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June 24, 2008
Yes, in their backyards
NY Daily News Editorial
In its typically understated fashion, the Daily News (aka, Errol Louis) gloats on its editorial page about yesterday's Supreme Court boost for Atlantic Yards.
Opponents of the $4.2 billion Atlantic Yards project got unceremoniously stuffed yesterday by the U.S. Supreme Court. It was a fitting end to a grand legal hoax perpetrated by a handful of not-in-my-backyard naysayers.
The high court tossed the case without comment, adding to the legal defeats suffered by the development's foes. On the merits, their arguments were losers. But the merits had nothing to do with these court battles.
No, these were all about snarling an extraordinarily beneficial project, approved up and down by the city and state, in endless time-consuming litigation in the hope that delay might prove fatal. And four years of nonsense have at least been damaging.
Presented in headier times by builder Bruce Ratner, the Atlantic Yards plan was conceived as turning 22 down-at-the-heels acres in the heart of Brooklyn into the home of an arena for the pro-basketball Nets, plus 6,000 units of housing, much of it priced to be within financial reach of poor and middle-class New Yorkers.
Now, Ratner is facing the challenge of an economic downturn and tightened credit markets. And his victory in the Supreme Court over 11 - count them, 11 - holdout property owners may prove hollow. He says he's committed for the long term. Let's hope so, because the Atlantic Yards would be great for Brooklyn and the city as a whole.
NoLandGrab: "Four years of nonsense?" Has it been that long since the Daily News first opined in favor of Bruce Ratner's monolithic boondoggle? As far as we can see, the greatest damage has been that done to the News's reputation; the paper once prided itself on being the champion of the little guy.
And as far as a "grand legal hoax perpetrated by a handful of not-in-my-backyard naysayers," here's what Mr. Louis had to say recently about city plans to relocate a homeless-intake facility into his neighborhood:
"And that is why we must be prepared to go to war - with protests, lawsuits, the whole nine yards - to prevent the city from magnifying its proven incompetence into the collapse of an entire neighborhood."
Indeed!
Posted by eric at June 24, 2008 12:00 PM