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November 22, 2007
Hypocrisy in Coney
The Brooklyn Paper, Editorial
Indeed, Atlantic Yards supporters who are now foes of the mayor’s Coney Island plan pretend to be blind to the many similarities between the administration’s approach to both mega-projects:
In both cases, the government will use the threat of eminent domain to get existing landowners to sell.
In both cases, the financial details of the project are cloaked in secrecy, hidden from the very public that will ultimately pay for them.
In both cases, opponents are tarred as merely being part of the Not In My Back Yard crowd, as if raising reasonable questions is a crime.
In both cases, the government has too cozy a relationship to the hand-picked developer. At Atlantic Yards, that was Bruce Ratner. At Coney Island, the existing landowner, Sitt, is being tossed aside so that the mayor can bring in whomever he chooses. It is unclear whether the public will have any say in that process.
In both cases, there is ample opportunity for the area to develop organically, without a top-down, master-planned scheme. It was already happening in Prospect Heights, the supposedly “blighted” area where brownstones sell for more than $1 million. And it could have happened in Coney Island, if Sitt was given a chance to send his proposal through the normal public-review process.
Posted by lumi at November 22, 2007 4:36 AM