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August 8, 2009
Rule for Ratner: Court of Appeals must not rewrite eminent-domain rules on Atlantic Yards
Daily News
This editorial, rife with what one could charitably call mistakes, shows why the those wishing responsible development for the Vanderbilt Yards have been forced to go to the courts. The legal system is forced to rely on facts more than the political system.
Read the whole, sorry mess for yourself -- but here're some correctives to some of the arguments:
After losing 25 state and federal court cases against the Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn, opponents of the project have launched their most insidious and potentially destructive legal battle to date.
Mistake: WTF? There have not been 25 court cases. And not all decisions have gone against AY opponents.
So desperate are they to block construction of an arena and 6,400 housing units on long-fallow land, they've asked the Court of Appeals to radically reinterpret the state Constitution.
Mistake: Nobody really knows when most of those 6,400 housing units might get built even if the project begins.
The court must reject the petition - must resist the temptation to establish, in an act of sweeping judicial activism, dramatically different standards for the use of emiment domain.
It should respect the findings of the federal courts, which have ruled New York's use of eminent domain to foster much-needed housing is well within the bounds of the U.S. Constitution.
Mistake: Don't look to Atlantic Yards to produce much housing anytime in the next, say, decade.
Developer Bruce Ratner's ambitious plan calls for plowing $4 billion into the neglected Prospect Heights neighborhood. Twenty-two blighted acres near Atlantic and Flatbush Aves. would be transformed with thousands of apartments - including 2,250 criticially needed affordable units - commercial buildings, a school, a health clinic and a new home for the Nets. The city would be the better for it.
Mistake: The project may cost more than $4 billion, but Bruce is depending on money from you and me to pay for it. And Prospect Heights is now suffering from blight created by the developer. Also: any commercial building is on hold for the foreseeable future and any school would be paid for by the city, not the developer. An arena for the Nets is acknowledged to be a money-loser.
Ratner has bought 85% of the land, but eminent domain may be needed for the few holdouts - who, by law, would receive fair value.
Missing fact: Ratner can appear generous with his buy-outs because of a $100 million public subsidy for this purpose.
Not-in-my-back-yard naysayers have dogged the project with suit after suit claiming the state is illegally giving away the store in subsidizing the project. Each frivolous claim has been tossed out of court. Now the Court of Appeals is their last hope. The only way they can win, as they state in court papers, is for the judges to ban eminent domain for this type of development - and others like it.
Note: Please, Daily News, show us how subsidizing a development whose benefits continue to disappear is anything but a giveaway for the developer.
Having taken the case, the court needs to act expeditiously, because Ratner is fighting to keep the project alive in a weak economy. Lippman must not allow the court to be drafted into a war of attrition by never-say-die opponents.
He and his colleagues must decide the case quickly. And they must make it, for the opponents, loss No. 26.
It's understandable that Bruce Ratner is in a rush. He wants to qualify for tax-free bonds before the end of the year so he can help himself to more taxpayer money. And what will be the benefit to the public for these subsidies? No cost-benefit analysis has ever been produced by the ESDC, the tool of the developer.
NoLandGrab: Is it possible that the Daily News outsourced this sorry excuse for an editorial so that its staff could leave early for a summer weekend?
Posted by steve at August 8, 2009 8:32 AM