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August 15, 2009
Bloomberg’s Reign of Neighborhood Destruction: Atlantic Yards as Poster Child
Fed Up
By Daniel Goldstein
Mayor Bloomberg's failed development strategy in general, and the proposed Atlantic Yards project in particular, is the subject of this article by Develop Don't Destroy's spokesman.
And for six years he has been attempting yet another publicly subsidized professional sports facility—Forest City Ratner’s Barclays Center Arena (part of the gigantic and embattled Atlantic Yards development proposal in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn).
In June the Independent Budget Office (IBO) testified at a State Senate hearing that the Barclays Center Arena, if built, would be a money loser for New York City. Yet the Mayor, who has told us that only his firm financial hand can guide this City, still supports and pushes for the money losing white elephant Ratner wants to build.
On June 24th he pressured the MTA Board into approving a new sweetheart land rights deal for Forest City Ratner. Just after the MTA had been bailed out, purportedly fiscally prudent Bloomberg pressured the Board to accept $20 million up front and $80 million over 22 years from Ratner for the rights to the valuable 9-acre rail yard portion of the Atlantic Yards site in the heart of Brooklyn. Never mind that the yards had been appraised at $214.5 million and Ratner had originally agreed to pay $100 million in cash at closing, after a non-competitive, sham of a bidding process.
Sole-source, no-bid contracts and cronyism for a money-losing, publicly funded arena do not demonstrate sound economic stewardship.
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When Bloomberg overturned the twice-voted for term limits law it was not a surprise to anyone paying attention to the Atlantic Yards saga. Because back in 2003 Mayor Bloomberg unilaterally overrode New York City’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) taking the decision-making power over Atlantic Yards away from Community Boards, City Planning and the City Council, and allowing a complete zoning override, thus fostering billionaire crony Bruce Ratner’s land grab. Overturning term limits was just another action in a long line of anti-democratic, strong-arm tactics.
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Bloomberg has taken many steps to remake the city and its many neighborhoods in his vision of a cleansed playground for the well off. And how best to drive out the unwanted? Eminent domain is a handy tool to do that. He has wielded it with Columbia University’s expansion, the Willets Point rezoning, Downtown Brooklyn rezoning, in East Harlem, Bronx Terminal Market and, of course, for the Atlantic Yards project. Eminent domain, of course, is the government’s right to take private property for a public use. But over and over, under Bloomberg, it has been used to take private property from owners and tenants to transfer it to private interests for private purposes.
With a mayoral election approaching, Goldstein reminds New Yorkers of the opportunity to gain better develoment policies for the city.
And for the people of New York who have tried to challenge the various abuses of eminent domain under the Bloomberg reign, what does he have to say? He says that we can’t let one little guy stand in the way of progress.
He’s right, we can’t let this one little guy stand in the way of progress, and that is why he’s got to go. When crony capitalism in the name of overdevelopment, sports playpens for billionaires and excessive, cancerous growth is considered “progress” we know we’re being lied to.
Posted by steve at August 15, 2009 7:32 AM