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April 9, 2008
PUBLIC SUBSIDIES: "We still need more!"
Two days ago, Atlantic Yards Report blogger Norman Oder broke the story that Forest City Ratner executive Charles Ratner told investment analysts that they "still need more" public subsidies for the highly controversial Atlantic Yards project.
Here is some reaction from a range of watchdoggies:
Field of Schemes, Ratner: We want more arena subsidies
As [Norman] Oder notes in a phone conversation with FoS, the $305 million Ratner mentions is all direct cash outlays, implying that the Ratners are seeking more up-front money, not tax breaks for affordable housing or the like. Given that the rest of the project is on the brink of collapse and the arena cost is up to a staggering $950 million, it wouldn't be exactly surprising. Stay tuned for further developments.
Ground Report, Greedy In Brooklyn: Well-connected Developer Seeks Still More Subsidies For Brooklyn Arena Scheme
It is not suprising that Forest City Ratner, which was a partner of the New York Times in an eminent domain scheme for the newspaper's new headquarters, should need more money. As I noted in my article "Atlantic Yards Eminent Domain Abuse Scheme Confronts Reality" [http://www.groundreport.com/US/Atlantic-Yards-Eminent-Domain-Abuse-Scheme-Confron] which links eminent domain with the money issue and economy in general, the expansion of the money supply encourages malinvestments. Similarly, the availability of subsidies and eminent domain encourage uneconomic schemes.
The Atlantic Yards real estate scheme is legalized theft. The Empire State Development Corporation is a body whose mission is legalized theft. It should be abolished. The taxpayers must be protected from subsidizing the theft of others.
Save Our Land, if you sound out "FCR" phonetically, what do you get?
A watchdog in Cleveland has seen this all before:
As Roldo predicted, the Ratners--in full FCR mode over at Forest City Ratner--are trying to extort still more from Brooklyn. Did you ever think we'd all be a lot better off without them--FCR, FCE, FCM? They're tanking Cleveland's mass-transit hub at Tower City; Stark's bombing in Crocker Park. I see still another disgusting insider replay coming with this Medical Mart nonsense.
NoLandGrab: The lesson from Forest City in Cleveland is that throwing more money at or reconfiguring a bad project never turns it into good project, never.
Posted by lumi at April 9, 2008 5:01 AM