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October 20, 2009
It came from the Blogosphere...
rumur.com, blah blah blog part deux
On Wed Oct 14th, when 40 members of the community fighting the project gathered together to take a bus to Albany to witness a court hearing about the use of eminent domain for this project, it was important for our camera to be on the bus as we needed to capture the community as it gathered together. Today I was thinking a lot about the idea of community in light of last week’s hearing. At this point, 6 years into our story, much of the physical community of the project site has been decimated. Buildings have been torn down and hundreds of residents have been moved away. Yet the crowd that gathered to ride that bus is probably more connected now than before this fight began. These people constitute a very real and physical community despite the fact that they don’t all live in apartments and houses next door to each other. They are connected by the powerful belief that the government, like the medical profession, should do no harm. They are bound by their opposition to this project- they see each other at functions related to that opposition and they connect daily through email, blogs, and phone.
As stated above, we don’t consider ourselves activist filmmakers, setting out to make a film that argues for a specific point of view. We absolutely did not start this film project with a preconceived notion of what we would capture. However, after only a few days of following characters, and interviewing the major supporters of the project, it became pretty clear to us that the film would follow those fighting the project rather than those working to make it happen.
Curbed, Atlantic Yards: Cure for Insomnia?
With 873 new lawsuits filed in the past 30 seconds (estimated), Atlantic Yards Report's Norman Oder wonders if the lack of media coverage lately is the result of Atlantic Yards lawsuit fatigue. He then brings up several valid points regarding the project's alleged timetable and the lack of a Supplemental Environmental Impact Sta—zzzzzzzzzz.
Bloomberg.com, Stocks on the Move
Forest City Enterprises Inc. (FCE/A US) fell 12 percent, the most since May 14, to $10.91. The developer of the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, New York, said it got preliminary, non-binding commitments from a majority of its current 14-member bank group to participate in a renewed revolving credit facility. Also, the company announced $150.3 million in refinancings and loan extensions.
Noticing New York, Oral Arguments On the Atlantic Yards Eminent Domain Case Before the Court of Appeals: ESDC Knows Blight and Economic Development are Pretextual
During the hearing, some of the judges indicated via their questioning that they didn’t know where the restriction was or should be on taking property for “public use” if economic development was the stated (pretextual) goal. If this is the lack of restriction that would be possible in New York State when a developer initiates and without restriction draws lines around property on which he wants to get a monopoly via eminent domain, then New York protections against abuse will surely be far more lax than envisioned even by the Kelo court’s opinion.
The Local [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill], The Day: Meetings, Readings, Flu Shots, Governor
Yet another Atlantic Yards lawsuit was filed yesterday, this one by 20 community groups, notably Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn and the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods. The suit challenges the Empire State Development Commission’s approval last month of a modified version of the $4.9 billion plan.
The suit, filed in state Supreme Court, charges that in its haste to approve the project to help Forest City Ratner meet an end-of-year deadline for bonds to be issued, ESDC failed to review it the way the law requires it to. The whole shebang is laid out by Atlantic Yards Report here.
Posted by eric at October 20, 2009 6:35 PM