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April 16, 2007
Atlantic Yards Critics: Parking Lots Would Blight Area for Decades
Project Would Create 1,596 Temporary Spaces During First Construction Phase
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle
By Sarah Ryley
During the first phase of construction — the 18,000-seat basketball arena and five high-rises — developer Forest City Ratner Companies would clear two blocks for 1,414 temporary surface parking spaces and 182 temporary underground parking spaces, according to the plan approved by the state days before Gov. Eliot Spitzer took office.
When that phase is completed, Ratner would construct 11 other high-rises and provide a total of 3,670 underground parking spaces; some would be reserved for residents of the 6,000 units of housing planned within the project.
“We’re scratching our heads. We can’t really figure out why they need this amount of parking near the third-largest transit hub in the city,” said Municipal Arts Society planner Jasper Goldman. “If you provide the parking spaces, people will use them. But if you don’t provide the parking, people would have more incentive to use mass transit.”
Of the temporary parking, Ratner spokesman Joe DePlasco said, “The state required that we provide temporary, paid parking to construction workers in order to limit their use of on-street parking and to help reduce disruptions to the community throughout the building process.”
NoLandGrab: Once again, Ratner's PR flacks are hiding behind the Environmental Impact Statement. "The State" hasn't "required" Ratner to build parking. If that were true then Atlantic Yards would be the first project in recent NYC history that requires its own parking.
Any idiot who has studied the issue of eminent domain can explain what is happening. Ratner is doing what developers always do when facing a serious eminent domain lawsuit — they take down every building possible in order to isolate the remaining homeowners and to make the community restless to have something built in place of the developer-created desolation.
Posted by lumi at April 16, 2007 7:27 PM