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June 27, 2009
Atlantic Yards Tottering
Castle Watch Daily
Despite recent moves by the MTA and ESDC to sweeten the sweetheart deal with Prospect Heights blighter Bruce Ratner, this article explains how the proposed Atlantic Yards project is far from a "done deal".
The Atlantic Yards project is inching towards total collapse even as it continues to be propped up on dozens of gigantic government-sponsored crutches. One of those crutches includes eminent domain, but the problems facing the Forest City Ratner redevelopment project won’t be fixed by condemnations.
When megadeveloper Bruce Ratner bought the Nets he pledged not only to move the NBA team out of New Jersey and into Brooklyn but also build an entire neighborhood around his proposed arena. The neighborhood was to be designed by celebrity architect Frank Gehry and was to include thousands of units of affordable housing. Ratner apparently did not think the fact that a neighborhood already existed at Atlantic Yards would matter too much. And he had good reason to believe so, due to New York’s horrendous eminent domain laws, which makes it nearly impossible for property owners to have an opportunity to defend what rightfully belongs them. However, the community in Brooklyn, led by resident Daniel Goldstein, has tried every possible legal argument in the courts to overcome Ratner’s use of state power for his own personal benefit.
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The ESDC this week, as expected, approved the revised plans. However, Ratner’s cost-cutting measures seem to have been a quixotic adventure, as the costs of the project have increased by nearly another billion to $4.9 billion. And some local officials think that the promised affordable housing may go the way of Frank Gehry, too.
State and local officials continue to scramble to approve various measures because they’re on a deadline. If Ratner does not sell $586 million in bonds for the arena by the end of the year, those bonds lose their IRS tax exemption. Without the ability to obtain the tax-exempt financing the project could finally collapse.
Posted by steve at June 27, 2009 8:15 AM