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August 6, 2009
Atlantic Yards day at the Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Two Atlantic Yards pieces from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
Mayors, Brooklyn, and Atlantic Yards
Henrik Krogius reminisces about the days when City Hall didn't care about development in Brooklyn and can't understand why Brooklynites aren't as appreciative as he is of Mayor Bloomberg and Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner.
The resistance to change is nowhere more evident than in the opposition to Atlantic Yards, a project that has been strongly supported by Bloomberg. That project, now facing a possibly drastic change in its architectural character, if not in its social and financial goals, has entered a new phase after years of delay.
That the early excitement over Atlantic Yards has gone out of it there’s no question. If a much inferior project should be what results, the opponents will have themselves to thank for the effect of all the lawsuits and other roadblocks they raised against the plan as it was. Atlantic Yards was to have been the crowning achievement of probably the world’s most famous living architect, Frank Gehry. But the cost escalation brought on by the years of delay, together with the economic slump that developed in the course of the delay, finally led developer Bruce Ratner to dismiss so expensive an architect. And, indeed, Ratner himself is now taking a subordinate role to New York State, the ultimate owner of the railyard site and, through its Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), effectively the project’s developer.
NoLandGrab: The idea that "Ratner himself is now taking a subordinate role to NY State" is wholly fantastic. When the timetable and construction are determined by Forest City Ratner and important inquiries to the ESDC are often referred back to Ratner, it's clear which way the chain of command is running.
A Better Way to Build
Raanan Geberer thinks that the Atlantic Yards take-home message to developers is that the project should have been designed with consideration of the plans of the existing residents and property owners.
[T]he project has been continuously in court during the last few years. Much has been demolished, but nothing built. And the project has created a growing, noisy opposition movement.
What can we learn from this? Maybe that one shouldn’t go about a project in the wrong way.
...
It would have been better, I think, if Forest City Ratner had done a survey of the area where he wanted to build, identifying which property owners wanted to sell and which didn’t, then designed his project around that reality, not around a fantasy world.
NoLandGrab: The situation isn't that simple. Atlantic Yards is unique — by superceding the existing local zoning with a state zoning override, the Empire State Development Corporation is ensuring that Bruce Ratner, not existing property owners, will benefit from more profitable change in density and use. So, it's hard to say that some of the property owners who eventually sold under threat of eminent domain would still have done so under the common scenario of a regular zoning change.
Posted by lumi at August 6, 2009 6:08 AM