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May 31, 2007
If NJ's proposed eminent domain reform passed in NY, it might stymie AY
Atlantic Yards Report
If a project like Atlantic Yards had been proposed in New Jersey, there's a good bet a top statewide official would be criticizing it.
New York State has no Public Advocate (though the city has one, and we know what she thinks about eminent domain and AY), but New Jersey has a statewide position. Public Advocate Ron Chen has been fighting hard against eminent domain abuse, issuing reports, press releases, and filing amicus briefs in court cases.
The latest report, which got a lot of press yesterday, argues for the State Legislature to change the state’s redevelopment law to achieve a balance between protecting people’s rights and ensuring that sound redevelopment projects move ahead. ...
The Public Advocate outlines a troubling scenario, arguing, “When the government misuses the power of eminent domain, people can lose their homes without real evidence that their neighborhood is blighted, without adequate notice or hearings and without fair compensation.”
Norman Oder analyzes how NJ's Public Advocate proposes to tackle the issue of "blight."
Posted by lumi at 9:01 AM
Markowitz Makes It a May to Remember for C.B. 6
The NY Observer
By Matthew Schuerman
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While on its face the move seemed fairly routine, Mr. Markowitz and his allies, including City Councilman Bill de Blasio, purged the board members apparently because of their steadfast opposition to the Atlantic Yards project in central Brooklyn.
The Purge was not as deep as expected, however.
One elected official told The Observer prior to the announcement that as many as half of the 50 board members were in jeopardy of not being reappointed. That means he left many Atlantic Yards opponents on the board, albeit with the eerie feeling that they might be next.
...
The Observer tried to reach Mr. Markowitz before the list of unseated community-board members was made public. His press secretary, however, wouldn’t reveal his whereabouts—perhaps for good reason. On Friday, the New York Post reported that Mr. Markowitz was returning from a six-day cruise aboard the Queen Mary 2.He received the expenses-paid voyage on the luxury cruise liner—which, not incidentally, docks in Red Hook—in exchange for delivering a trio of speeches about Brooklyn to the ship’s passengers. (Lucky them.)
Posted by lumi at 8:48 AM
Atlantic Yards Construction Worker, Brooklyn, NYC
Brooklyn Lens Photography by Daniel Norman
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A construction worker surveys the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. This is the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn and the site of the new Brooklyn Nets Arena. Brooklynites are trying to stop the project.
Posted by lumi at 8:37 AM
Markowitz’s ‘Purge’ of Atlantic Yards Opponents – Not His Finest Hour
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle
By Raanan Geberer
What is the role of the city’s community boards? They are surely part of the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Process (ULURP), and public projects are voted on by the community boards before they go to the Borough President’s Office, the City Planning Commission, the City Council and ultimately the Mayor’s Office. However, the community boards are merely advisory bodies: they can’t stop a project from proceeding.
That’s why Borough President Marty Markowitz’ decision not to reappoint nine members of Community Board 6, some of whom have been on the board for 20 years, is puzzling. As a matter of fact, it’s not just puzzling – it’s very disturbing.
Posted by lumi at 8:25 AM
Marty Blogowitz: Binge Buffet, Purge Brooklyn
The Gowanus Lounge, Markowitz to CB6 Purge Victims: You Never Call, You Never Write
GL posts yesterday's Daily News story on Marty's explanation:
"I was not given the courtesy by the members of this board to contact me -- as the person who appoints them -- and say, 'Marty, we want to vote against Atlantic Yards,'" Markowitz said.
... and adds, "Well, that clears things up."
NoLandGrab: Seriously folks, all of the politicians who appoint members of the Community Board send representatives to every general board meeting. If Marty was blindsided, it means he wasn't listening.
Media Nation, Correction of the Day
Marty's "the-ship-ate-my-homework" excuse gets top honors as the "Correction of the Day."
Posted by lumi at 7:45 AM
Out There: The borough standings
Time Out New York
This week, Brooklyn slipped one spot to third place in the borough standings. The reason, "Marty's purge."
3. BROOKLYN
Last week: 2
The reason: Obviously, disagreeing with Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz is not a wise move if you want to hang on to your job. He booted nine members of Community Board 6 who had voted against the Atlantic Yards plan he favored.
Posted by lumi at 7:39 AM
It came from the Blogosphere...
The Real Deal, Downtown Brooklyn 'land rush'
Blurb and link to this week's Village Voice story on the Downtown Brooklyn plan and how small business owners and long-time residents are getting the boot:
"While Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards megaproject and the insta-towers popping up across Williamsburg have gotten more attention, an equally big land rush is stalking downtown Brooklyn in the wake of a rezoning approved by the city in 2004." Some of the current plans for the area include the construction of an underground parking garage connected to a rising Sheraton; the development of a 594,000-square-foot, mixed-use building called Willoughby West; and the razing and redevelopment of what is now the Albee Square Mall. As the various plans begin to take shape, many longtime businesses are being served with eviction papers.
The DCeiver, Nobody Knows Who You Are!
Okay. I saw the latest Spiderman sequel, and liked it. Yeah, the second one was better, yadda blah de blah. I still found it enjoyable, in spite of or perhaps because of the way my expectations were calibrated by the lukewarmy reviews.
Nevertheless, there were five things that struck me as just sort of lame or implausible:
- Can a construction crane really freak the fuck out like that? Because DC is home to, like, ten kabillion cranes, and I've never heard of one going all whirly like the one in the movie. I'm just going to have to accept that scene as Sam Raimi making an allegorical statement against the Atlantic Yards project.
I'm seeing green, Sideways Costs
A planner discusses the "externalities" of Atlantic Yards (aka the costs that are obvious to anyone but developer Bruce Ratner and local politicians).
The externalities of the Atlantic Yards project should have been well addressed by the Environmental Impact Report...
Alas, the DOT's one-way plan (which was killed before it hit the streets), impending utility rate hikes and school overcrowding were not "well addressed."
Posted by lumi at 7:34 AM
Eggs with Marty Markowitz
The Brooklyn BP on balancing cheesecakes with diets, affordable housing and why he doesn’t want to be public advocate
City Hall News
By Charlotte Eichna
A sit-down at Junior's with Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz provides a glimspe of the cuddly BP we all know and love.
Q: Switching gears—you’ve been a vocal proponent of affordable housing. What are some of the ways you’d like to tackle this problem in Brooklyn?
A: People I speak to that have left Brooklyn tell me, “Marty, we’d love to stay in Brooklyn. We can’t afford it here.” In Brooklyn, the problem is you want to build and we have no land, so you can only build vertically. And of course there is this romanticized version by some that all of Brooklyn lives in a brownstone. And that’s not true. We do have some wonderful, beautiful brownstone communities and I live in Park Slope and believe me, I love the area. But Brooklyn is home to all sorts of housing—high rise buildings, low rise buildings, tudors, colonials, limestones and brownstones and two families and four families—so we have a mix of all sorts of housing in the borough. But the truth of the matter is, as land becomes more scarce, you have to look for locations in the borough that lend themselves to building high rise buildings in order to meet the demand of those seeking a place to live, of all incomes. We don’t have land so we have to have smart development where we build housing and also respect the surrounding communities—we have to find that balance.Q: So this is one of the reasons you’ve been a force behind the Atlantic Yards development, right?
A: Absolutely, without a question. And also because Brooklyn is deserving of being a city that has national sports. Religion, music, family and sports are what bring people together. And the arena will be a big center of family life in this borough. We’ll have a national team to cheer for again, after over 50 years of our beloved Brooklyn Dodgers leaving. The kids in Brooklyn today deserve to have a national team just like I was lucky to have it in my era. And the jobs it will create, the housing, the beautiful architecture—it’s the right location, it’s the right space, it’s the right time. And it’s going to happen. And the people that are the naysayers, they won’t even be a footnote in history—and neither will I. Because once it opens, people will say, “Wow, it’s always been here. How did we live without this?”
NoLandGrab: How did we live without Marty Markowitz?
Q: When do you hope to see construction start?
A: I hope it will be yesterday. But hopefully maybe by the end of the year, at least, the process with the shovel, whatever, can happen, I hope.
Posted by lumi at 7:32 AM
Five years ago today, NJ Nets win conference to advance to NBA Finals
May 31, 2002 is a day that stands out in the memory of NJ Nets' fans, reminding them of better days.
Five years ago today, the Nets defeated the Boston Celtics, 96-88, to win the Eastern Conference Championship and advance to the NBA Finals, where the team was eventually swept in four games by the LA Lakers.
The 2002 season proved to be the apex of the Nets' success.
What a difference five years and one owner makes. After Bruce Ratner acquired the team in 2004, several trades raised the eyebrows of fans, who questioned the real estate mogul's commitment to the team's success. The Nets' lame-duck status in NJ hasn't helped fan morale, or filled seats, either.
[Thanks to a NJ Nets fan who called WFAN yesterday for the reference.]
Posted by lumi at 7:00 AM
REITs Pouring Investment Into Dense Urban Corners
NY Sun
By Michael Stoler
If you've been wondering what's fueling NYC's current real estate boom, you might want to read about REITs.
We stumbled across Stoler's column because of a quick reference to the Target in Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Terminal mall, located across the street from the footprint of his Atlantic Yards proposal. Stoler conflates the two projects and calls the existing mall "Atlantic Yards":
The majority of real estate leaders agree that New York City has a dire need for additional retail, especially in urban sections of the boroughs. Some of the highest retail sales per foot have been recognized in urban areas such as Harlem and in the Bronx for national and local retailers. For example, one of Target’s highest revenue stores in the nation is located in Atlantic Yards in downtown Brooklyn. The highest grossing Pathmark in the chain is located on 125th Street and Lexington Avenue and the second is at 146th Street and Bradhurst Avenue.
Posted by lumi at 6:53 AM
No budget vote planned in Yonkers, despite deadline
The Journal News
By Hannan Adely
Bruce Ratner's controversial Ridge Hill megaproject is one of the issues holding up budget approval in Yonkers.
The City Council has no plans to vote on the budget this week, despite the fact that it is required by law to approve a budget by tomorrow.
Some council members said they needed more time to review parts of the budget, including a controversial deal allowing developer Forest City Ratner to pay millions of dollars of taxes and lease payments at one time instead of over many years.
Councilman Liam McLaughlin, who chairs the budget committee, said the council may wait to see if the state comptroller will approve the Forest City Ratner deal. The comptroller must sign off on the entire budget, but will not comment until its review is complete.
NoLandGrab: That's funny, Ratner's Atlantic Yards project was a bone of contention for budget approval here in NYC, only the money was going the other way (link).
Posted by lumi at 6:48 AM
May 30, 2007
The NY Times correction on Marty Purge story
An article last Wednesday about a decision by the Brooklyn borough president, Marty Markowitz, to remove at least five members of Community Board 6 who oppose the Atlantic Yards development project — which Mr. Markowitz supports — misstated the reason for the absence of a response by Mr. Markowitz. At the time the article was being reported, Mr. Markowitz could not be reached by his aides because he was on a ship at sea, had no telephone access and was not regularly checking his e-mail messages. He did not “refuse” to comment. (Go to Article)
NoLandGrab: The Times calls for a comment, but they couldn't get hold of the Borough President because he was on a cruise? Is that supposed to be code for "Marty is unable to tear himself away from the buffet table?"
Posted by lumi at 11:25 AM
EMINENT DOMAINIA
NEWS FROM THE NJ PUBLIC ADVOCATE:
The NY Times, New Jersey Public Advocate Seeks Stronger Eminent Domain Protections for Property Owners
The New Jersey public advocate urged the Legislature on Tuesday to adopt a law that would make the use of eminent domain more equitable, while preserving it as a valuable redevelopment tool for many hard-pressed cities.
Ronald Chen, the state’s public advocate, renewed his nearly year-old call for changes in the state’s redevelopment law in a report detailing some abuses of the taking of private property by municipalities. The report also highlighted several court cases in which his office filed legal briefs supporting challenges to the eminent domain process as it now functions.
The Bergen Record, Report details eminent domain abuse
A "jaw-dropping" case in Passaic and a controversial proposal to seize two trailer parks in Lodi were cited by the state's public advocate Tuesday as classic examples of governmental abuse of eminent domain.
"People can lose their homes without real evidence that their neighborhood is blighted, without adequate notice or hearings and without fair compensation," Ronald K. Chen -- who first issued a statewide eminent domain analysis last May -- declared in his 31-page follow-up report.
The Newark Star-Ledger, Report lists abuses in land seizures
In releasing a second report on New Jersey's eminent domain statute, Public Advocate Ronald Chen said towns officials have exploited the law to include desirable properties in so-called blighted areas, seize land without notice, low-ball landowners being pushed out and rubber-stamp projects where they have a personal interest.
"The findings in this report crystallize the urgent need for our Legislature to change the state redevelopment law," Chen said. A proposal has been stuck in committee in the Senate for a year.
The public advocate's report focused on eight civil lawsuits that it said highlight abuses of eminent domain. In those cases, either judges or attorneys with the Department of the Public Advocate established a factual basis for the property owner's claim.
NoLandGrab: In case you're wondering what NYC Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum has done about eminent domain abuse in NYC, "Ms. Gotbaum stated that she is against the use of eminent domain but supports the Ratner project as it's her understanding eminent domain won't be used. She did say that if she learns otherwise, she would not support the Ratner project." (link)
OTHER LOCAL EMINENT DOMAIN NEWS:
NY Daily News, City says it may use eminent domain to acquire 911 backup site
Fed-up city officials are preparing to launch eminent-domain proceedings to acquire a privately owned site for a long-awaited 911 backup system.
According to officials involved in the dispute, interests representing the Simone Development Cos., based in New Rochelle, have stonewalled the city's various offers for a large parcel of land in the vicinity of the state-run Bronx Psychiatric Center near the Hutchinson River Parkway.
A backup 911 system - officially known as Public Safety Answering Center 2 - had been sought even before the 9/11 terrorist attacks destroyed the World Trade Center. City efforts intensified after 9/11, but ran into obstacles.
The existing 911 system, based at the MetroTech Center in downtown Brooklyn, fields more than 12 million calls a year. On several occasions in recent years, it has experienced temporary disruptions, including a three-hour system failure in parts of Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island in March 2004.
NoLandGrab: The irony is that eminent domain was used for Bruce Ratner's MetroTech, which was billed at the time as a job-creation-and-retention program. MetroTech was unable to live up to the original billing, so the City of New York moved its own agencies into the complex, becoming the development's largest tenant.
ELSEWHERE IN THE COUNTRY:
Rocky Mountain Telegram, Property rights
North Carolina voters will be asked to decide whether the government can invoke eminent domain to condemn private property to make way for economic development projects under a measure approved last week in the N.C. House.
If the N.C. Senate signs off on the proposed constitutional amendment, the referendum could go before voters as early as this fall.
The Cincinnati Post, Widow opposes taking of home
The bright yellow solarium is Florence Matthews' favorite room in her house, which stands at the corner of Lafayette and Eden in Bellevue, where she's lived virtually all her life.
The little room on the north side is where she sews, finishing the patchwork quilts begun by her late mother and making dresses for her granddaughter. It's where she spends time with her pug Peggy and gazes out to see boats move past on the Ohio River, and view a slice of city skyline.
It's where the 79-year-old widow remembers most everything in her life and where she wants to spend the rest of it - even if that means fighting the city of Bellevue all the way to the Supreme Court.
KATC3, Redevelopment board seeks direction in post-Katrina New Orleans
Complicating NORA's [New Orleans Redevelopment Authority] work are constitutional amendments passed by voters last September that limit seizure of property.
One amendment bans the seizure of property except for certain "public purposes," such as roads, levees or parks. Eminent domain conjures images of retirees having their homes seized for shopping malls, but that's not the case in hurricane-damaged New Orleans, said NORA executive director Joe Williams.
"We're looking at properties that are blighted and abandoned and an imminent health and public safety issue," he said.
Frank S. Alexander, a law professor at Emory University in Atlanta who has worked with NORA, said that while most urban redevelopment is done without expropriation, the scope of the two amendments will need to be resolved or "it will be an impediment to New Orleans' redevelopment activities."
The language, NORA says, needs clarification to determine how far the agency can go in turning over property for private redevelopment.
Posted by lumi at 11:00 AM
Speaking of Community Boards...
From Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn:
In light of the recent purging of Brooklyn Community Board 6 by Borough President Markowitz the following should be of even more interest than it otherwise would have been. This morning (Wednesday) on WNYC radio's Brian Lehrer Show:
What are Community Boards for?
Tom Angotti, director of the Hunter College Center for Community Planning and development, explains what purpose community boards serve and how independent they are from borough politicians.The show airs on 820 AM or 93.9 FM starting at 10 am. This segment appears to be the second of three segments. Listeners can make a live, on air call to the show at: 212-433-9692
Posted by lumi at 10:19 AM
Exclusive: Bloomy is uninformed about Atlantic Yards
The Brooklyn Paper
Back in February we cited NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg for "ignoranting" about Atlantic Yards at a press conference. Bloomie explained to reporters that Bruce Ratner's arena would be built on land, "which was going to be a new Ebbets Field" and called the eminent domain plaintiffs, "one little person, one person that owns one little piece of property" (for the record, there are over a dozen plaintiffs on the Federal eminent domain lawsuit).
This week, Bloomie was at it again. This time, he was busted by Brooklyn Papers (complete with audio soundbite):
During a press conference on Tuesday, The Brooklyn Paper asked Mayor Bloomberg why the city’s plan for redeveloping the state-owned Hudson Rail Yards on the far west side of Manhattan is going through a distinctly different process than Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards development at and near the state-owned Vanderbilt Rail Yards in Prospect Heights.
The mayor’s answer was filled with inaccuracies.
The sound bite begins with Editor Gersh Kuntzman asking Hizzoner about the “different process” that the Hudson Yards redevelopment will undergo.
The mayor first says that “the Atlantic Yards was done by a private group and this [Hudson Yards] is a public entity, a public piece of land.” That’s not true. In both cases, the Metropolitan Transportation Administration — a public agency — owns the rail yards. That makes it “public land.”
In the case of Atlantic Yards, Bruce Ratner was awarded the development rights, but the state, not the city, oversaw the public review process. The Hudson Yards project is slated to go through the more-rigorous city land-use review process. Bloomberg described them “different pieces of land” as having “different owners — one is state, one is city.” That is not true.
Posted by lumi at 9:57 AM
Gehry's Superblockage
We know starchitect Frank Gehry has an ego, recently we learned he has a sense of humor, but does he have a CONSCIENCE?
A famous political cartoon gets a face-lift (more like a tummy tuck?), as we wonder why Gehry would get involved with the national poster-project for poor urban design, totally tasteless excess and massive environmental impacts.
Posted by lumi at 9:45 AM
Marty defends CB 6 sackings
NY Daily News
By Jotham Sederstrom
A week later, the spin is in:
You can cross Marty Markowitz if you want, but give him a courtesy call first.
Following a week of public scrutiny for his decision not to reappoint nine Community Board 6 members, the borough president vehemently denied his actions were in retaliation for their opposition to aspects of the Atlantic Yards project.
"I was not given the courtesy by the members of this board to contact me - as the person who appoints them - and say, 'Marty, we want to vote against Atlantic Yards,' " Markowitz said.
In his first public comments since fallout from the community board debacle and revelations that he accepted a free cruise on the Queen Mary 2, Markowitz insisted that in both cases he was just doing his job.
Movie cliché: Markowitz is cast as the paternalistic Don, "But you don't vote with respect. You don't offer friendship. You don't even think to call me Godfather."
Posted by lumi at 9:20 AM
An agent, criticizing the NBA, says we're not in Dodger-land any more
Yesterday Atlantic Yards Report broke down the myth that the site for Bruce Ratner's new Nets arena was the same place coveted by Brooklyn Dodgers' owner Walter O'Malley, before the Dodgers pulled up stakes and moved to LA. [For those who are interested in the truth, Bruce Ratner already built a mall on the site O'Malley wanted.]
Today Atlantic Yards Report offers the latest comparison between the NBA and the Brooklyn Dodgers. From Keith Glass's book, "Taking Shots: Tall Tales, Bizarre Battles, and the Incredible Truth About the NBA:"
Both of my parents were born and raised in Brooklyn. My mother was an avid Brooklyn Dodgers fan. She would tell us that as she walked around her neighborhood, she would see Duke Snider in the candy store, or Jackie Robinson at the supermarket, or Pee Wee Reese at the cleaners. They were quite literally part of the community.
Today, obviously, this is not the case. Professonal athletes are cloistered away, surrounding by their families, agents, publicists, business manager, personal assistants, drivers, and, in many cases, people from their past who are just hoping for some kind of title to justify their presence. Which of these people being "fed" by the player do you think is going to tell him about reality?
Posted by lumi at 9:13 AM
BROOKLYN MATTERS: SCREENING AT A LOCATION NEAR YOU
June 1, 6 p.m.
Spoke the Hub Re:Creation Center
748 Union Street, Bklyn, Local Produce Festival
Sponsored by Spoke the Hub, RSVP: 718-408-3234June 3, 7:00 p.m.
322 Union Avenue, Bklyn
Sponsored by UnionDocs as part of The Documentary Bodega SeriesJune 8, 7 p.m.
Spoke the Hub Re:Creation Center
748 Union Street, Bklyn, Local Produce Festival
Sponsored by Spoke the Hub, RSVP: 718-408-3234June 13, 6:00 p.m. Community Economic Justice Film Series
6:00 pm reception, 6:30 pm screening
87 Lafayette Street
Sponsored by Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy ProjectJune 8, 7 p.m.
Spoke the Hub Re:Creation Center
748 Union Street, Bklyn, Local Produce Festival
Sponsored by Spoke the Hub, RSVP: 718-408-3234June 22, 7 p.m.
Spoke the Hub Re:Creation Center
748 Union Street, Bklyn, Local Produce Festival
Sponsored by Spoke the Hub, RSVP: 718-408-3234Host your own screening: buildinghistory@verizon.net
More info at www.brooklynmaters.com.
Posted by lumi at 8:49 AM
Gehry Wears "Fuck Frank Gehry" T-shirt
Gothamist blogs this week's "Talk of the Town" piece in The New Yorker about "F*ck Frank Gehry" T-shirts and who's wearing 'em:
In this week's New Yorker, Lauren Collins has a funny bit on the popularity of "Fuck Frank Gehry" T-shirts. Popular, that is, with Frank Gehry himself!
The T-shirts first were a hit with Europeans who opposed the Bilbao project. Then they were sought after by critics of the Atlantic Yards. Then Gehry's driver saw the T-shirt at a super bowl party and soon a sample batch landed at Gehry's office. The architect explained, "Somebody sent it to me, and I thought it must have been the people in Brooklyn who are sort of angry. But then I thought, well, it must be loving, too. So I decided it was funny, and I put it on. And I wore it to the office, and everybody got a kick out of that, and then I wore it to the gym...”
Posted by lumi at 8:41 AM
On the Outs in Brooklyn
The city's complicity behind the borough's soaring eviction rate
The Village Voice
While Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards megaproject and the insta-towers popping up across Williamsburg have gotten more attention, an equally big land rush is stalking downtown Brooklyn in the wake of a rezoning approved by the city in 2004.
If you've got the time, check out this important article by Neil deMause about evictions of small businesses in Downtown Brooklyn and the Duffield St. land grab, both brought to you by the Downtown Brooklyn Plan rezoning.
Turning Brooklyn's low-rise downtown into high-priced towers wasn't the original idea. "There was no constituency that had a vision of downtown Brooklyn as a high-rise bedroom community," notes Robert Perris, the district manager of Brooklyn's Community Board 2, which covers Brooklyn Heights, downtown, and Fort Greene. "Even people that were pro–economic development are disappointed that what we've gotten instead are 40-story residential buildings."
Even more disappointed, needless to say, are those who'd staked their futures on being a part of a newly energized downtown, only to find themselves staring down the barrel of a new Chelsea.
"We moved to this neighborhood when there were crack vials on the floor," Aviva Jakubowitz of Track Data Corporation testified last Tuesday at a city hearing on the fate of the block that contains her company's offices, as well as the Duffield Street Underground Railroad houses. "Now, finally, the neighborhood has changed, and the city wants to take our property by eminent domain."
...
The Department of City Planning's webpage on the downtown Brooklyn redevelopment plan declares that its goal is to "serve the residents, businesses, academic institutions, and cultural institutions of Downtown Brooklyn and its surrounding communities." The city's actual environmental-impact statement for the rezoning plan, though, was more blunt, saying that while current businesses would be displaced, they would not be "significant" losses because "they do not have substantial economic value to the City, they do not define neighborhood character, nor do they belong to a special category of business that is protected by special regulations or publicly adopted plans."
...
It's a scenario that, planning experts say, points out one of the main flaws with the city's rezoning process: With public discussion limited to the advisory vote of the local community board, it takes an extraordinarily committed organization of local residents to get the city to veer from its declared path. And even then, the appointed community boards are no guarantee to represent the community—as residents of Brooklyn's Board 6 found out last week when nine members were purged by their political patrons for voting against Atlantic Yards, and the Bronx's CB4 saw last year in a similar purge over the new Yankee Stadium plan.
Posted by lumi at 8:00 AM
Developmentalism in the Big Apple
Cost of living has skyrocketed in New York, but under fatcats Giuliani and Bloomberg, the working man’s wage has not
In These Times
By Steven Wishnia
NYC Mayor touts his program to build affordable housing, meanwhile more affordable units are leaving the system than are being built and real wages lag far behind.
Thirty years ago, you could easily find a one-bedroom apartment in a middle-class neighborhood in New York City for $150 a month. Today, it would cost more than $1,500—more than what Yankees slugger Reggie Jackson, then baseball’s highest-paid player, paid in 1977. His Fifth Avenue apartment with a balcony overlooking Central Park cost $1,466 a month. And the minimum wage hasn’t gone up to $27.82 an hour.
How we got to this point is the subject of Kim Moody’s From Welfare State to Real Estate: Regime Change in New York City, 1974 to the Present (The New Press). Moody analyzes how New York’s business elite exploited the ’70s fiscal crisis to destroy the city’s “social-democratic polity” and impose the neoliberal agenda that has dictated “restraint on social spending, privatization, deregulation, and most importantly, the reassertion of class power by the nation’s capitalist class.”
The result is a city where inequality has grown to extremes far beyond those in the rest of the country, where a small but growing cabal of the spectacularly rich uses government as a vending machine and lords it over a hollowed-out middle class and millions of low-paid, increasingly immigrant service workers.
Unlike many politicians, Moody hasn't fallen for the myth of "affordable" housing at Atlantic Yards:
Bloomberg has made some grand-sounding promises about building affordable housing, but Moody dissects the formulas used to determine what’s deemed “affordable.” Based on the median income for the metropolitan area, apartments that go for as much as $1,800 a month are classified as “middle income,” such as those in the planned Atlantic Yards sports arena/housing complex in Brooklyn.
Posted by lumi at 7:41 AM
The bosses' takeover of New York
Socialist Worker Online
Review by Aaron Hess
Kim Moody, From Welfare State to Real Estate: Regime Change in New York City, 1974 to the Present. New Press, 2007, 352 pages, $26.95.
Socialist scholar and activist Kim Moody’s new book, From Welfare State to Real Estate: Regime Change in New York City, 1974 to the Present is an angry, accessible and scrupulously researched account of how the city’s rich and politically connected have consolidated their power over ordinary New Yorkers in the last three decades.
Among the strengths of Moody’s book is that it shows how the inequality and racism in the Big Apple today are not accidental features of “development” or the inevitable consequence of uncontrollable market forces. Beginning in the mid-1970s, the city’s business and political elite consciously planned out its war on workers and the poor.
Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner joins the titans of corporate welfare:
While gutting funding for affordable housing, the city and state have doled out hundreds of millions of dollars in tax exemptions and abatements to the upscale housing market and corporate welfare to “public-private” partnerships run by real-estate titans like Bruce Ratner and Larry Silverstein.
Posted by lumi at 7:32 AM
Companies' money goes where their interests lie
Columbus Dispatch
By Jonathan Riskind and Jack Torry
An article about how corporations bundle campaign contributions uses Atlantic Yards developer Forest City as a case study:
Take Cleveland-based Forest City Enterprises, one of the nation's largest developers. Led by Albert Ratner and Sam Miller, Forest City executives have long donated to politicians of both parties, including Ohio lawmakers such as Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown and Republican Reps. Pat Tiberi of Genoa Township and Deborah Pryce of Upper Arlington.
This year, Forest City executives have been contributing to the Democratic presidential campaign of New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.
Why Richardson? One possibility is that Forest City is developing a 13,000-acre commercial and residential project near Albuquerque. Backers of the ambitious project say it will include 10 million square feet of commercial and office space and as many as 100,000 residents.
...
Figures compiled by the Washington-based center show that Ratner and his relatives have contributed $27,000 to Richardson's presidential campaign, while Miller and his family have contributed $4,600 to Richardson.The same survey shows that the Ratner family has contributed to only one other presidential campaign, $4,600 to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. The survey shows that Miller contributed $4,600 to the presidential campaign of Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., D-Del.
In addition, the Associated Press reported last month that Forest City and its top officials contributed nearly $150,000 to Richardson's 2006 gubernatorial campaign. That included $25,000 by the company to help pay for Richardson's inauguration in January and three trips for him aboard a jet leased by the company.
NoLandGrab: For those of you who missed Norman Oder's series tracking down local contributions for Forest City, check out AtlanticYardsReport.com:
The Ratner campaign money trail leads to... Michael (& his wife)
More Ratner-related contributions: $10,800 to State Sen. Connor
The Ratner contributions just keep coming
Michael Ratner offers contributions (Lopez, etc.), office for meeting
Posted by lumi at 7:06 AM
May 29, 2007
Rhetoric check: AY "same site" as proposed Dodgers stadium? Nah
Atlantic Yards Report
Journalists, politicians, and other commentators have readily--though incorrectly--repeated a central fudge in the Atlantic Yards saga, that the site would be the same as that proposed by Brooklyn Dodgers' owner Walter O'Malley before he moved the beloved Dodgers to Los Angeles.
That's a great tale, only Bruce Ratner already built a mall on the site coveted by O'Malley.
(Graphic from Henry Fetter's book Taking on the Yankees: Winning and Losing in the Business of Baseball, which was issued before the Atlantic Yards plan was officially announced. Click to enlarge. More from Fetter below.)
...
Yes, O'Malley's idea was to move the Dodgers near Brooklyn's busiest transit hub. But no one at the time was proposing to build over the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Vanderbilt Yard between Atlantic and Flatbush avenues, as with the Atlantic Yards plan above. That would’ve been too costly.
...
Fetter's book, issued in September 2003, should have been a useful resource for anyone writing about the Dodgers stadium location, as previous books could have been. Instead, some writers and observers have perpetuated a myth.
Norman Oder cites at least ten examples of the developer, politicians and writers perpetuating one of the most enduring myths of the Atlantic Yards saga. Nearly half of them are from the NY Times (maybe they'll publish another astounding correction).
Oder also summarizes Fetter's history of O'Malley's bid to move the team to Atlantic Avenue.
Posted by lumi at 8:02 AM
Frank Gehry’s buildings seem to be from another planet
The [UK] Times
An interview with the architect of Atlantic Yards:
Gehry is no mere architect; he is a “starchitect”, and the object of adulation by culture junkies across the world – including, it turns out, the veteran Out of Africa film-maker Sydney Pollack, who has just released an 84-minute documentary entitled Sketches of Frank Gehry (see panel, right). The film is the closest that anyone is ever likely to get to the genre of architecture-porn. There they are, Gehry’s curvy super-models, spread-eagled and pouting in various exotic locations across the globe.
I meet Gehry at his surprisingly sane-looking office in Marina del Ray, Los Angeles, where 180 of his understudies design everything from entire New York zip codes to vodka bottles, via home lighting and Tiffany jewellery. Gehry, the Willy Wonka of this particular chocolate factory, greets me shiftily in a black T-shirt and blue jeans.
...
As for the future, Gehry has won critical praise for Inter-Active Corp’s ghostly HQ in Manhattan and is working on two massive urban renewal projects: Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn and Grand Avenue in LA. He is building a £290 million seafront development in Hove, East Sussex.
And what architecture-porn would be complete without a designgasm:
“I’ll show you my lights!” he exclaims, now throwing the gently throbbing object from one hand to the other.
Finally he plops it on the floor and shrugs, still grinning, as if to say – can you f*ing believe I designed that, eh?
Posted by lumi at 7:23 AM
Atlantic Yards Critic Lands Spot on Community Board
The Real Estate Observer
By Matthew Schuerman
One of the odder bits of fallout to come out of the, um, change of membership at Community Board 6 is that a critic of Atlantic Yards is replacing one of the opponents who got axed this week.
Brad Lander, the director of the Pratt Center for Community Development, was nominated for a spot on the 50-member advisory board by City Council Member Bill de Blasio and appointed by Borough President Marty Markowitz, according to the board's new list (PDF).
Pratt published an independent analysis of the project in March 2005 that complained that “the process through which this development has been advanced has not been sufficiently fair or accountable” (PDF). Mr. Lander says, however, that he does not consider himself “a die-hard opponent” of Atlantic Yards.
“In its current form, I consider myself in a very highly ambivalent position,” he told The Observer Friday. “I believe that the project could’ve been, and maybe still could be, modified to a place where I could support it, yet still be recognizable.”
NoLandGrab: Lander's position is aligned with the middle-of-the-road coalition, Brooklyn Speaks. He has been careful to distance himself from staunch "critics" of the project.
As an affordable housing advocate, Lander has been careful not to ruffle too many feathers in City Hall over this project, even though many housing advocates are concerned that the massive Atlantic Yards project could suck up a considerable portion of finite affordable housing resources. The question of how much housing subsidy Atlantic Yards would require has never been answered, so there's no way to understand if Bruce Ratner's plan is the best way to spend the government's money to build affordable housing.
Posted by lumi at 7:12 AM
It came from the Blogosphere...
Yonkers Tribune, Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards to Blame, in Part For Looming Con Edison Record Rate Hike
A cat fight breaks out in the comments section of a posting of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn's press release about Atlantic Yards and rising electricity rates.
The subjects on some peoples' minds in Yonkers: their OWN political vortex around Bruce Ratner's controversial Ridge Hill plan, Payments in Lieu of Taxes (only don't call it a "PILOT"), and the City's deal to help cover a looming budget shortfall by selling Ratner the leases for Ridge Hill way below their estimated value.
West Bronx Blog, Sound Familiar?
Brooklyn is not alone:
Brooklyn borough president, Marty Markowitz, is being accused of pushing out several long-serving community board members because of their oppostion to the borough's Atlantic Yards development - a project Markowitz, says the New York Times, "has spent three years and much of his political capital extolling."
Last summer, you may recall, Adolfo Carrión, Markowitz's Bronx counterpart, was accused of the very same thing, namely removing Bronx Community Board 4 members who opposed the new Yankee Stadium.
Posted by lumi at 6:22 AM
May 28, 2007
Memorial Day
Much blood has been lost for the fight to build and preserve our democratic system, which, alas, is not inevitable.
Much democracy has been lost for corrupt deals between the government and the politically powerful, which, are not inevitable, either.
Posted by lumi at 9:27 AM
Monday Comix
Posted by lumi at 8:59 AM
Your Name Here
The New Yorker
Frank Gehry shows he has a sense of humor, though he still doesn't have a clue:
Harris had the “Fuck Frank Gehry” shirts made in brown with orange lettering and in navy blue with silver lettering. He sold a few hundred, many to Europeans. Opponents of Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards development, in Brooklyn, kept asking for donations.
Then, in March, a friend of Harris’s named Howell Caldwell was working as an assistant director on a weight-loss commercial starring Valerie Bertinelli. Get this: Caldwell’s limo driver, Geoffrey Cushing-Murray, also drives Gehry; on set, he mentioned to a friend that he had run into her husband wearing a “Fuck Frank Gehry” shirt at a Super Bowl party. Cushing-Murray had told Gehry about the encounter, and Gehry, he said, had been intrigued. Caldwell volunteered that he knew the guy who made the shirts. Within days, a sample batch was on its way to Gehry’s office.
“Somebody sent it to me,” Gehry said the other day, over the telephone, “and I thought it must have been the people in Brooklyn who are sort of angry. But then I thought, well, it must be loving, too. So I decided it was funny, and I put it on. And I wore it to the office, and everybody got a kick out of that, and then I wore it to the gym”—Gehry lifts weights at a Gold’s in Venice Beach—“and everybody got a kick out of that. The tough gals at the gym said, ‘If it’s an offer, you better be able to deliver, Mr. Gehry.’ ” Gehry’s wife, Berta, found this all funny. (“She’s Panamanian, so she doesn’t get rattled by much,” Gehry said.) In a Queer Nationesque move of appropriation, Gehry decided to begin sending the shirts out as gifts.
Posted by lumi at 8:47 AM
St. Mary's Hospital is off the AY affordable housing block
Atlantic Yards Report
It was never a given, and the news is late, but it's worth noting that St. Mary's Hospital in Crown Heights no longer seems the likely home of affordable for-sale apartments connected to the Atlantic Yards project.
The 600 to 1000 affordable for-sale units are promised in the Memorandum of Understanding regarding housing signed in May 2005 by Forest City Ratner and the housing advocacy group ACORN. Unlike with the 2250 affordable rentals planned at the Atlantic Yards site, the plan has not been memorialized in any Empire State Development Corporation documents.
...
Forest City has not made any public statements recently about plans for the for-sale affordable units, which would be dependent on currently scarce public subsidies. Perhaps the developer has other sites in mind, or in hand. Perhaps it's prudent to wait.However, given FCR's deep pockets, and the relatively small cost for the acquisition (though not the renovation) of the hospital building, it would be interesting to learn why the developer passed on the opportunity.
Posted by lumi at 8:37 AM
Yonkers council, mayor spar over Ridge Hill tax deal
The Journal-News
By Hannan Adely
Bruce Ratner's deal for Ridge Hill with the City of Yonkers is making waves again:
A deal allowing a developer to buy out its lease on the Ridge Hill property and to pay three years of taxes up front has roiled City Council members, who say Mayor Phil Amicone has violated the conditions they set on the project.
When they approved new zoning for Ridge Hill last summer, City Council members say they attached conditions to their resolution, including a time schedule for tax payments. The deal between Amicone and developer Forest City Ratner violates the resolution, said Liam McLaughlin, chairman of the council's budget committee.
"It was well thought out by the council and agreed upon, so for the mayor now to just completely ignore this and try to get the comptroller to sign off on (the budget) is just unconscionable," said McLaughlin, R-4th District.
Posted by lumi at 8:33 AM
May 27, 2007
Sunday Comix
Posted by amy at 10:08 AM
Summer Reading. Summer Blockbuster.
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
Our suggested reading list is heavy on the legal side and it's all non-fiction. First, of course, there are the legal briefs from both sides on the federal eminent domain lawsuit Goldstein v. Pataki charging that the "Atlantic Yards'" abuse of eminent domain violates the US Constitution. That suit was filed way back in the Fall of 2006. In these papers there is plenty to delve into for your summer reading while you lounge around Prospect Park or perhaps the beach at Coney Island. And if you are more of a picture person you can look over the property ownership map which shows how the "Atlantic Yards" project cannot be built if the 13 plaintiffs on the eminent domain lawsuit are successful in keeping their properties.A decision on the defendants' motion to dismiss the case could come any day.
The other set of legal briefs we suggest for summer reading, perhaps under the molten heat of your stoop or the refreshing shade of a tree in Fort Greene Park, is from the state lawsuit DDDB et. al. v. ESDC et. al.. That suit challenges the very foundation of the project, and the fatally-flawed Environmental Impact Statement's review and approval. There are a lot of exhibits along with the complaint and responses for you to check out on those humid days that are sure to come. If you prefer a condensed version of this suit, there is a summary you can read, or coverage from Atlantic Yards Report of the May 3rd oral argument.
A decision on this suit could possibly be rendered in early to mid-June.
Posted by amy at 8:33 AM
Forest City, Marty try to tweak the record, but it doesn't work
Atlantic Yards Report
Brooklyn President Marty Markowitz, for nearly five years--the entirety of his first term, beginning in 2002, and through the beginning of his second term--suggested on the BP web site that he had no intention of pursuing higher office.His web site (courtesy of the Internet Archive) stated:
While some people want to grow up to be mayor, governor, or President of the United States, my dream in life has always been to lead Brooklyn as borough president. To me, this is the ultimate job.Then came news last July that the term-limited BP was raising money for a yet-unspecified 2009 campaign. In response to speculation about Markowitz's ambition to be mayor--a position he seemed to have excluded--No Land Grab last July posted Markowitz's statement that "borough president... is the ultimate job."
At some moment, those sentiments were excised from Markowitz's web site. But they live on.
link
NoLandGrab: Borough President is certainly looking like the "Ultimate Job" this week...
Posted by amy at 8:27 AM
To Sell Brooklyn, Borough Leader Took Free Trip on Cruise Ship
New York Times
By ANDY NEWMAN
On Thursday, Mr. Markowitz’s own ship came in. He arrived in Brooklyn on the Queen Mary 2 after a free six-day cruise from Southampton, England. Mr. Markowitz was quick to point out that he sailed not just as a passenger, but also as the borough’s official ambassador. Between breakfasts of petit filet mignon and dinners of lobster flambé with cognac and truffles, harp recitals and black-tie soirees, the mostly European passengers were treated to an hourlong talk from Mr. Markowitz on the wonders of Brooklyn. More than 450 people attended it, he said.
...
Mr. Markowitz might have picked a more opportune time to leave town for a week. While he was away, one of the bigger controversies of his administration arose, concerning his decision to remove nine members from a community board that criticized the $4 billion Atlantic Yards development project, which Mr. Markowitz has championed. A reporter seeking comment on the move on Tuesday was told only that Mr. Markowitz was “on a ship.”
Posted by amy at 8:23 AM
On the Town
Daily Intelligencer
Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz booted nine community-board members who’d voted against the Atlantic Yards megaproject he championed. A waitress at Jay- Z’s 40/40 Club said the rap mogul’s crew grabbed from the tip jar.
link
NoLandGrab: Did the Intelligencer realize that these two folks have a related interest - or was this placement mere coincidence?
Posted by amy at 8:18 AM
May 26, 2007
Shake-Up of Board Is Defended
New York Times
By ANDY NEWMAN
When the board appointments were made public on Tuesday, Mr. Markowitz was accused of punishing members of Community Board 6, which includes parts of Park Slope, Boerum Hill and Carroll Gardens, for opposing him on Atlantic Yards. He removed a greater percentage of members who sought reappointment in Community Board 6 than in any of the other 17 boards in the borough. The borough president reappoints or replaces 25 of a community board’s 50 volunteer members each year.Mr. Markowitz said that he was “not happy” with the nonbinding resolutions that Community Board 6 passed denouncing Atlantic Yards last year, while the project awaited eventual state approval. (The project’s developer, Forest City Ratner, is the development partner in a new Midtown headquarters for The New York Times Company.)
As the appointing authority, Mr. Markowitz added, he should have been kept abreast of community board members’ concerns. “We had no clue here that they were going to have this resolution for vote at the board,” he said.
Posted by amy at 11:45 AM
The value of local voices
The Brooklyn Paper
Atlantic Yards provides the perfect case-in-point for why these hardworking volunteers should be allowed to do their job without having to worry about hewing to some party line. In the rush to get the project approved before Gov. Pataki left office, many not-so-minor details were blown off:Like traffic. Like transit. Like the project’s massive environmental impact. Like the use of state condemnation power to seize privately owned homes and turn them over to Ratner for private profit. Like the massive taxpayer-backed subsidies that virtually eliminate any risk and guarantee a handsome profit to Ratner.
On all these issues (and others) independent-minded community board members bucked the elected officials who lined up like ducks behind Ratner and pointed out genuine flaws in the project.
The fact that SOME of these flaws were later remedied speaks volumes about the importance of independent thinking.
Posted by amy at 11:41 AM
Pols to Yards foes: Yer Out!
The Brooklyn Paper
By Ariella Cohen
Last year, CB6 took a strong position against Atlantic Yards — and Markowitz made it clear to several board members that they would pay for their vote against the project.“He got it off his chest pretty loudly, and more than once,” said one Markowitz appointee who was reappointed, but only after several peace-making meetings.
Another appointee said Markowiz told her last year that he would get rid of all the board members who had voted against Ratner’s project.
“He pointed at my ‘Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn’ button and shouted at me that all the people who voted down the project would be gone,” said Celia Cacace, whose seat on CB6 is not up for reappointment until next year.
Posted by amy at 11:37 AM
At CB 6, new appointee claims AY ignorance; another has been an AY critic
Atlantic Yards Report
From this week's Courier-Life chain, an article (not yet online), headlined AXE FALLS ON YARDS FOES, advances the story about the Community Board 6 purge by including some tough quotes from departing members and showing one new appointee to be profoundly ignorant about Atlantic Yards.
...
Maybe Markowitz was looking for fresh perspectives, but with one new appointee, he's getting something of a blank slate. Let's quote the passage in full:
New Markowitz appointee Vanessa Twyford said she is thrilled to begin serving on the board. "I don't know anything about Atlantic Yards, but I am pro-development," she said. Twyford, a third generation Brooklynite, is the granddaughter of Connie Gibbons, the first president of the First Place Tri Block Association, a Carroll Gardens civic group. "I'm definitely intersted in the community being more built up," said Twyford, who owns a real estate company on Court Street. "Development is good for everyone," she said.The Twyford Real Estate web site includes this biographical information:
Vanessa keeps up with critical issues by regularly attending meetings for neighborhood organizations like Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association, Gowanas Canal Community Development Corporation, Brooklyn Task Force and Community Board 6.If Twyford has regularly attended meetings of CB 6, how could she have missed the Atlantic Yards discussion?
Posted by amy at 11:33 AM
Fact-checking Brooklyn Brewery's Hindy on Ratner's jobs
Atlantic Yards Report
In a New York Observer article this week headlined Unlikely Power Broker Bullish on Brooklyn, Brooklyn Brewery CEO Steve Hindy opines on the future of Brooklyn, disses development on Fourth Avenue, and offers much praise for Forest City Ratner, expected to be serving his beer at the planned Brooklyn Arena.Except his numbers are off.
...
As for Atlantic Yards, the Observer quotes Hindy:
“Brooklyn has a serious need for jobs,” he said. “Pfizer just closed their plant over in Bed-Stuy. Domino Sugar closed last year down on the waterfront here. Those big industrial plants just aren’t feasible here anymore. So something’s gotta replace it. Things like the development at Coney Island and things like Atlantic Yards—that’s what we have to work with, and we have to make the best of it.”Remember, Forest City Ratner once promoted space for 10,000 office jobs at Atlantic Yards. Now there would be space for 1340 jobs, with perhaps 375 new jobs.
Posted by amy at 11:25 AM
May 25, 2007
Marty "kicks back" while failing to spin CB6 purge
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz has been unusually quiet about the purge of nine Community Board 6 (CB6) members, all of whom voted in support of CB6's criticism of many aspects of Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards plan.
The lack of damage control from the Beep's office betrayed incompetence and/or arrogance and helped suck City Councilmembers Bill de Blasio and David Yassky into the political vortex with him.
On Wednesday, Norman Oder pointed out that, "The typically voluble Markowitz wouldn't comment to the Times about his action; that speaks volumes."
We've been wondering if his crew, by letting recent news float without a life raft, had the intelligence to navigate these murky political waters. Really, what could be more important than putting a positive spin on a disgraceful maneuver?
Here's what:
NY Post, BROOKLYN'S BEEP FULL OF $HIP: CRITICS
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz has raised eyebrows for accepting a free trans-Atlantic cruise on the mammoth Queen Mary 2 - after lobbying hard to get the ship to dock in Red Hook.
...
The comped cruise raised some eyebrows, despite the fact that Markowitz - who is considering a run for mayor in 2009 - went to the city's Conflict of Interest Board before the trip and got a green light from the panel.
Queen's Crap, Sailor Boy Marty
"Crappy" wonders aloud, "Quid pro quo for Markowitz?"
Daily Gotham, Cruisin' Clown: Marty's Aquatic Kickback
Last night at the CBID meeting the topic of Borough Clown Marty Markowitz came up quite naturally. No one had a good word for him and a connection with Marty was debated as a big negative for an otherwise good judicial candidate.
During one conversation I was told that Marty Markowitz has been away on a cruise during the whole CB6 circus that has been making news recently. We laughed at this, realizing Marty may have missed a great deal of the anger and may, perhaps, even be taking it easy, waiting for it all to blow over. Well, even clowns need vacations.
Turns out Marty's little ocean cruise is more than just a vacation: it looks an awful lot like a kickback...or at least an eyebrow raising freebie.
...
Some time back, Marty Markowitz lobbied hard to get Red Hook to be the home port of the Queen Mary 2, which will dock in Buttermilk Channel between Governors Island and Brooklyn.
NoLandGrab: What are the chances that this will "sink" his Mayoral bid?
The fact that he got a green light from the Conflict of Interest Board makes one wonder if he was entirely forthcoming as to the nature of his work on behalf of the company — "Ahab-scam" anyone?
(Photo, The Brooklyn Paper)
Posted by lumi at 9:50 PM
WTF? AY aka WTC MIA
Earlier this week, the blogosphere laughed its ass off when Atlantic Yards Report noticed that Atlantic Yards developer Forest City presented a rendering for the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site, identified as "Atlantic Yards Tomorrow," to "governmental and business leaders during a 4/18/07 forum in Atlanta on redeveloping an underutilized corridor"
This presentation has mysteriously disappeared from the AtlantaDowntown.com website, but no worries, it's now available here (Warning: 5MB PDF).
Posted by lumi at 9:29 PM
Prospect Heights has the ride stuff
NY Daily News
By Laura Albanese
Straphangers' paradise looks a lot like Prospect Heights.
The bustling locale was tops in the Brooklyn News' list for best commuter neighborhood - edging out downtown Brooklyn and Brooklyn Heights as the most rider-friendly place in the borough. The list is based on location, variety of available trains, rush-hour commute and regularity of service.
The designation is due largely to the Atlantic Ave. subway hub in Prospect Heights.
NoLandGrab: If the Daily News thinks the station is "paradise" now, how about if Atlantic Yards adds another 29,000 subway rides per day (see, NY Daily News, "Arena concerns hit home," March 2, 2004)?
Posted by lumi at 8:28 PM
Critic Goldberger: post-Moses era represents failure to plan
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder reports from last night's panel discussion on the legacy of Robert Moses.
These days, it seems to be par for the course that Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards plan is mentioned during panel discussions as the poor-planning posterproject:
The failure of government to plan, to imagine, instead choosing to subcontract planning to the private sector, is the hallmark of our post-Robert Moses era--even more so than the difficulty in reconciling public participation and major projects, according to Paul Goldberger, the architecture critic of The New Yorker.
He spoke at another panel discussion on Moses's legacy, held Wednesday night at the Museum of the City of New York. In an article for the New York Times's Empire Zone blog titled What Would Moses Do?, Sewell Chan offers a good summary (which saved me some transcription of quotes); I'll focus more on Goldberger's comments, which also included a salute to Atlantic Yards bloggers.
[Goldberger] cited Columbus Circle, Moynihan Station, Governor’s Island, the West Side railyards plan, Atlantic Yards, and Ground Zero as examples of "the public sector turning planning over to the private sector and letting it propose. The public sector has become, for all intents and purposes, an organizer, an impresario, a referee, an enabler and a negotiator of the projects that are conceived and packaged by the private sector. Planning, in effect, has been subcontracted out."
Oder offers an additional observation:
Even with those minimal standards, I'd observe, Atlantic Yards may fall short. Even the process packaging the project represents a sweetheart deal, according to Atlantic Yards opponents, because the Metropolitan Transportation Authority didn't issue an RFP for the Vanderbilt Yard until 18 months after the city and state backed developer Forest City Ratner's plan.
Posted by lumi at 8:13 AM
What Would Moses Do?
The Empire Zone
By Sewell Chan
What would Moses do? Good question — for starters, he would not have located a basketball arena at the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush.
When Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley wanted to build a new ballpark a few short steps from the intersection, Moses turned him down, claiming that the stadium would create "a China Wall of traffic."
(Roger Kahn, "The Boys of Summer," page 429)
Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Center Mall sits on the site coveted by O'Malley.
But we digress...
From The NY Times's political blog:
Development — and its impact on New York’s neighborhoods — was the theme of a wide-ranging discussion last night at the Museum of the City of New York. (And, as with all such events lately, the subject of Atlantic Yards, the massive Brooklyn project, came up; see below.) Kent Barwick, president of the Municipal Art Society, moderated the discussion, which included Paul Goldberger, the architecture critic of The New Yorker; Michael Kwartler, an architect, planner, urban designer and educator; and Robert B. Tierney, a lawyer and chairman of the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission.
...
Mr. Goldberger said that much of the actual or planned development in recent years — Columbus Circle; the proposed train station in the Farley Post Office Building; Governor’s Island; the West Side railyards; Atlantic Yards; and even ground zero — has been driven by the private sector.
Goldberger gave Brooklyn bloggers some props, which is an indication that he probably gets more of his information on Atlantic Yards from the blogsphere than from the developer's web site, www.atlanticyards.com:
“The nature of citizen participation is a little different today,” he said. “It doesn’t happen through public hearings. Look at the extent to which blogs about Atlantic Yards have become a part of public discourse and become a part of public opinion and slowed down the project and may redirect it to a certain extent.”
NoLandGrab: To describe Atlantic Yards as "driven by the private sector" is sort of simplistic — we weren't there and can't vouch for the context of the quote.
Goldberger is correct that Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards project was conceived in the private sector. However, the unprecedented scale and density of the project is only made possible by its public sponsorship. The Atlantic Yards behemoth is a prime example of how the power of public authorities, which Moses defined and exercized so well, can be relinquished to serve politically connected private-sector corporations.
Posted by lumi at 7:51 AM
A ‘LeWitt' in Atlantic Yards's Path
Was Work by Artist — Or by His Assistant?
The NY Sun
By Katie Taylor
There's a new wrinkle in the tale of the LeWitt painting in a building set to be demolished in the footprint of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project:
The brightly colored painting, attributed to Sol LeWitt, on the wall of 644 Pacific St. in Brooklyn won't be around too much longer. The building is slated to be leveled to make way for the Atlantic Yards development. But the questions the painting raises about the artistic practice of LeWitt, the conceptual artist who died last month at 78, may be discussed long after the building comes down.
...
Wall drawing no. 848 got some attention last month when the group Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, which opposes the Atlantic Yards development, sent out a mass email about the painting's distinguished legacy and imminent destruction. Even they seemed to recognize, however, that the situation didn't constitute an artistic tragedy.
...
So the painting at 644 Pacific St. seems unremarkable — a typical example of a practice in which, as anyone who has taken a class on abstract art can tell you, the artist’s concept comes first and is supreme, and the execution by assistants is secondary. Interviews with Mr. Watanabe and Ms. Cho, however, have added a wrinkle to the story behind wall drawing no. 848.Asked by a reporter whether she had the instructions for the wall drawing, Ms. Cho said there weren’t any, but that there was a diagram. LeWitt did a diagram for the painting? the reporter asked. Ms. Cho paused. Well, he did a diagram afterward, she explained. In fact, she continued, her husband came up with the idea for the painting himself and executed it. When LeWitt saw it, he liked it so much he decided to bless it as one of his own.
Posted by lumi at 7:19 AM
$10 Billion in 10 Years for A New Downtown Brooklyn
Over 14,000 New Apartments, 1,250 Hotel Rooms Are Coming
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
By Dennis Holt
About $10 billion will be spent in the next 10 years to build a new Downtown Brooklyn, an unprecedented amount of money. The new Downtown will be developed at a pace never experienced before in this borough.
...
This information and detailed project summaries have been compiled and made public by the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, formed last year by the city to coordinate and oversee all current or planned building activity in the area.The partnership, headed by DUMBO resident Joe Chan, has also produced an informative, expertly created map of Downtown Brooklyn. The map is color coded, and will become a much-sought-after item.
The Atlantic Yards project is, of course, included in the totals. While Atlantic Yards will cost about half of the total dollar amount for Downtown, its housing component will provide only 30 percent of all the units to be built there, and its total square footage is only about 38 percent of the Downtown total. There are four reasons for the magnitude of all of the development activity. One is that previous projects, like MetroTech, have demonstrated that Brooklyn is a viable business center. Another draw is the plan for a cultural center, which has drawn the strong support of the city. A third is the recent rezoning of Downtown Brooklyn, which made it practical for developers to plan for development with confidence.
The fourth reason is the proliferation of high-rises with spectacular views, not so frequent in Manhattan anymore. This has come as a surprise to many people who are used to brownstones as the area’s main draw, and is a joy to residential developers.
NoLandGrab: Holt seemingly mocks Atlantic Yards critics by stating "of course" Atlantic Yards would be included in the totals outlined by the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. The effort to locate the project in "Downtown Brooklyn," when it would commonly be called Prospect Heights, has been a PR construction, led by Ratner, designed to rebrand the site as part of the Downtown area.
How Atlantic Yards, which is a State project, ended up under the auspices of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, which is a City program, is a mystery.
In addition, to call Forest City Ratner's MetroTech a "viable business center" is a stretch. Because vacancies are up, the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership is currently working with Ratner to rebrand the MetroTech highrise office park as a potential site for the creative industries. Since the largest tenant in MetroTech is the City of New York, the complex is a "viable center" to which city offices can be moved when the project fails to attract "viable businesses."
Posted by lumi at 7:04 AM
Fulton Mall’s lease-to-buy plan
MetroNY
Forest City sold its lease rights to the "Gallery" on Fulton St. to developer Joseph Sitt back in 2001. Now the company is probably kicking itself for losing the opportunity to get in on another boondoggle:
Back in 2001, developer Joseph Sitt bought the long-term lease on what was then called the Gallery at MetroTech from Forest City Ratner for $25 million. Sitt, whose Thor Equities is looking to transform Coney Island into an upscale destination, renamed the building the Gallery at Fulton Mall and promised to turn it into an Italian palazzo, complete with tuxedoed greeters and national chain stores.
That dream was never realized, but the city did rezone the area in 2004 to encourage larger commercial development. In February, Sitt sold his lease to Albee Development LLC for $120 million.
Albee Development plans to tear down the building to put up a high-rise housing, hotel, retail and office complex. Twenty percent of rental units will be affordable to tenants of moderate income, an arrangement that would have been mandated anyway under the proposed rule changes to the 421-a tax abatement program, which the project is tapping into.
The city has approved $3.2 million in tax breaks, and after 25 years Albee Development will have the option to buy the property outright for $20 million.
The city is touting "job creation," but small businesses are losing out on the deal.
NoLandGrab: Which makes us wonder, is it some sort of law of nature that real jobs figures always fall way short of projections?
Posted by lumi at 6:57 AM
Fighting the ravages of luxury towers
People's World Weekly
By Daniel Rubin
An article cautioning New Yorkers about the current luxury housing boom includes Atlantic Yards with a curious wrinkle in the narrative (emphasis added):
Billionaire developer Bruce Ratner plans to build the Atlantic Yards Project at the busiest intersection in Brooklyn. It would bring 17 towers, some up to 60 stories high, for housing, offices, a hotel and a basketball arena for 19,000. It would be the most densely populated complex in the United States.
A large community movement against it, supported by several African American progressive public officials, has fought for the last three years. As a result, 30 percent “affordable housing” (but possibly offsite) was promised. There would be 225 units available for those with incomes below the area median income of $28,800 for a family of four. But 3,000 families are expected to be displaced from the community as a result of the project, driving up rents and real estate taxes. The rest of the “affordable housing” goes up to $113, 400.
NoLandGrab: It would be more correct to say, "ACORN sided with the developer and announced a 50/50 affordable housing plan. Ratner soon added more luxury condos to the project, diluting the overall percentages to 30-percent 'affordable,' a majority of which would not be available to those making less than the Brooklyn median household income."
Posted by lumi at 6:48 AM
Spitzer unveils Authority plan
NY Newsday
By James T. Madore
Gov. Eliot Spitzer unveiled a proposal Thursday for greater oversight of public authorities, but sponsors of a similar bill already moving through the legislature said their plan would better combat abuses.
Spitzer wants to recast the Authority Budget Office as the Independent Office of Public Authority Accountability, with power to scrutinize hundreds of authorities statewide, including the Long Island Power and Metropolitan Transportation authorities.
Spitzer also called for more accountability from authority boards, and a restructuring of the Public Authorities Control Board by adding a representative of the state comptroller and eliminating the requirement that votes be unanimous before action can be taken. The five-member board has sparked controversy by approving the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn but nixing a West Side stadium in Manhattan.
The Governor's plan lacks teeth compared to legislation just adopted by the State Senate:
That bill would give subpoena power to the Authority Budget Office, require authorities to submit some contracts for review by the comptroller, limit borrowing and seek legislative approval before creating subsidiaries. None of those provisions are in Spitzer's legislation.
"There is less accountability than what we are offering," Flanagan said. "They [the governor] just aren't interested in real reform."
NoLandGrab: Amongst good-government advocates, Atlantic Yards is considered one of the best reasons for public authorities reform. The run up to the approval of the project included the MTA's granting of development rights for the railyards to the low bidder, Forest City Ratner, and the project's financing being approved by three men in a room. None of the above (except Forest City Ratner, presumably) ever saw a real business plan for the project.
It's hard to know if the Governor's suggested reforms would have changed anything in the past three years. The State Comptroller could have taken a hard look if he wanted; the MTA justified the bid by considering "track improvements" (the tracks wouldn't have to be "improved" if they didn't have to be moved to accomodate an arena); and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver declared he was satisfied with the numbers from KPMG's report, even though the report fell well short of being a real financial plan.
Posted by lumi at 6:27 AM
May 24, 2007
Alleged Underground Railroad Home in Brooklyn On Market for $4.5 Million
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle
The plot thickens in Brooklyn's other land grab, as someone puts Joy Chatel's home on the market:
Chatel doesn’t own the home she’s been living in for over a decade, which would make it difficult for her to fight an eminent domain ruling. She signed the deed over to her mother in 2004, and her mother, Arnelda Monroe, gave outside investor Errol Bartholomew 50 percent ownership of the property the following year to stave off foreclosure proceedings, according to city records and a source close to the issue.
...
Chatel said last week that her attorney, Angelyn Johnson, listed the property without asking, and suggested that Bartholomew was involved.The attorney said Chatel and her mother both wanted to sell the Duffield Street property, adding that Chatel suggested the asking price be set at $3.9 million.
“The mother wants it sold,” said Johnson. “At this point they’ll do anything because they’re kind of in a pickle.” Johnson said the home could be in foreclosure again.
Chatel responded, “I never told [Johnson] anything about my house.”
Johnson, who maintains a law practice on Court Street, was charged in February by the Queens District Attorney’s Office as part of a six-person deed fraud ring, and is still under investigation for other frauds she may have committed, according to the office.
And Everett Samuel, who handles Bartholomew’s business affairs regarding this property, said she had nothing to do with it being put on the market.
Beverly Branche, the real estate agent, confirmed that Johnson gave her permission to put the property on the market. Branche said there’s been a lot of interest in the property, but wouldn’t say if an offer had been made.
Posted by lumi at 9:50 PM
OK, B63 Reroute Plan Won't Happen as Announced
Brooklyn Downtown Star
By Norman Oder
Yup, you heard it right, public agencies are taking their orders from Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner, that is, until people started asking questions. Norman Oder first broke this story on his blog, Atlantic Yards Report.
Last month, the Star reported plans by New York City Transit (NYCT) to revise service on the northbound B63 bus route in response to the demapping of Fifth Avenue between Flatbush and Atlantic avenues for the Atlantic Yards project. The change would happen "in the near future," according to NYCT's Lois Tendler. Because the street would be closed, Tendler said in a letter to Brooklyn Community Board 6, the bus would not continue to Atlantic and make a left to go downtown, but instead make a left on Flatbush. It was supposed to be implemented this Sunday, May 27.
Well, it's not happening this week, and from what officials have said so far, it seems that the transit agency was paying more attention to Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner than to other involved agencies.
Posted by lumi at 9:33 PM
One Yards Suit Gets Boot, But the Big Ones Remain
Brooklyn Downtown Star
By Norman Oder
The less far-reaching of the two eminent domain lawsuits challenging the Atlantic Yards development faced a setback in court last week, as a state trial court judge-as he had strongly hinted in oral arguments on March 13-ruled that the case belonged instead in the Appellate Division, where challenges to eminent domain determinations are heard, but without the legal muscle that could be mustered in trial court.
This case involves 13 tenants in two rent-stabilized buildings in the planned arena block of the Atlantic Yards footprint, at 624 Pacific Street and 473 Dean Street. Represented by attorney George Locker, they argued that their landlord, Forest City Ratner, should be subject to the tougher regulations of the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR), rather than remain free to convey the buildings to ESDC for "friendly condemnations.
It is separate from two pending cases organized by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) and allies: a federal court challenge to eminent domain and a state court challenge to the state's environmental review of Atlantic Yards.
Posted by lumi at 9:32 PM
Eminent Domainia
Sacramento Bee, Eminent domain measure unveiled
California wrestles with eminent domain reform:
California governments would no longer be able to take homes for use in a private development, according to changes in eminent domain law proposed by an assemblyman this morning.
But critics say the constitutional amendment and bill by Assemblyman Hector De La Torre, D-South Gate, don't go nearly far enough to protect property owners from eminent domain abuses.
...
De La Torre's Assembly Constitutional Amendment 8 would also prohibit governments from seizing a small business for a private development, unless it was part of a plan to get rid of blight and the business was given the chance to take part.De La Torre conceded that his plan would not rule out all use of eminent domain for use in private developments.
NoLandGrab: De La Torre has a point — just listen to the following reports from Missouri.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Centene case hits high court today
Get this, Forest City Ratner isn't the only corporation in the US that wants to expand next door and is having the government declare the property blighted so that it can be taken by eminent domain.
Centene Corp., which wants to expand its corporate headquarters in Clayton, is proposing to build an office and retail complex in the southwest corner of Hanley Road between Forsyth Boulevard and Carondelet Avenue. The development in Clayton's downtown business district would feature two connected all-glass office towers, with high-end shops and restaurants, parking and outdoor public spaces including a plaza and garden with a waterfall. Centene has assembled a group of internationally known architects and developers to plan the project.
Controversy has followed the development almost from the beginning. The Clayton Board of Aldermen in December 2005 declared the existing properties in the redevelopment area "blighted" and gave Centene the power to use eminent domain to acquire the land if necessary. Clayton officials and some local business leaders have strongly supported the development, saying it would bring jobs, economic development and vitality to Clayton and the region.
Property owners Daniel Sheehan, David Danforth and Debbie Pyzyk say they believe it's wrong to force out one private property owner for another for a commercial enterprise.
Rolla Daily News, Mo. Supreme Court considers whether there’s 'blight’ in Clayton
A redevelopment company Tuesday urged the state Supreme Court to approve the condemnation of buildings in a generally wealthy St. Louis suburb on the grounds that they are blighted.
The city of Clayton in 2005 declared the downtown buildings blighted so they could be seized through eminent domain as part of a project by Centene Plaza Redevelopment Corp.
Last month, a state appellate court said it would have ruled against the developer but instead transferred the case to the Supreme Court.
Most Supreme Court judges on Tuesday questioned whether the condemned properties truly qualified as blighted.
St. Louis Post Dispatch, Property owner wins eminent domain case in Arnold
Here's an interesting ruling in Illinois:
Dr. Homer Tourkakis will be able to keep his dental office here, even though the city has condemned the property to help make room for the large Arnold Commons shopping center, a Jefferson County circuit judge ruled Monday.
"It is the court's opinion that government has the inherent power to take private property by eminent domain for true public purposes," Judge M. Edward Williams wrote in his three-page ruling.
"These uses would include the construction of roads, sewer systems, water lines and many others but most emphatically would not include the construction of a shopping center by a private developer as is the case here," the judge said.
AP, via WRAL.com, Eminent Domain Amendment Approved by NC House
NC voters will get a chance to rein in eminent domain abuse:
The House agreed Thursday to let North Carolina voters decide whether to change the state constitution to ensure the government could only condemn private property for a public use.
Queens Times Ledger, No eminent domain in Brooklyn
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn spokesperson and Atlantic Yards homeowner Dan Goldstein corrects the record:
In your article on eminent domain in Willets Point that appeared May 10, attorney Robert Goldstein said that Willets Point business owners who are reviewing their legal options "need not look further than the city's Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, where eminent domain was recently used to take property despite several lawsuits filed by area residents."
Mr. Goldstein is mistaken in three ways. The Atlantic Yards project is a state project, not the city's project.
The state has not moved yet to seize the property. Why? Because owners and tenants are currently in the Eastern District Federal Court of New York challenging the use of eminent domain for Bruce Ratner's project, alleging that its use is an abuse and violates the U.S. Constitution. That suit is very much alive.
I should know, I'm a homeowner-plaintiff in that lawsuit.
American Institute of Architects (AIA)
The Regional and Urban Design Committee of the AIA sent an email to their members this week with a link to a report on eminent domain:
Last year the Urban Land Institute (ULI) assembled a diverse group of architects, developers, lawyers, public officials, and others from around the country to meet with members of the ULI’s senior staff and fellows group to discuss the future of eminent domain. Participants thought responsible and equitable use of eminent domain was critical to pursuing several goals that are critical to the AIA, most notably
Revitalization of neighborhoods, Main streets, and downtowns * Smart growth and regional sustainability * Historic preservation * Economic vitality * Disaster recovery
Participants asked the ULI to prepare a thoughtful analysis to assess the issues that many raised related to eminent domain and indicate the appropriate uses for eminent domain and the right kinds of planning processes to support the decision to use eminent domain. The ULI commissioned a report by Doug Porter and the result is a guide that should be of value to any AIA member who is interested in the future of eminent domain. In particular, the report offers useful talking points that can assist AIA members in leading discussions on the role of eminent domain in their own communities.
Eminent Domain: An Important Tool for Community Revitalization (PDF)
Posted by lumi at 8:52 PM
Brooklyn Green Party Calls To Establish Community Control Of Local Boards
HotIndieNews.com
In the wake of City Councilmembers de Blasio and Yassky and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz’s purge of nine CB 6 members who voiced their opposition to the Atlantic Yards project, the Green Party of Brooklyn denounced the politically motivated purge and has called for more democracy in community board appointments.
"These folks have been serving their community by opposing the disastrous Atlantic Yards project," said Green Party of Brooklyn Chair Colby Hamilton. "Now we see how community-supported opposition is handled - it’s a political massacre."
Posted by lumi at 8:46 PM
DDDB PRESS RELEASE: Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards to Blame, in Part, For Looming Con Edison Record Rate Hike
During Project Approval State Said Atlantic Yards Would Not Significantly Impact Electrical Infrastructure
NEW YORK, NY— When your Con Edison electric bill goes up 17% to 36% you can thank Bruce Ratner and his Atlantic Yards project.
According to a NY1 news report about yesterday’s State Assembly hearing over a proposed Con Edison rate hike, it would be the largest rate hike Con Ed has ever proposed. And according to Con Ed officials the Atlantic Yards mega-project, is partly to blame. >From NY1’s report:
...Con Ed came before a State Assembly committee to explain the rate hike. Officials argued Wednesday the system is strapped and that massive projects like the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn will burden the system even more...
(emphasis added)
“New Yorkers can thank Bruce Ratner and his ‘Atlantic Yards’ project, in part, for what appears to be a looming record Con Ed rate hike,” said Develop Don’t Destroy spokesman Daniel Goldstein. “While New York taxpayers are forced to subsidize Forest City Ratner’s project so the developer can make enormous profits, the taxpayers are forced to pay again with a huge electric bill increase. You can be sure that nobody will subsidize those new bills.”
“When the State studied this very issue last year, when it came to Atlantic Yards and the electrical grid, they said, basically, ‘don’t worry. No problem.’ Clearly they were wrong and misleading the public” Goldstein said.
While the rate hike made news today, the states’ Atlantic Yards Environmental Impact Statement (which is currently under litigation) approved last year by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), determined that there would be no significant impact from the project on electricity infrastructure. The “Infrastructure” chapter of the State’s environmental review concluded that:
The proposed project would increase demands on electricity and gas. However, relative to the capacity of these systems and the current levels of service within New York City, these increases in demand would be insignificant. Improvements are also proposed by Consolidated Edison and Keyspan with respect to the local electric and gas distribution grids that would improve service to the project site. In addition, new electrical and gas lines are proposed within the beds of streets that would be reconstructed as part of the proposed project. It is therefore concluded that the demands of the proposed project would not result in a significant impact on the supplies of electricity and gas in the region or the City as a whole, and with the proposed improvement to the distribution network, no impact would occur locally with respect to electrical or gas utilities. For these reasons, the proposed project is not expected to significantly adversely impact energy systems.
(emphasis added)
#
Posted by lumi at 8:28 PM
Kinetics Paradigm Seeks Value Plays
Investors Business Daily
By Trang Ho
Here are some fund managers who are bullish on Forest City — never mind that the Nets are leaking like a sieve and Bruce Ratner is a serial abuser of eminent domain:
Kinetics Paradigm Fund invests in solid businesses whose success in the portfolio doesn't depend on short-term market swings.
The managers of the fund, led by Peter Doyle and Murray Stahl, most recently have been exploiting three areas showing remarkable success — global stock markets, industrial commodity producers and such successful investors as Warren Buffett and Carl Icahn.
...
Finally, Kinetics Paradigm invests with the most venerated investors by buying shares of their companies: Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, (BRKA) Carl Icahn's American Real Estate Partners, (ACP) Ian Cumming's Leucadia National, (LUK) Robert Harding's Brookfield Asset Management, (BAM) Edward Lampert's Sears Holdings (SHLD) and Albert Ratner's Forest City Enterprises. (FCEA)
Posted by lumi at 7:39 PM
TONIGHT: RATNERVILLE SINGOUT
featuring the Atomic Grind Show
Thursday, May 24, 9:30pm
Freddy's Bar & Backroom
485 Dean Street (at 6th Avenue)
Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
free admission
In the three-and-a-half years since Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project was announced, the surrounding communities have stood fast against plans for a superblock skyscraper development.
Musicians, as with any struggle, have done their share. On May 24th, singers who have written original works about the struggle against Ratner's project will stage the first Ratnerville Singout.
Hosted by the eclectic and powerful Atomic Grind Show, the Ratnerville Singout will feature rock, hip-hop, jazz, folk, reggae, worldbeat, blues and r&b songs -- the mix of Brooklyn music today.
Performers include:
Atomic Grind Show
Steve deSeve
Papa Dish
Jezra Kaye
Chris Owens
Roger Paz
John Pinamonti
RebelMart
Posted by lumi at 9:59 AM
Con Ed cites AY as boosting electricity cost, but Final EIS passed
Atlantic Yards Report
NY1 reported yesterday that Con Edison, in requesting the largest rate hike in its history, blamed, among other things, Atlantic Yards:
Con Ed came before a State Assembly committee to explain the rate hike. Officials argued Wednesday the system is strapped and that massive projects like the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn will burden the system even more. They say the rate hike would cover improvements to handle energy needs, some of which have already been made, but have not been fully paid for by customers.AM NY added more context:
Con Ed officials say increased development will push energy usage in most of New York City beyond capacity by 2011, unless certain infrastructure projects such as five new substations are completed.Now that doesn't mean that the utility wouldn't have the capacity to handle Atlantic Yards; it just means that the project is cited as a justification for increased expenditures and costs.
Norman Oder takes a quick peek at the Atlantic Yards Final Environmental Impact Statement to see what the official document says.
Posted by lumi at 9:50 AM
AY Will Increase Your Electric Bill. Shocking.
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn responds to news that large development projects such as Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards plan will increase rates, with customers holding the bag for the strain on the power grid:
Hey New York, Atlantic Yards is going to increase your Con Edison bill. NY1 is reporting that at a state assembly hearing on a record Con Ed rate hike, ConEd officials said that big projects such as "Atlantic Yards" are necessitating a rate hike that will be at least 17%.
But that's news to the Empires State Development Corporation. In the state's Enivronmental Impact Study for Atlantic Yards, completed last December and now under litigation, the Infrastructure Chapter (11) stated:
The proposed project would increase demands on electricity and gas. However, relative to the capacity of these systems and the current levels of service within New York City, these increases in demand would be insignificant.
Posted by lumi at 9:46 AM
Tension's High At Assembly Hearing Over Con Ed Rate Hike
NY1
By Michael Scotto
More proof that all roads lead to Ratnerville:
Con Edison says a proposed rate hike would jack up New Yorkers utility bill by 17 percent, but one angry Queens politician argues the increase is more like 36 percent.
No matter what the figure, both sides acknowledge the rate hike is the largest Con Ed has ever put forward.
...
Con Ed came before a State Assembly committee to explain the rate hike. Officials argued Wednesday the system is strapped and that massive projects like the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn will burden the system even more.
article/video (dialup/broadband)
Posted by lumi at 9:39 AM
Breaking News: City lied about UR houses
State Historic Preservation Office Not Contacted Regarding Eligibility to National Register of Historic Places
Council Member James Calls for Halt to any Seizure of Property
Queen's Crap has the goods on the latest missteps surrounding "Brooklyn's other land grab," Duffield St.
Council Member James has