« LUXE SUITES SOUR | Main | A second look at the Kucinich hearing, the Yankee Stadium controversy, and the future of the Atlantic Yards arena »
September 20, 2008
Letter to the Editor from Alan Rosner
Linewaiters' Gazette
To the Editor,I am writing to amplify Susan Metz’s letter “Your Role in Atlantic Yards” (AY), from the Linewaiters Gazette of 7/17/08. The Atlantic Yards (AY) project needs to be completely rethought, and this time with community input. And, yes, the Atlantic Yards Governance Act (AYGA) she talks about will confer legitimacy on a project that has violated both established process and all logic.
AY was promised as a two-phase project that would be completed in an amazing 10 years. Now, just Phase I has been granted 12 years for its completion. The project’s Phase II residential housing portion might then follow, albeit without any end date. For now what we mostly get are a sports arena and acres of “interim” parking lots. Gone are the “benefits”, the landscaped public open spaces and other amenities, the promised jobs, and of course the supposedly “affordable” housing.
Most importantly, with only a sports arena and years of “interim” parking there is no compelling reason to build Ratner’s arena at this location. The State rejected any alternative to AY that did not include both an arena and housing. Well, now where’s the housing?
What is needed is to acknowledge that an arena and 5 to 15 years of “interim” parking lots will have significant adverse impacts that no is talking about. They would include the “Developers Blight” already caused by blocks of demolished buildings; the displacement of the owners and tenants and businesses from the project’s footprint; disastrous traffic dislocations from parking lot entry & egress, along with all the cruising for free street parking; the project’s increased costs and subsidies; the loss of direct connections between the arena and the Atlantic Avenue Station; storm water run off from the parking lots without promised Phase II mitigations; the possibility of “interim” electronic signs blazing out basketball scores to cars being parked & gridlocked westbound drivers all down Atlantic Avenue….
Unfortunately while the courts are deciding who gets to control 22 contiguous acres right in the heart of Brooklyn, they are addressing AY as it was approved in 2006 and not what it has become. Waiting on the courts to decide is an abdication of the State’s responsibility to govern in the public’s best interest.
So take Susan’s advice and call or write your local elected officials, and/or Governor Paterson, to demand that this “New” but not improved project gets an honest review. Brooklyn deserves something better than this corporate land grab; a land grab that over the last four years has already blighted so much of our neighborhood.
AY’s massive impacts and minimal benefits in a time of financial contraction may yet force smarter and more contextual development. We can hope that the State takes a hard look at what AY has become - but we can also act to help make that happen.
Respectfully,
Alan Rosner
Note: Here’s a link to a letter in the Brooklyn Paper that addresses the need for a new look at this project: http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/31/28/gk2801--letters.html
Posted by amy at September 20, 2008 2:46 PM