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February 27, 2009
Mayor Bloomberg Regurgitates Ratner Hype While Ignoring Court's Challenge
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
Here's what Mayor Bloomberg had to say today about the court ruling:
...
"The Atlantic Yards project will create thousands of jobs and generate badly-needed tax revenue. The court’s unanimous affirmation today that the review and approvals processes were comprehensive and properly completed is a big step towards the start of construction."**
Here's what the court's ruling had to say about elected folks, such as the Mayor:
..."While we do not agree with petitioners' legal arguments, we understand those arguments to be made largely as proxies for very legitimate concerns as to the effect of a project of such scale upon the face and social fabric of the area in which it is to be put. Those concerns, however, have relatively little to do with the project's legality and nearly everything to do with its socio-economic and aesthetic desirability, matters upon which we may not pass. To the extent that the fate of this multi-billion dollar project remains, in an increasingly forbidding economy, a matter of social and political volition, the controlling judgments as to its merits are the province of the policy-making branches of government, not the courts." (Emphasis added.)
That sounds like a challenge to the Mayor and other elected officials to do more than simply accept that legal Ts were crossed and legal Is were dotted. That is the purview of the court. The Mayor's purview is sound policy. We wonder, with great concern, what the sound policy is that underlies the Atlantic Yards proposal, that underlies a publicly-subsidized billlion dollar arena in the midst of the Great Recession. An arena which, by the way, would be a financial loss for the City. We wonder what the merits are and who, if anyone, is judging them outside of Forest City Ratner spin.
** Note well that the Mayor's release makes no mention of housing of any kind—market or affordable. Those, of course, are on the backburner, and the pilot light is flickering.
Posted by steve at February 27, 2009 6:30 AM