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November 17, 2006
State OKs Ratner’s ‘impact’
Critics cry foul
The Brooklyn Papers
By Ariella Cohen
Racing to give their approval to Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards mega-development before Gov. George Pataki leaves office Dec. 31, state officials have approved the project’s final environmental impact statement.
The document approved on Wednesday by the Empire State Development Corporation outlined an eight-million-square-foot development — a project that is the same size as the first plan unveiled by Forest City Ratner in 2004, but 8-percent smaller than the plan put forth in a draft impact study this summer.
The changes made nearly mirror those recommended by the City Planning Commission at the close of the public comment period in September.
“The state heard the voice of [city officials],” said Jasper Goldman, a spokesman for the Municipal Arts Society. “But no one else seems to have been listened to — especially not the communities that called for better-designed open space, a workable traffic plan, a bigger reduction in scale and more affordable housing.”
Lending credence to Goldman’s complaints is another document released this week by Atlantic Yards Report blogger Norman Oder. The document, a chart presented by the developer to City Planning in January, laid out reductions in scale and building size nearly identical to those in the final impact study, indicating that the developer himself suggested the changes that the city and the state later recommended and approved.
“We’ve been played,” said Oder, who obtained the document through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Posted by lumi at November 17, 2006 9:07 AM