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July 30, 2009
HEADLINES: Atlantic Yards Hearing
The Wonkster [Gotham Gazette], Pols and Activists Blast Atlantic Yards Project
“It’s time to put the proposed Atlantic Yards project out of its misery. The end is near. It’s time to engage in smart and strategic development,” said Councilmember Letitia James, who represents the area where Atlantic Yards is planned to go. After reciting a litany of the city’s crises — “rising unemployment, overcrowded schools” and more — James asked, “with all of these issues, with all of these concerns, can someone please tell me why we are still considering the public financing of an arena for a private company?”
NY1 News, Scaled-Down Atlantic Yards Still Draw Huge Controversies [with video]
Those against the project protested the public hearing, saying renderings of the new proposal were not yet released. They also argued that the project will push low- and middle-income earners out of the area.
"This is something that has been created by people that do not come from the neighborhoods that we come from," said local Faye Moore. "This is a development by people that want to move the working class."
New York Observer, Pro-Atlantic Yards Rally and A Question of Place
Reporter Marianna Faynshteyn appears to have mistaken yesterday's "hearing" for a build-it-now rally, which is understandable, given how rigged these "hearings" really are.
Decked out in a red that would scoff at being labeled “apple” or “ketchup,” a brigade of Atlantic Yards supporters from ACORN marched out of the auditorium of Brooklyn's Polytechnic University on Wednesday evening during a pro-Atlantic Yards rally. In the lobby of the auditorium stood opponents of Bruce Ratner's mammoth downtown Brooklyn development, some wearing yellow T-shirts.
After several no-shows to the auditorium's podium, a 16-year-old African-American woman approached, announcing herself as an Erasmus High School student and proclaiming, “I am Brooklyn,” which sparked applause. Not long after, a middle-aged man, white, dressed in a suit less confrontational than the traditional black, read out to the audience the differences between a good development and a bad one, concluding, with his background in urban planning, that Atlantic Yards fit in the latter category.
Wednesday evening's rally in favor of the project was like that: a bit haphazard—and sliced between largely African-American proponents and white opponents.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn Broadside: New Atlantic Yards Hearings Draw Protests, Pro and Con
A person attending the public meetings three years ago happening to walk by would have had a strong sense of deja vu. Many of the same people standing in the same place holding the same signs opposing the plan were there again. Union supporters, largely beefy men, who support the plan, holding the same signs, also stood in the same place.
But there has been one major change: This is now largely a public plan run by both the state and the city. The state will own most of the land on which the project will be built, and that land will be leased to Forest City Ratner for appropriate development.
NoLandGrab: Holt's right about the deja vu, but wrong about Atlantic Yards being "largely a public plan." And it certainly wouldn't be "appropriate development."
SportsBusiness Journal, Facility Notes [subscription required]
In N.Y., Pearson & Durkin report critics yesterday "ripped into" the Empire State Development Corp. (ESDC) for allowing Forest City Ratner (FCR) Chair & CEO and Nets Owner Bruce Ratner to "move forward without producing renderings of the new" Barclays…
Posted by eric at July 30, 2009 6:20 PM