jeffries mentioned them, his concerns are: building more affordable housing early on as part of the project, the lack of transparency regarding the project's financing, the lack of public involvement, and, upon prompting, its density. Jeffries said that he would speak with Silver again soon.
Jeffries is known to be hard to read (some would say slippery) on Atlantic Yards, and he refused to compare his position with that of Brennan's camp.
"I have always felt that eminent domain is one of government's most exceptional powers. I don't believe that a private developer should be able to use it to build a basketball arena." But he also said that the courts should be allowed to decide the issue.
Assemblymember-elect Hakeem Jeffries on AY
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn emphasized Jeffries comments on eminent domain and added:
We agree with that entirely. The PACB should not vote on the proposed project until after the courts are allowed to rule on the federal eminent domain lawsuit filed on October 26th. An approval before that case is resolved can lead to a BIG MESS where Forest City Ratner levels some of the neighborhood but then cannot build any of "Atlantic Yards" because the plaintiffs win their lawsuit.
Posted by lumi at 9:44 AM
MSG employee warns of rowdy fans, noise; ESDC says crowd noise "not... major"
We cried so hard that we had to laugh at this comment and response highlighted on Atlantic Yards Report today.
The writer [a Madison Square Garden employee], who said he could not give his name, because, "like contracts that are signed with Bruce Ratner, there are speech restrictions included in the contracts with MSG." (The latter is unconfirmed, but there is a record of Ratner gag orders.)
He warned that, after events with younger crowds, drunk patrons crowd the street and carelessly strew garbage. They also treat the streats like they own them, he said, and are quite loud:
In the end, on any number of occasions, it's just one big party in the streets... The proposed Nets Arena is surrounded by dense residential neighborhoods. What can the residents expect before and after events? There needs to be a study that addresses and answers that question.
The Empire State Development Corporation's response?
In general, any crowd noise surrounding the arena would be expected to be masked by noise from vehicles on adjacent streets and would not be a major noise source.
In a nutshell, the increased traffic will drown out the noise from the arena-goers — comforting.
There's more to the comment and official response, so if you're in need of a good cry check it out.
Posted by lumi at 9:13 AM
To the NY Times Public Editor: examine the 8% AY cutback
Atlantic Yards Report
At this point, we're not sure why the Public Editor of The New York Times doesn't set his spam filter to block Norman Oder's email. If the Times isn't going to do anything about their anemic coverage of the Atlantic Yards issue, then why bother taking his calls.
On November 15, 2006 Norman Oder released a document he uncovered via Freedom of Information Request from the NYC Department of City Planning. The document reveals that the alleged scaleback (the project was "scaled back" to nearly its original size), which was heralded on the front page of the Times in early September, 2006, was actually "precooked" by the developer.
Norman Oder posted his entire Letter to the Public Editor with links and supporting documents.
Oder is more polite than we are when he essentially makes this point:
The New York Times shouldn't be seen as being led around by the nose by their business partner Bruce Ratner, certainly not on the front page of the paper and definitely not while the paper's reputation as a bastion of journalistic values is sagging. Also, when the Times does get it wrong, as it did with the story about the developer's "Response to Criticism," the paper should do a follow-up story, or at least go back and correct the record, instead of "enshrining the myth."
Apparently the paper is content to let a freelance journalist/blogger lead the coverage, which makes readers wonder, what other stories are they blowing?
Posted by lumi at 8:31 AM
It came from the Blogosphere...
Gothamist, Extra, Extra
A blurb and link to the NY Post coverage of sudden-death overtime at the Empire State Development Corporation:
The outgoing Pataki administration is rushing the Atlantic Yards plan through the environmental impact review process-- they even made state employees work through the Thanksgiving weekend finishing the paperwork. Incoming Governor Spitzer has expressed some reservations about the project.
The Gowanus Lounge, Atlantic Yards: The Gift That Keeps on Giving
While some New Yorkers volunteered in soup kitchens during Thanksgiving, others worked overtime to get Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards Final Environmental Impact Statement out the door:
We could go on about the screaming that ensued, the threats that were uttered, the catered holiday meals that were offered, but we won't.
...
We will say two things: The first is that we're not lawyers, but if a suit is filed challenging the entire Environmental Impact Statement review and approval process, the mistake and rush job to rectify it will end up being part of the litigation. The second is that the public process surrounding the most important development project in Brooklyn history has taken on the manic feel of getting a PlayStation3 on eBay on Christmas Eve and trying to get it delivered by Christmas morning. In the end, if you'll pardon us stretching the analogy a bit, it will all come down to how many stop signs and traffic lights the UPS driver is willing to run in order to get it there on time.
Sports Media Review, Still in Holiday Mode
The cat is out of the bag — people are starting to realize that Bruce's boondoggle is even bigger than George's:
The Yankees and Steinbrenner are also getting an unconsiconably generous deal from the City to build their new stadium, and Bruce Ratner, the Nets owner, is in the process of pulling off a bigger political boondoggle than either Wilpon or Steinbrenner, as he puts together a multi-billion dollar development deal to bring the New Jersey Nets to Brooklyn.
Posted by lumi at 7:59 AM
HPD foils FOIL (after four months), won't reveal affordable housing subsidies
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder is "FOIL'd" again. This time the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) isn't going to give up info about the housing subsidies that will be applied to Atlantic Yards because the law says that you don't have to if the release of that information would cause "interference with contracts." Contracts with whom, do you suppose?
So it looks like HPD stymied Norman Oder long enough (the original Freedom of Information Law request was sent back in July, 2006) to put off any decision on Oder's appeal of the denial until possibly AFTER the sponsoring agency, the Empire State Development Corporation, and developer Bruce Ratner have secured the final approval.
Yes, you are reading this correctly, it looks like the ESDC and Forest City Ratner are seeking final approval BEFORE all public costs have been revealed.
NoLandGrab: Though it took several months for HPD to take action on Norman Oder's FOIL request, ESDC employees worked through the Thanksgiving holiday to revise the Final Environmental Impact Statement.
Posted by lumi at 7:27 AM
MUST-NOT-SEE TV
NETWORK SPORTS BOSSES KEEP TURNING OFF FANS
NY Post
Phil Mushnick
Monday's column featured a crisply worded rant about how TV executives are dumbing down sportscasts, followed by this criticism of an appearance by Jay-Z, Inc.:
As long as the Nets' part-owner and new Budweiser spokesman, Jay-Z, stopped by ESPN's MNF booth, last week (Ronde Barber needed a break), we were hoping Mike Tirico, Joe Theismann and Tony Kornheiser would ask him about his fame and fortune being in large part predicated on lyrics that refer to women as "bitches" and "hos," gays as "faggots" and black men as "niggaz."
Or would that have been rude?
Posted by lumi at 7:17 AM
MIKE BID TO WIPE OUT 'BLOCK'HEADS
NY Post
"Inside City Hall", by David Seifman
Here's a column we missed about Mayor Mike's disaffection with the Public Authorities Control Board (you know, the group that Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner hopes will rubberstamp his Brooklyn mega-project).
MAYOR Bloomberg was so livid after a little-known stateboard blocked two major city projects that he ordered the city's top lawyer to review its legality.
Sources said Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo came back with a surprising finding: The irksome Public Authorities Control Board may be unconstitutional, but there's not much the city can do about it.
"He reported back that there is a case to be made, but the city can't be the one making it," said one source.
The problem seems to be that the city is a creation of the state, which is why the state's highest court has ruled it can't sue the state.
But someone else could.
NoLandGrab: From a legal perspective, the point about how the City can't sue the State is moot in the case of Atlantic Yards because the Mayor has supported the project from day one. But it does inform the public as to why the State can simply override City zoning with the vote of a board of non-elected officials.
From a political and PR point of view, it's amusing that the Mayor has now come to the same conclusion about the Public Authorities Control Board as Atlantic Yards critics.
Posted by lumi at 7:04 AM
Opposed, Gently
The Politicker noticed that Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn posted the letter from State Assemblymembers Jim Brennan, Joan Millman and Annette Robinson to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver asking for a delay in approval of the project unless significant modifications to the project are made:
The letter was emailed out today by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn and posted on the group's website, although the moderate tone seems to be at odds with DDDB's more absolutist opposition.
Is this a sign that the Atlantic Yards opposition is beginning to coalesce around an eventual compromise position? Or am I just reading too much into this?
NoLandGrab: Our reading of DDDB's posting was that the coalition of local groups would like people to know that a few politicians have finally gone on record to argue many of the same points that the coalition has tried to get across for a couple of years now.
Points highlighted by DDDB: * The project's "extreme density." * The override of land use laws, which permits the "extreme density" * The lack of full disclosure of the project's public cost * The lack of an effective and comprehensive transportation plan * The absence of housing for individuals earning less than $21,000 * The low percentage of "affordable" housing in Phase One
Posted by lumi at 6:36 AM
November 28, 2006
Brennan, Millman, Robinson ask Silver to delay, modify AY project
Atlantic Yards Report
While Empire State Development Corporation Chairman Charles Gargano has been busy getting roasted for bobbling the Environmental Impact Statement, important news has been brewing in the State Assembly.
Three Assemblymembers representing districts near the proposed Atlantic Yards project have asked Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver for “substantial modifications to the Project and a delay in approval until those modifications are achieved." Silver is one of three controlling votes on the Public Authorities Control Board (PACB), which should get the project later this month, after approval by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC).
Assemblyman Jim Brennan and Assemblymembers Joan Millman and Annette Robinson sent the three-page letter on November 22 to [Assembly Speaker Sheldon] Silver, a fellow Democrat. The speaker, who has expressed support for Atlantic Yards, has said he would consider the opinions of representatives in Brooklyn.
...
The Assemblymembers' concerns include the project’s “extreme density,” the override of land use laws, the opacity of project finances, and the lack of an effective transportation plan. Also, echoing criticism raised by some housing groups and the BrooklynSpeaks coalition, they call for broadening the affordable housing to those earning less than $21,000 a year. They suggested a revival of an Assembly bill that would trade additional subsidy for a project downsizing.
Also covered in Norman Oder's new analysis of the letter to Sheldon Silver is Assemblymember-elect Hakeem Jeffries' conspicuous absence, and a brief run down of the concerns expressed by the trio of legislators.
NoLandGrab: It's not clear what leverage the group will have at this time, but it is a consolation to know that there are a handful of elected representatives who actually listen to their constituents.
Posted by lumi at 6:36 AM
ESDC Sets Atlantic Yards Approval Date
The Real Estate Observer
By Matthew Schuerman
Mark it on your calendars: 10 a.m., Dec. 8. The Empire State Development Corporation just scheduled its next meeting for then, at which time the board is expected to approve the Atlantic Yards project.
It then goes to the state Public Authorities Control Board.
Posted by lumi at 6:21 AM
ARENA PLAN A THANK-LESS TASK
NY Post
By Rich Calder
The Pataki administration is so keen on getting the plan for a Brooklyn NBA arena approved before Eliot Spitzer becomes governor that officials had state employees work through the Thanksgiving weekend, The Post has learned.
The governor-elect has said that he favors the Atlantic Yards project but that he has questions about its financing.
Posted by lumi at 6:02 AM
November 27, 2006
FEIS reissued for December showdown; Gargano says speed not atypical
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder reports from the special meeting of the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) Board to recertify the Atlantic Yard Final Environmental Impact Statment. ESDC Chairman Charles Gargano tries to convince the public that it's not extraordinary for employees to work through holiday weekends:
Twelve days after they determined the Atlantic Yards Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) complete—and just one week after numerous comments were found missing—the board of the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) met and certified a revised FEIS, setting up a December 8 approval.
What went wrong? ESDC Chairman Charles Gargano said the omission of 148 comments—with about 1600 already accounted for—was inadvertent. His explanation was hardly exhaustive, blaming some “very large” comments and others “sent to the wrong person,” but he emphasized the agency’s responsiveness to the news.
Indeed, staffers worked weekends to finish the job, something Gargano asserted is not an extraordinary measure. “We have done that many times, worked weekends, over the 12 years that I’ve been here, on many projects,” he said.
Did the FEIS change? “Not substantially,” said Gargano, deeming them “mostly questions that had been asked previously.”
Click here to read more of Gargano's comments, and to find out what the ringtone is on the Chairman of the Board's cellphone.
Posted by lumi at 10:48 PM
Buying Tax Breaks
Room 8
For a little mental vacation, here's a bashing of the Empire State Development Corporation that doesn't even mention Atlantic Yards. The editorial by State Senator Liz Krueger illustrates that the quasi-governmental public-private corporation is even worse than we thought, and ought to be the poster child for public authorities reform.
Krueger outlines some of the ESDC's most egregious misdeeds and advocates for reform:
The Syracuse Post-Standard recently reported how "New York state officials allowed a Rochester mall owner to BUY Empire Zone tax breaks while thousands of other state businesses were excluded from the program." The mall owner paid the local community $1.5 million to expand the boundaries of an Empire Zone to include his business. In return, the mall owner is expected to receive more than $14 million in tax breaks over the next ten years, all at the expense of us, the taxpayers. Of course the mall owner argues this was just to stay competitive with another mall owner (Destiny USA) who is expecting even BIGGER tax exemptions—another story, and ANOTHER problem.
...
Yet another recent example of blatant mismanagement of Empire Zones was the September 2006 discovery that the ESDC had awarded $22 million in tax breaks to a New Jersey-based company, NRG Energy. In return for $22 million in tax breaks, NRG created one part-time position. The size of this tax break, coupled with the paltry economic benefits that local communities reap, simply fail to justify the use of taxpayer dollars by the ESDC.Some people will look at these decisions and say they reflect new lows in this agency's self-governance. I believe these actions confirm that Governor Pataki's appointees either lack the most basic understanding of the very laws they are charged with implementing, or worse, they simply don't care. The good news is that I fully expect Governor-Elect Spitzer to address this problem post haste.
Posted by lumi at 10:25 PM
Supersizing the Supersized
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn's web site is linking to Norman Oder's article about the revelation that Frank Gehry is designing three towers over Atlantic Center Mall in conjunction with the Atlantic Yards project.
One of the coalition's main objections is that developer Bruce Ratner has refused to consider locating the arena on the Atlantic Center Mall site, and would rather use eminent domain to seize private property in order to locate the arena elsewhere:
This is the real reason that the developer has refused to build the proposed arena over his failed mall, rather than abuse eminent domain: why waste one's air rights when one can utilize them and take other people's properties?
Posted by lumi at 10:19 PM
Fast Work: Atlantic Yards Impact Statement Fixed
Curbed.com rehashed The Real Estate Observer coverage and summed up the timeline for the Empire State Development Corporation's mad dash to the finish line. The ESDC's and developer Forest City Ratner's goal is to get the project approved before Governor Pataki leaves office at the end of the year.
So, with two weeks lost to the boo boo, there is still technically time to put all the approvals in place before the Pataki administration leaves Albany. Final vote in ten days. State Comptroller gets a week after that. Then, the Public Authorities Control Board can vote. Or drag their feet until the new tenant moves into the Governor's office.
Posted by lumi at 9:56 PM
ESDC Certifies Atlantic Yards — Again
Look kids! The Empire State Development Corporation elves worked through the Thanksgiving holiday to crank out a new-and-improved Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) by Monday. Living proof that sometimes, government works!
Since omitting public comments would leave the EIS wide open to litigation, the ESDC had to backtrack and include the missing comments. Since "listening to the community" is purely pro forma, the inclusion of the missing comments had no effect on the conclusions of the report.
From The Real Estate Observer
By Matthew Schuerman
Some 148 comments from the public, 60 of them "substantive," had been left out of the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for Atlantic Yards when it was certified Nov. 15, Charles Gargano, the chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation, told the press on Monday.
That prompted ESDC staff to work overtime -- including over Thanksgiving weekend -- to put out a revised FEIS, including the new comments and responses to them, all of which were certified unanimously by the ESDC board on Monday morning. The new comments did not change the conclusions of the FEIS, Gargano said.
Posted by lumi at 9:22 PM
To the editor: Attorney George Locker
Attorney George Locker's letter to the editor of The New York Times didn't make the cut, but makes a good point that "key social concerns" are being ignored while the Times (and by default, most of the mainstream media) focuses on the racial divisions over Atlantic Yards.
To the editor:
Your article, Perspectives on the Atlantic Yards Development Through the Prism of Race (NYT November 12, 2006), diverts attention from the key social concerns: (1) the assault on democracy, the rule of law, and the right of citizen participation (the massive Project cannot be built without a state override, utilizing eminent domain, of well-established City planning guidelines, zoning laws, and review procedures); (2) the abdication of political leadership at the highest levels (who elected Bruce Ratner the mayor of Brooklyn?); and (3) the abject failure of City and State government to alleviate our massive shortage of affordable housing (every year, NYC loses more units of existing housing than are newly built).
Where there is no democratic process, no honest voice to be heard from almost every elected official, and no genuine program of housing construction, it is no wonder that an outside chance for a piddling few jobs and housing units, dangled by a cynical developer who knows how to spread the cash and hide the facts, would promote resentment among the most disenfranchised against those in the community – black and white -- who readily condemn Atlantic Yards as the anti-democratic, private land-grab and civic disaster, which it is.
George Locker
Mr. Locker is an attorney who represents 15 rent-stabilized tenants who face eviction from the proposed Project site.
Posted by lumi at 6:47 PM
Traffic Tidbit: "sign of economic health"
Here's a "deja screw," buried at the end of a story on development in New Rochelle from this Sunday's NY Times "Living In" column ("Buildings Grow Taller; Reactions Get Louder"):
Traffic often snarls on main roads, although [Craig] King, the commissioner, cited a study by AKRF Inc., a White Plains consulting firm, suggesting that some congestion was natural in a downtown and even a sign of economic health.
Atlantic Yards news junkies will know that AKRF is the firm that worked on the Atlantic Yards Environmental Impact Statement. AKRF has consistently garnered criticism for its developer-friendly conclusions. Even Atlantic Yards supporter and consultant Richard Lipsky charged recently that "the AKRF folks are simply rationalizing their job, which is to make a great deal of money by minimizing impacts and conducting dishonest research." But, we digress....
StreetsBlog readers and transportation advocates will recall NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg's declaration of the benefits of traffic, during a speech this past August ("Mayor Bloomberg Says NYC Traffic Congestion is Good"):
"We like traffic, it means economic activity, it means people coming here."
You gotta love how "traffic is a good sign" has become the mantra of policy consultants who have the ear of local mayors.
That explains the City's lack of concern over current traffic and transportation problems, never mind the mindboggling deafness to the impacts on traffic from an arena and 16 highrise towers (actually, more like 19 highrises, if you include the Atlantic Center towers), located around one of the most congested intersections in Brooklyn.
Last week, The NY Times reported that the Partnership for New York City is about to release a study which concludes that traffic congestion costs the city an estimated "$12 billion to $15 billion a year." That would seem to contradict AKRF's traffic dogma, which is just an excuse for cities to develop at will and ignore the related traffic and transportation challenges.
Posted by lumi at 11:44 AM
Gehry's working on “Atlantic Center overbuild” (for 2000+ residents); ESDC punts
Atlantic Yards Report brings you another Norman Oder exclusive:
Though city officials haven't said so publicly, newly released documents show they’ve examined plans by Forest City Ratner for three new towers over the developer’s much-derided Atlantic Center mall--and Atlantic Yards architect Frank Gehry has it as part of his assignment.
Here's the outline of the story of how all the players involved are trying to make Atlantic Yards and the Atlantic Center overbuild appear to be separate projects, while a glimpse behind the scenes, brought to you by another one of Norman Oder's Freedom of Information Law request, tells a different story. [For the complete story accompanied by the numbers, don't waste your time here, just surf on over to Atlantic Yards Report.]
What do we know? * Developer Forest City Ratner has additional air rights over the Atlantic Center Mall. [Forest City Ratner Atlantic Yards Development Group President Jim Stuckey likes to point out that has been on the table all along.] * The Atlantic Center overbuild was studied in the Downtown Brooklyn Plan Environmental Impact Statement. The hitch is that the composition of the Downtown Brooklyn Plan has totally changed since the plan was studied — much of the commercial space is being built and planned as residential space.
Though Ratner and his City Planners aren't being specific, a couple of hints have been dropped. * In January, 2006 starchitect Frank Gehry mentioned designing 20 buildings? * In May, 2006 one model of the project showed three towers over Atlantic Center Mall. The only reporter who has publicly mentioned the connection is Norman Oder.
What does the Emprire State Development Corporation have to say about the accompanying Atlantic Center overbuild? * "The proposed project would further the City’s policy of promoting transit-oriented development." * That's it... there's nothing addressing how thousands of additional residents (as opposed to office workers as originally studied in the Downtown Brooklyn Plan) will impact the area.
What do Ratner and Gehry have to say?
* Nothing much.
* But wait, a recently released Atlantic Yards meeting agenda, from September, 2005, was headlined by a "Review of Atlantic Center overbuild."
What have we learned? * Bureaucratically speaking, the two projects are separate, but they are being conceived, and even designed by the same architect, as one.
NoLandGrab; The only way anyone is supposed be able to fathom the final size of Bruce Ratner's plans for his "Atlantic Empire" is pick through every public statement and city document, as Norman Oder has.
One thing that is slightly off-topic, but may be worth mentioning, is that the checklist including the "Atlantic Center overbuild" shows that the NYC Department of City Planning (DCP) has been involved with the project all along, as Forest City Ratner has claimed. However, if this checklist is any indication, the DCP appears to be tinkering around the edges with the details of the project and has had no ability to influence the fact that the project proposes residential density of historic proportions.
Links on Atlantic Yards's historical density:
Atlantic Yards: Staving Off a Scar for Decades by Ron Shiffman
The Real Estate Observer, Prisoner of Atlantic Avenue
Atlantic Yards Report, Extreme density: Atlantic Yards plan would dwarf Battery Park City, other projects
Posted by lumi at 8:40 AM
Learning from Verizon Center
Brooklyn Views
The following mantra from the Atlantic Yards Environmental Impact Statement is repeated in response to several comments submitted by the public:
“Experience has shown that arenas and other sports facilities thrive in combination with a strong mix of commercial and residential land uses, both as proposed elements of a larger master plan or as a catalyst for urban development.”
Brooklyn Views contemplates what "experience HAS shown," by taking a serious look at another mixed-use arena complex.
The genesis of the Verizon Center in D.C. sounds very familiar to those who have been following the Atlantic Yards debate closely.
Posted by lumi at 8:18 AM
Gridlock Protest Photos
Photographer Jonathan Barkey caught the action when a handful of "Atlantic Yards" protesters took to the streets and sidewalks at the intersection of 4th, Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues. Things got interesting when the Ratner rent-a-cops called the real cops.
More photos are posted at Barkey's P-base site.
Norman Oder delivered the only press account the day after on his blog Atlantic Yards Report.
Posted by lumi at 7:56 AM
November 26, 2006
Gargano's Bad Week Finally Ends
The Real Estate
Charles Gargano must be thankful that this week is finally ending: The Atlantic Yards blunder, Shelly Silver's barbs, and, now, from the other end of the state, The Syracuse Post-Standard uncovering a scheme whereby poor upstate towns sold tax breaks to developers for a fee.State Senator Liz Krueger says Gargano and other appointees to the Empire State Development Corporation, which is in charge of the Empire Zone tax break program, "either lack the most basic understanding of the very laws they are charged with implementing, or worse, they simply do not care."
Over the past several weeks, The Post-Standard has painted a bleak picture of the Empire Zone program: "None of the 10 businesses that claimed the biggest property tax refunds for 2003 created more than 20 jobs," the paper reports. The whole investigative series can be found here.
Posted by amy at 7:25 PM
The Afternoon Wrap: Friday
The Real Estate
Brownstoner asked: "What if you were a wealthy philanthropost [sic] who could write a $100 million check to fund any infrastructure or public project in Brooklyn?" In chronological order, his readers dreamed up: trolley cars, bike lanes, a high school, a complete transportation system for northeastern Brooklyn, a complete transportation system for southeastern Brooklyn, a large parking lot, Ratner's exile, pre-schools, etc. We say: More high-end pre-schools! And trolleys! [Brownstoner]
Posted by amy at 7:22 PM
Marty (in Brooklyn!!) continues AY dance of avoidance
Atlantic Yards Report
In April, I pointed out how Atlantic Yards was conspicuously absent from issues of Borough President Marty Markowitz's Brooklyn!! (subtitled "Where New York City Begins"), the tabloid promotional vehicle for Brooklyn and all things Marty.The Fall/Winter issue arrived yesterday, and there was hardly a word about Atlantic Yards, even after perhaps the year's most tumultuous public event regarding Brooklyn, the August 23 public hearing on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement.
Yes, we know that Brooklyn!! is mostly about feel-good stuff like Brooklyn's holiday lights, the inaugural Brooklyn Book Festival, and readers' Favorite Waitpersons.
But if Brooklyn!! is going to tell us about the new Aviator Sports and Recreation Center at Floyd Bennett Field, or new hotels around Downtown Brooklyn, or new designs for the New York Aquarium at Coney Island, well, why not a word about the borough's biggest development project?
Posted by amy at 12:22 PM
The Times practices "rowback": Atlantic Yards (finally) is not a rezoning
Atlantic Yards Report
As I wrote in March, there's a big difference between the waterfront rezoning, a process that involves the City Council and extensive hearings, and the state process governing the Atlantic Yards project, under which the unelected Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) would override city zoning.In correspondence, I tried fruitlessly to get this erroneous shorthand corrected. A Times editor evasively said that the details of the "bureaucratic processes" were not needed, and Times Public Editor Byron Calame, apparently unwilling to recognize a distinction between city and state oversight, endorsed the error as published.
The new correction-without-a-correction is a variant of "rowback," which former Times Public Editor Daniel Okrent described in his 3/14/04 column as "a way that a newspaper can cover its butt without admitting it was ever exposed."
This isn't the first example of Atlantic Yards rowback by the Times, given "downtown Brooklyn" and "on the railyards"; it probably won't be the last.
Posted by amy at 12:18 PM
Bloomberg Administration Is Developing Land Use Plan to Accommodate Future Populations
New York Times quotes Bloomberg as crowning Dan Doctoroff the new Robert Moses. Ratner is going to be so jealous...
City officials declined to publicly elaborate on their proposals in advance of the advisory board’s announcement. But some of its goals were foreshadowed by two of the largest rezoning revisions in city history — of the Brooklyn waterfront in Greenpoint and Williamsburg and the Far West Side of Manhattan — both driven by Mr. Doctoroff.The two major zoning changes, coupled with other development proposals, including the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, were aimed at revitalizing underutilized land for economic development and expanding the city’s property tax base. The zoning changes were accomplished, in part, by tying them to the city’s timetable to apply for the 2012 Olympic Games.
The city lost its Olympic bid, which included the ill-fated proposal for combining a stadium for the Olympics and the Jets with an expanded convention center on the West Side. But Mr. Doctoroff maintains that he also viewed the Olympics as a vehicle to drive the sort of longer-range planning in which local governments rarely have the resources, or the vision, to indulge.
Posted by amy at 12:08 PM
New York Times Blight on Blight Smackdown!
The New York Times ran two stories about blight - Pacific Street in Brooklyn vs. Pacific Avenue in Atlantic City. Let the blight fight begin!
Round 1: Pacific Street, Brooklyn
Blight, Like Beauty, Can Be in the Eye of the Beholder
For many of the several hundred people who still live there, “blighted” is a term of abuse, one that ignores the sleek, recently renovated buildings on Pacific and Dean Streets, the bustling neighborhood bar, and other signs of revival. Even some supporters of the project, like Assemblyman Roger L. Green, disagree with the description.“That neighborhood is not blighted,” Mr. Green, whose district includes the Atlantic Yards site, said at a hearing last year. “I repeat, for the record, that neighborhood is not blighted.”
Round 2: Pacific Avenue, Atlantic City
Broken Lives and Victims in Shadow of Taj Mahal“You’re in the middle of crack city,” Mr. Boccino said yesterday at his restaurant, surveying this blighted corner of Atlantic City, where the authorities think at least some of the four women found dead in a drainage ditch on Monday were known and spent much of their time.
Not far from the Boardwalk, it is the kind of neighborhood where trouble puts its feet up. Drugs and prostitution are the main pursuits of those who visit here, and of those who stay.
Up the street, on Pacific Avenue, prostitutes lean against pawn shop windows lined with engagement rings, scouting for customers.
Posted by amy at 11:55 AM
Coalition Asks State Board To Consider Terrorism Protections for Atlantic Yards
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
The coalition, consisting of 40 neighborhood organizations including four community boards, raised several concerns in its letter to the board, sent Tuesday, that were not addressed when the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) issued the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) on the project earlier this month.Those concerns included whether an insurance company would cover buildings in a development made largely of glass with an arena above an underground parking garage and one of the city’s main transportation hubs, and how affordable that insurance would be to low-income tenants.
The CBN also contends that the project violates several post- Sept. 11 codes that the Freedom Tower was required to follow, such as increasing its distance from the street and constructing the first few levels of impermeable concrete and steel.
“The ESDC has claimed that it does not have a specific mandate to look at post-Sept. 11 issues,” said Jim Vogel, secretary of the Council. “But you’re talking about thousands of people’s lives. I’m sorry, but that doesn’t cut it.”
Posted by amy at 11:48 AM
Brooklyn Broadside:Yards Plan Includes ‘Urban Room,’ New Transit, LIRR Connections
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Another development that promises to be unique to Brooklyn and maybe the city is the “urban room,” a large proposed public space that will be the “lobby” for both the centerpiece building and the arena. The entrance to the building, a triangle made from the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues, will lead to a broad staircase which the architect, Frank Gehry, calls Brooklyn’s biggest “stoop.”The size of this space, to be glass enclosed, is expected to be about 10,000 square feet. It will occupy two levels. A café is expected to be on the street level for ease of access by pedestrians going to and from the subway and the street during both event-and non-event periods.
article
Oooh - a giant glass room! Pairs perfectly with the FEIS's lack of preparation for terrorist activities!
Posted by amy at 11:41 AM
Greatest hits . . . and misses
NY Daily News
We’ll give Bruce Ratner this much credit: The Nets’ owner can’t be completely clueless when it comes to music. When Jets president Jay Cross stopped by the Daily News a few years ago to drum up support for the West Side Stadium, he told The Score that the facility wouldn’t just host eight Gang Green home games a year: The stadium would also be used for "Snoopy Dog" concerts, Cross told us.We’re still laughing in our gin and juice over that one.
We presume the Nets owner knows the difference between rapper Snoop Dogg and Charlie Brown’s pet beagle since Ratner’s partners include one of the biggest names in hip-hop, Jay-Z, who has vowed to use his street cred to recruit free agents and turn the New Jersey Nets into New York’s team. "People grew up on the Knicks," the Brooklyn-born Shawn Carter told the Daily News last year. "The Nets have always been the cousins. I hope to change that."
So why isn’t he wearing a Nets’ cap on the cover of his new album, "Kingdom Come"? (If you don’t know, he’s wearing a Yankees’ cap).
Posted by amy at 11:39 AM
November 25, 2006
Civic Groups Cite Potential Terror Threat At Atlantic Yards; Call For Study
Courier-Life
Thomas Tracy
The FEIS, released on November 15, doesn’t take into account the Atlantic Yards potential to be a terrorist target, Council members said, adding that the ESDC told Council members that they didn’t look into such matters because “environmental legislation doesn’t require it.”“Over 100,000 people live in the vicinity of this project,” said Jim Vogel, a spokesperson for the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods. “It is unacceptable that their safety and security should be compromised by hair splitting about the letter of the law.”
In their letter, Council members said that fears of terrorism at the Atlantic Yards “were made known to the ESDC in responses to its Draft Scope of Analysis for the Atlantic Yards from the CBN, Community Boards 2, 6 and 8 and many elected representatives and community groups.”
“Unfortunately, the ESDC failed to acknowledge these concerns,” they stated.
Posted by amy at 1:18 PM
Atlantic Yards Opponents Make Full-Court Press
The Real Estate
Matthew Schuerman
Blogger Norman Oder has a rundown of the first court appearance on Tuesday for Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn's eminent domain lawsuit against Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards. Another piece of the project opponents' legal strategy emerged: that government's power to take private property rests with the legislature, not the executive branch. The Atlantic Yards condemnations are being undertaken by the Empire State Development Corporation, which is appointed by the governor.Oder even catches a moment when the E.S.D.C. lawyer cites a federal appeals court decision to support the idea that judges should not be making eminent domain decisions. But since that case said it was the "legislative" and not "administrative" arm that should be in charge instead, the lawyer had to do some on-the-spot editing.
If the legislature-only principle wins the day, the case will have a huge impact on the way New York state does business.
Meanwhile, City Council Member Letitia James, an Atlantic Yards opponent, met with a Dolan family lobbyist this week, The Brooklyn Papers reports.
Posted by amy at 1:14 PM
GOOF COULD STALL B'KLYN BALL
NY Post
An Empire State Development Corp. foul-up could delay final approval of Ratner's $4.2 billion, six-block Atlantic Yards project until after Eliot Spitzer takes over as governor in January - something that gives project opponents a glimmer of hope that the huge development could still be defeated.Charles Gargano, the ESDC chairman and Gov. Pataki's economic-development czar, announced this week that the agency inadvertently left some public comments out of the project's 4,500-page Final Environmental Impact Statement it released Nov. 15. The statement must now be revised, and the ESDC is set to meet Monday.
There is still enough time for Atlantic Yards to get its mandatory approvals from the ESDC and Public Authorities Control Board before Pataki leaves office Dec. 31.
But Daniel Goldstein, spokesman for the opposition group Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, believes the PACB - which includes Gargano's nemesis, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver - could see the ESDC's failure to produce a complete impact statement as proof it "tried to rush the project through" before Spitzer takes over.
Is it us or does the Post article make "GOOF" look like a noun describing the accompanying photo?
Posted by amy at 1:08 PM
Mr. Brownstone: Heath Ledger
This week's New York Magazine profile covers Heath Ledger's views on both heroin and Ratner. He says no to both.
Have you ever done heroin?
No. And I didn’t consider doing it for the movie.You’ve been active in protesting Ratner’s plans.
Michelle’s kind of the front-runner for that cause, but I think we’ll participate in some fund-raising.
article
So remember, kids, remain heroin and Ratner free for the holidays like the stars!
Posted by amy at 1:02 PM
Congestion pricing re-emerges on the public agenda
Atlantic Yards Report
BrooklynSpeaks says that the Atlantic Yards proposal “offers no real plan to avoid gridlock or improve subway and bus service” and recommends, among other things, that the developer and the city “implement roadway pricing to relieve traffic congestion in and around downtown Brooklyn.” The Empire State Development Corporation says that’s not on the agenda as of now--but it might emerge.Indeed, both business groups and transportation progressives have begun to push for congestion pricing. In an article yesterday headlined Bigger Push for Charging Drivers Who Use the Busiest Streets, the New York Times reported how the Partnership for New York City, which includes major businesses, is bouncing back from an effort a year ago, in which a congestion pricing proposal was floated, then blasted by City Hall. According to the Times:
“We were premature in terms of talking about the problem and potential solutions without thinking about how those might be implemented here in the metropolitan region and what that would take,” said Kathryn S. Wylde, president of the group. “It takes a lot of public buy-in, building consensus.”
Posted by amy at 12:57 PM
As protesters warn of gridlock, Ratner’s security guards call the cops
Atlantic Yards Report
In the protest called “Merry Gridlock,” some 15 volunteers from the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods (CBN) helped escort seniors and those with carriages--and handed sheets with diagrams of gridlocked intersections to those they encountered on foot or stopped at traffic lights.The message: "Tell the city and the state to FIX THE TRAFFIC FIRST!" (One solution could be congestion pricing.)
They also attracted the attention of three security guards from the Atlantic Center/Atlantic Terminal mall complex, owned by Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner. First, the guards told two sign-carriers outside the Target store in the Atlantic Terminal mall that they should instead walk in the street, according to Schellie Hagan of the Prospect Heights Action Coalition.
Then, in front of four reporters, the security guards told organizer Jim Vogel of CBN and several others to stop, because they were trespassing on private property, including the sidewalks outside the mall, and the sidewalks outside the Modell’s/P.C. Richard complex, formally known as the Shops at Atlantic Center.
Posted by amy at 12:51 PM
ARENA STUDY UNDER FIRE - State Agency Will Get Revised Version For Vote
Courier-Life
Stephen Witt
“They [ESDC] seemed to have rushed the FEIS and in that rush, have left things out that have legally set back the timetable that they prefer,” said Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) spokesperson Daniel Goldstein.“This means there is a strong possibility it won’t come before the PACB before the next administration,” he added, referring to when the Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer takes office on Januray1.
article
We'll just assume "Januray1" refers to New Year's Day, rather than the name of a spaceship.
Posted by amy at 10:29 AM
November 24, 2006
Looking at Spitzer's transition team and AY
Atlantic Yards Report
AYR's Norman Oder reviews the roster of influential New Yorkers advising Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer's transition team, and IDs those who might have a strong opinion — pro or con — about the Atlantic Yards Project.
There are quite a few of them (NLG wonders, frankly, how we failed to make the cut), and a quick scan of the list reveals a roughly equal tally of supporters and critics, who could conceivably cancel each other out, leaving the future Gov and his staff to have to weigh the pros and cons of the project and decide for themselves.
NoLandGrab: Might we be so bold to suggest that the Governor-elect may want to add NLG to his list of favorite bookmarks?
Posted by lumi at 9:16 AM
Forest City Ratner Had Plans for Yards Area, Even as Early as 1993
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Dennis Holt
This is a biggie — the Eagle connects the dots between Forest City Ratner and the site later to be called "Atlantic Yards."
Back in September Atlantic Yards Report led a story with writer Dennis Holt's recollection on CUNY Reporters Roundtable of attending a presentation by Forest City Ratner that cited the MTA railyard as a potential development site back in the early 90s.
The Eagle checked out the archives and ran this story two days ago:
The following sentences were written by this correspondent in late September 1993 and appeared in the Phoenix newspaper at that time.
“For the first time in a public setting, officials from Forest City Ratner Companies and their consultants revealed their plans for the Atlantic Center site.
“Forest City also revealed its desire to expand the project site to include space across Atlantic Avenue from Sixth Avenue west to Flatbush, where they hope to build an office tower over the open Long Island Railroad Tracks. These officials even talked about their vision of a new subway and rail complex.”
This correspondent did not realize, nor did hardly anyone else at the time, that this “public setting,” which was held at the YWCA on Third Avenue on Sept. 21, 1993, was, in part, the first chapter in the book now known as the Atlantic Yards.
Those comments made about the Atlantic Yards were not just passing remarks. This paragraph also appeared in the story:
“When talking about an office tower across from the project [Atlantic Center], Paul Travis pointedly brought up the subject of a federal courthouse complex. The site, above the open rail yards, is one of the five candidate sites for such a structure, and it was clear that this is where Forest City would like for it to go.”
(Obviously, the Yards site was not chosen for the federal courthouse, nor was it later chosen for the state courthouse. The court community wanted these courts close to the legal center in Downtown Brooklyn.)
There were other comments at this meeting 16 years ago that suggested the future course. “Calling Flatbush Avenue the ‘spine of Brooklyn,’ Stan Eckstut, a consultant to Forest City, also said that the Atlantic Center area is the ‘center of Brooklyn’.”
NoLandGrab: Presented with such evidence, it will be hard to make the case that Bruce Ratner WASN'T a favored developer and that the seizing of private property for this private project was the result of a carefully drawn up city planning process. Now it will be up to the remaining property owners to prove the case in court.
Posted by lumi at 6:36 AM
Boo Boo Could Delay Atlantic Yards Approval Until '07
Curbed.com
Before word of the the special meeting of the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) Board, scheduled for this Monday, local blogs were trying to sort out if Atlantic Yards could be approved by the end of the year or not:
Earlier, a source had reported that the ESDC wouldn't vote on the document again until Dec 10-15. (ESDC Chair Charles Gargano ordered "a thorough quality control" review after the mistakes were found, so we're guessing it all depends on how "thorough" he meant.) Once the ESDC votes again, ten days have to pass before it can give final approval to the project. Confused yet? You will be in a moment. After the ESDC votes, the State Comptroller gets seven days to review the project. Then, it goes to the all-powerful Public Authorities Control Board, which also has to approve it.
In any case, the Nov. 27 re-issuing scenario would technically leave room for a PACB vote over the holidays. The Dec. 10 scenario all but makes it impossible. Either way, it's starting to look like the Gov.-elect may yet get to handle Brooklyn's hottest potato. You can almost hear those Thanksgiving gratitude lists being tentatively revised.
NoLandGrab: Brooklynites have to wait 30-90 days to get their potholes filled, but when you're Caring Bruce, government works.
The notice of the Monday meeting indicates that they are burning the midnight oil over at the ESDC and pulling out all the stops to deliver the project approval before Governor Pataki leaves office at the end of the year.
Posted by lumi at 6:22 AM
November 23, 2006
Thanks!
We wanted to say thanks to all of the NoLandGrab readers whose voracious appetite for news on Atlantic Yards keeps us feeding the beast.
And, while we're at it, here's the requisite list of what we are thankful for:
We're thankful that sportswriters like Michael O'Keeffe, Mike Lupica, and George Vecsey "get it," even though their newspapers' editorial boards don't.
We're thankful that even on a slow news day, there's one guy who's even more obsessed about Atlantic Yards than Atlantic Yards Reporter Norman Oder.
We're thankful that as much as Norman Oder dislikes having a FOIL request rejected, he really hates being lied to.
We're thankful that a handful of Americans are willing to risk nearly everything to make the U.S. Constitution worth the paper on which it's written.
We're thankful that the ESDC was in such a hurry to rubberstamp the Atlantic Yards project that they proved that the helter-skelter process is totally bogus (we're also thankful that they are willing to work on weekends).
We're thankful that Bruce Bender gets to talk from time to time.
We're thankful that in spite of his liberal do-gooder credentials, Frank Gehry occasionally tells us what he really thinks.
We're thankful that even white-glove civic organizations can't find anything in the project to love.
We're thankful that, the last time we checked, Bruce is #1.
Posted by lumi at 8:31 AM
Final EIS delayed only until Monday
Atlantic Yards Report
If we didn't know better, we'd swear that Atlantic Yards encyclopedia Norman Oder sounds a little testy because the Empire State Development Corporation scuttled his plans for a quiet weekend catching up on a little light reading.
So much for a quiet Thanksgiving weekend. Consultants working on the Atlantic Yards Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS), which had to be revised to incorporate comments that were missed in the first version released November 15, will have it ready for a 9 a.m. meeting Monday of the board of the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), the agency confirmed.
The board again will be asked "to determine that the FEIS is complete," and again will say so. Clearly, that's just a formality. We can't expect the board to actually compare the lengthy document at hand with, for example, the comments submitted.
Posted by lumi at 8:20 AM
Tish courts MSG on Yards
Hopes Dolans can stop Ratner’s plan
The Brooklyn Papers
By Ariella Cohen
Can the owners of Madison Square Garden and the NY Knicks tip the scales on the approval of Atlantic Yards? The Dolan family is politically well connected, they've scuttled other large development plans before, and another basketball team in NYC would be direct competition for their ailing NY Knicks.
Atlantic Yards opponents have long hoped for the Dolans to save the day, and project supporters are anticipating the possibility of pressure from the family that also owns Cablevision and the NY Rangers.
Read what staunch project opponent City Councilmember Letita James is trying to do about it.
Posted by lumi at 8:20 AM
Yards End Game Gets FEIS-ty
The Brooklyn Downtown Star
By Norman Oder
Norman Oder's articles for the BD Star are summaries of many of the events and items reported on his blog — call it Atlantic Yards Report Digest.
In this week's digest, Oder covers: * the rubberstamping of the Environmental Impact Statement, * the political mudslinging between Sheldon Silver, Charles Gargano and a Pataki lackey, * changes between the Draft and Final EIS, * the smoking-gun memo proving that NYC Dept of Planning ordered the project's "scaledown" from a menu of options provided by the developer Forest City Ratner (FCR), * another document revealing that FCR tried to downplay architect Frank Gehry's role in developing the goals of the project (they are usually developed by a government agency and then assigned to a developer, not the other way around), * truly bizarre mitigations proposed in the FEIS, * what about Coney Island, and * Ratner's secret model illustrating a significant scaledown for the project.
NoLandGrab: If you think the digest is long, you are probably not an Atlantic Yards Report junkie.
Posted by lumi at 8:01 AM
Agency error delays Atlantic Yards approval
State approval of the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn will likely be pushed back to 2007 due to an error by the Empire State Development Corp.
Crain's NY Business
By Erik Engquist
New York state approval of the controversial Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn will likely be pushed back to 2007 because of a technical error by the Empire State Development Corp.
The ESDC failed to incorporate some public comments into the final environmental impact statement that its board certified last week. The document will have to be reprinted and certified again at Monday's meeting of the board.
The board must then wait another 10 days to recertify the document and certify the general project plan, environmental findings and property seizures for the $4.2 billion project. It would then go to the state comptroller's office for a review that could take seven days.
The article lays out the issues pointing the way towards possible approval during the last days of Governor George Pataki's administration, but mentions another stumbling block on the horizon:
State approval is not the project's largest hurdle. A greater threat is an October lawsuit by local residents, who could lose their homes and small businesses.
NoLandGrab: The latest word is that the ESDC board scheduled a special meeting for next Monday, November 27, to approve the release of the New & Improved FEIS. This will start the clock ticking again on the approval process.
Posted by lumi at 7:51 AM
He stopped Ratner … for a bit
Testimony had been forgotten
The Brooklyn Papers
By Ariella Cohen
He didn’t do it with a lawsuit. He didn’t do it with a rally. He didn’t do it by lobbying. In fact, he didn’t do anything at all — but Prospect Heights resident Raul Rothblatt managed to grind Bruce Ratner’s $4.2-billion Atlantic Yards mega-project to a halt this week because the state forgot to include his testimony in its final review of the development.
The project’s final environmental impact statement, which had been accepted by the Empire State Development Corporation last week, was recalled on Monday because Rothblatt’s — and others’ — public comments failed to be included in appendix of the 4,500-page document, as required by law.
Two binders of Rothblatt’s testimony — Binder 1 and Binder 3 — made it into the appendix, but not Binder 2, he said.
Posted by lumi at 7:44 AM
Shelly gets one right
The Brooklyn Papers, Editorial
We’ve certainly had our disagreements with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, but the Manhattan Democrat earned our Hero of the Week award for his righteous broadside against state development czar Charles Gargano on Sunday.
Appearing on WNBC’s “News Forum,” Silver said what virtually no one has had the guts to say, namely that Gargano, who came to power after serving as George Pataki and Al D’Amato’s bagman, is the “most corrupt” of Pataki’s rubberstampers.
Posted by lumi at 7:36 AM
November 22, 2006
Comptroller Hevesi warns PACB to be cautious about debt
Atlantic Yards Report
State Comptroller Alan Hevesi yesterday warned that the Public Authorities Control Board (PACB) is moving much too fast, thus offering another potential brake on the Atlantic Yards project and many others.
Though the PACB approved an average of less than half a billion dollars in projects per meeting over the last year, it has rushed through projects totaling $11.4 billion in this month and October, Hevesi said.
In December, projects worth several billions more are expected to reach the PACB, which requires unanimity from its three voting members: Governor George Pataki, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno.
...
Note that the Comptroller, who faces investigation and possible removal because of his use of state employees to drive his wife, seems to be reasserting his statutory role. To Albany Times-Union political reporter Elizabeth Benjamin, Hevesi is getting revenge on Pataki, who just authorized a special prosecutor to gain subpoena powers in investigating Hevesi. A Pataki spokesman blamed Hevesi and Silver for delaying projects.
Additional links:
PRESS RELEASE
Albany: Hevesi Says Board Is Rushing Projects (NYT)
Posted by lumi at 8:36 AM
Eminent domain case gets day in court; public use, legislative process at issue
Atlantic Yards Report attends "the first skirmish in a legal war" over the issue of eminent domain:
Two lines of argument emerged yesterday as lawyers in the case known as Goldstein v. Pataki, which challenges the use of eminent domain for the Atlantic Yards project, met in federal court in Downtown Brooklyn.
On the one hand, the plaintiffs (property owner Daniel Goldstein and nine others, owners and tenants, threatened with eminent domain) will be pressed to argue that the Atlantic Yards project would provide too little public use to meet the legal standard.
On the other, the defendants (Empire State Development Corporation, developer Forest City Ratner, and city and state officials including Governor George Pataki) must stretch to contend that the project was in fact considered by a legislative body, as evolving eminent domain law seems to require.
The parties were there to address two issues: a motion by the defendants to dismiss the case, and a request by the plaintiffs for discovery, the legal process under which a party to a case is compelled to provide relevant documents. But in essence they were discussing the whole case, which may break some new legal ground. (Here's the complaint.)
Posted by lumi at 8:30 AM
Brooklyn speaks, part 3: Hundreds of Brooklynites sign letters at Grand Army Plaza
Brooklyn Speaks has taken its letterwriting campaign to the streets during the past few weeks.
The coalition's web site posted "some of the comments Brooklynites appended to their letters," which pretty much run the gamut:
I have lived in this area (Prospect Heights) for 21 years. Things are growing and improving well on their own. Greed killed the golden goose. - M.S.
More public participation needed in the decision-making process. - A.D.
This project will make my neighborhood unpleasant and horribly crowded with traffic. I won't be able to walk through this development. - M.J.
If I wanted to live surrounded by skyscrapers, I would live in Manhattan. Brooklyn is a borough friendly to families, small businesses, and it should stay that way. - C.F.E.
There needs to be more real affordable housing. - J.Y.
The speed with which this immense project is being pushed through is frightening and undue. It needs to slow down and these concerns need to be addressed. - I.M.
This is an abuse of eminent domain. - I.C.
Posted by lumi at 8:11 AM
Fans For Fair Play: Quickies
Fans For Fair Play posted thoughts on several recent developments in the Atlantic Yards fight, including how a true Brooklyn sports fan feels about Jay-Z's Yankees cap (Ratner guys always seem to be wearing the wrong cap):
FFFP attended a Fort Greene Association event last night. Hakeen Jeffries', the area's new State Assemblymember-elect was on the bill. Also, Joe Chan, who heads up the newly-coagulated Downtown Brooklyn Partnership.
Jeffries was encouraging, but still hard to read. He announced he would advise Sheldon Silver to postpone the upcoming and crucial vote of the Public Authorities Control Board...the one that would authorize hundreds of millions in state funds for Ratner's Atlantic Yards project. That's good news. Other Brooklyn assemblymembers who have Silver's ear -- Jim Brennan and Joan Millman -- are also urging a delay.
Jeffries has other concerns about the project -- size, lack of democratic process, and eminent domain abuse -- but at the same time, still supports the basic concept of a Ratner's mega-block. In the end, we hope Hakeem prevails on the concerns he has.
Joe Chan was far less encouraging. Formerly with the Bloomberg administration, Chan's just another political operative parlaying his government connections into private-sector enrichment.
Posted by lumi at 8:06 AM
PRESS RELEASE: Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods Calls on PACB for Terror Study
For Immediate Release: November 21, 2006
The Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods today sent a letter to the members of the Public Authorities Control Board, the State body responsible for critical consideration of the proposed Atlantic Yards development, calling on it to urge the Empire State Development Corporation to perform a thorough public analysis of any potential terrorism issues in regard to Atlantic Yards. Terrorism and Security were two areas of study requested by CBN and other community groups in response to last year’s Draft Scope of Analysis, a document describing the areas the ESDC intended to analyze in the DEIS. The ESDC replied that the neither study would be performed because they weren’t required according to the environmental legislation. (It should be noted that those requirements have not been updated in over 12 years and that the legislation allows for the addition of study areas at any time.)
“Over 100,000 people live in the vicinity of this project,” said CBN spokesperson Jim Vogel. “It is unacceptable that their safety and security should be compromised by hair-splitting about the letter of the law.”
From the letter:
“We are particularly concerned about the profound range of consequences resulting from concentrating, in what would be the nation’s most densely populated urban tract, adjacent to one of Brooklyn’s busiest intersections, three Department of Homeland Security-designated terror targets: a glass-walled sports arena and a glass-clad office tower built above the borough’s largest transportation hub, which was, in 1997, the target of a thwarted terror plot.…The ESDC has claimed that it does not have a specific mandate to look at post-9/11 issues. It is equally true, however, that the ESDC should have a public responsibility to fully acknowledge and analyze safety concerns brought to its attention by the community in accordance with the SEQRA process.
… Issues of public safety and security related to terrorism should be as much a part of New York’s planning process as earthquake protections are to San Francisco’s.”
The letter was copied to all relevant state officials. A copy of the letter is attached below this message.
November 21, 2006
The Honorable George Pataki
The Honorable Joseph Bruno
The Honorable Sheldon SilverRe: Security Concerns regarding the Proposed Atlantic Yards Project, Brooklyn, New York
Gentlemen,
The Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods has been charged by its more than forty member organizations with ensuring that our community is effectively engaged throughout the environmental review process for the Atlantic Yards Arena and Redevelopment Project, and that the process is transparent and comprehensive. The membership of CBN includes civic and community-based organizations representing the neighborhoods surrounding the proposed Atlantic Yards project site.
We write today out of a deep concern that the EmpireState Development Corporation will not provide to the Public Authorities Control Board the information they will need to make an informed decision about the risks and benefits of the Atlantic Yards project.
We are particularly concerned about the profound range of consequences resulting from concentrating, in what would be the nation’s most densely populated urban tract, adjacent to one of Brooklyn’s busiest intersections, three Department of Homeland Security-designated terror targets: a glass-walled sports arena and a glass-clad office tower built above the borough’s largest transportation hub, which was, in 1997, the target of a thwarted terror plot.
These concerns were made known to the ESDC in responses to its Draft Scope of Analysis for the Atlantic Yards from CBN, Brooklyn Community Boards 2, 6 and 8, and many elected representatives and community groups. Unfortunately, the ESDC failed to acknowledge these concerns in its Final Scope of Analysis, or in its subsequent Draft Environmental Impact Statement. Discouragingly, the issue was not addressed in the Final Environmental Impact Statement, which was recently released.
The most serious of these concerns include:
The potential effects on the Atlantic Yards’ financials when the Terrorism Risk Insurance Extension Act expires at the end of next year, and the potential need for additional subsidies to cover currently “unanticipated” project insurance costs.
The indirect socioeconomic impact of insurance availability and affordability for surrounding property and business owners. At risk is the pool of locally available affordable housing as well as the sustainability of existing local small businesses. We base our concerns on the reduction by Allstate of their share of Brooklyn’s homeowners’ insurance market, based on risks brought to light in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. (Recent supporting AP and NYT articles can be found at http://www.texaswatch.org/media/ap062206.htm and http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/26/realestate/26coastal.html)
How varying requirements for security might affect police, or even the project developer’s, decisions to create additional limitations on the public’s right of entry to the project’s “publicly accessible open space.”
How traffic flow, air quality, public health and business activity will be affected, given that no requirements have been specified for traffic and security barriers, backpack and vehicle inspections at arena events, elevated terror threat levels, or other easily anticipated scenarios.
Under what conditions commercial vehicles might have to be rerouted in order to safeguard the project’s essentially all-glass “Urban Room,” which would be both a component of the project’s “publicly accessible open space” and the main entryway to the MTA’s Atlantic Avenue Station.
The potential impact on emergency response times resulting from the already-degraded traffic flow extensively documented in the DEIS, as well as the potential effect on existing emergency evacuation plans.
What post-9/11 safety codes and standards will be used for the design and construction of the project. (We note that while NYC’s Building Codes are to be upgraded at the end of this year, the ESDC has reserved its right to override city requirements as it sees fit [General Project Plan, page 4]. These standards may affect the lives of first responders, and everyone else living at, working in, and visiting Atlantic Yards and its neighboring communities.)
What portion of Department of Homeland Security grants to New York City, and other such state, agency, and local expenditures, will have to be devoted to the ongoing protection of this privately developed project? All such capital and operational expenditures should be included in the financial analysis of this project and its public subsidies.
The ESDC has claimed that it does not have a specific mandate to look at post-9/11 issues. It is equally true, however, that the ESDC should have a public responsibility to fully acknowledge and analyze safety concerns brought to its attention by the community in accordance with the SEQRA process. Indeed, in a recent case, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court ruled that consideration of terrorism concerns in a process similar to that required under SEQRA is justified on the grounds that it provides information pertinent to governmental decision-making even though such analysis is not specifically required.
Issues of public safety and security related to terrorism should be as much a part of New York’s planning process as earthquake protections are to San Francisco’s. Therefore, we respectfully ask the PACB to urge the ESDC to study and disclose all issues related to terrorism and security prior to the adoption of the General Project Plan and the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Atlantic Yards as a critical matter of public safety.
Sincerely yours,
Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods, Inc.
By: Candace Carponter, Co-Chairperson By: Therese Urban, Co-Chairperson
cc: Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg
Borough President Marty Markowitz
United States Senator Charles Schumer
United States Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton
NYS Governor-elect Elliott Spitzer
NYS Attorney General-elect Andrew Cuomo
NYS Senator Carl Andrews
NYS Senator Velmanette Montgomery
NYS Senator Kevin Parker
NYS Senator Martin Connor
NYS Senator Martin Dilan
NYS Senator Martin Golden
NYS Senator Carl Kruger
NYS Senator John Sampson
NYS Senator Malcolm Smith
NYS Senator Diane J. Savino
Assemblymember Hakeem Jeffries
Assemblymember Roger Green
Assemblymember James F. Brennan
Assemblymember Joseph R. Lentol
Assemblymember Joan L. Millman
Assemblymember Peter J. Abbate Jr.
Assemblymember William F. Boyland Jr.
Assemblymember Adele Cohen
Assemblymember Steven Cymbrowitz
Assemblymember Diane Gordon
Assemblymember Dov Hikind
Assemblymember N. Nick Perry
Assemblymember Frank R. Seddio Assemblymember Annette Robinson Assemblymember Helene E. Weinstein City Council Speaker Christine Quinn Councilmember Tracy Boyland Councilmember Yvette Clarke Councilmember Letitia James Councilmember Bill de Blasio Councilmember Al Vann Councilmember David Yassky Councilmember Erik Dilan Councilmember Simcha Felder Councilmember Lewis Fidler Councilmember Vincent Gentile Councilmember Sara Gonzalez Councilmember Michael Nelson Councilmember Dominic Recchia Councilmember Diana Reyna Councilmember Kendall Stewart
11/21/2006
Posted by lumi at 7:50 AM
Atlantic Yards Approval Could Be Delayed By Impact Statement Snafu
The Real Estate Observer
By Tom Acitelli
The Empire State Development Corporation announced on Monday it had to delay the final environmental impact statement (FEIS) for the Atlantic Yards project. It seems, according to a release from corporation Chairman Charles Gargano, that some public comments were not included in the FEIS. It was presented to the ESDC board on Nov. 15.
...
What does this mean, exactly? While the Atlantic Yards project looked likely to float toward approval by both the ESDC and the state Public Authorities Control Board before New Year's (and the start of Eliot Spitzer's reign in Albany), the delay on the environmental impact statement could drag the approval process at least into 2007.
NoLandGrab: It's difficult to know for sure what effect this delay will have. Will Atlantic Yards gets approved by a Governor George Pataki administration, or will it get put off until Eliot Spitzer takes office?
One thing is for certain - the rush-rush mentality has obviously put a strain on all sides.
Community groups were totally stressed out when they were forced to prepare comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement in a mere 73 days. Though the timeframe met legal guidelines, it was much shorter than recent comment periods for much smaller projects.
Now it seems that the short timeframe even has the experts and professionals stumbling over themselves to get this project approval in the can. Regardless of one's position on the project, the review process for a project of this magnitude should not be proceding in this fashion.
Posted by lumi at 7:50 AM
Press Release: CBN Events
The Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods announces two upcoming events!
HO! HO! HO! MERRY GRIDLOCK!
Friday, November 24th marks the start of the official Holiday Shopping Frenzy and it is very likely that the area around the proposed Atlantic Yards will be gifted with tremendous traffic (read: gridlock). CBN’s traffic analysis predicts these conditions could be almost daily events in the current Atlantic Yards plan. To highlight the need for further regional analysis and better area-wide traffic solutions, the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods will be holding an information event!
Event: Merry Gridlock
When: Friday, November 24th 2:00 - 3:30 p.m.
Where: Intersection of Flatbush, Atlantic and 4th Avenues (exact meeting place to be established.)
What: Merry Gridlock - An opportunity to point out how Atlantic Yards will exacerbate the already traffic-packed intersection of Atlantic, Flatbush, and 4th Avenues.
Volunteers will be holding signs, distributing literature, and helping pedestrians navigate these dangerous intersections
PUBLIC INFORMATION FORUM
On Thursday, November 30th, the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods will be holding a Public Information Forum to summarize the findings and concerns discussed in their response to the Atlantic Yards Final Environmental Impact Statement.
Event: Public Information Forum: Atlantic Yards EIS Findings and Concerns
When: Thursday, November 30th, 7:30 PM
Where: 85 South Oxford Avenue, Brooklyn, New York (meeting room of the Lafayette Presbyterian Church)
Posted by lumi at 7:28 AM
EMINENT DOMAINIA: Backlashing, Manhattanville and our pals in NJ
The Daily Politics, Eminent Domain Foes Should Stop Skewing Facts
Celebrity guest "flogger" Errol Louis got a can of whup-ass on Ben Smith's turf, The Daily Politics, for his "smoking-gun" commentary about the merry band of Libertarian litigators, the Institute for Justice.
Two other blogs took note of Louis's column published in yesterday's Daily News:
Gotham Gazette,