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December 12, 2006

“Stop the Clock:” advocates urge PACB delay on Atlantic Yards

Atlantic Yards Report

The signs said:
Atlantic Yards: Show Us the Money
Atlantic Yards: Not Ready for Approval
Atlantic Yards: Environment Matters

And that pretty much said it all, three years and a day after the project was announced. At a press conference yesterday at City Hall, a host of groups and individuals, some of them with different visions of the Atlantic Yards endgame, gathered to urge the Public Authorities Control Board to postpone its scheduled December 20 vote on the Atlantic Yards project. In front of them were posters with the project’s massive scale juxtaposed against its low-rise neighbors.
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Reasons for delay

“A huge amount of information is still missing, and after PACB approval, there will be no legislative oversight of this project, the biggest sole-source land deal in NYC history," said Council Member Letitia James, who represents the area including the site, and who served as the MC for the press conference.

"The Atlantic Yards project would attract more than 20,000 cars per day and many thousands of transit riders to an area often choked with gridlock," said Gene Russianoff of NYPIRG’s Straphangers Campaign. Criticizing the ESDC’s environmental review, he warned that the agency’s plan would be “condemning downtown Brooklyn to traffic hell."

Good Jobs New York Project Director Bettina Damiani said, "The reasonable goals of economic development require a process that is transparent and accountable,” calling it “unconscionable” for the PACB to consider approving this project without further disclosure of subsidies.

“To rush into this decision is just foolhardy,” said City Council Member Tony Avella, who represents a district in Queens and chairs the zoning committee. “If allowed to go ahead as currently constituted, it’ll actually be a blight on Downtown Brooklyn.” (Locals would locate most of the Atlantic Yards site in Prospect Heights, actually.)

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Posted by lumi at December 12, 2006 10:01 AM