« Atlantic Yards Report Friday Hangovers | Main | Eminent Domain: Let the Public Beware! »
December 5, 2009
Atlantic Yards Report Super Saturday
It's a rainy day today in Brooklyn. A perfect excuse to relax and take in the Atlantic Yards report.
Abatement: the simple way to remove blight
Sometimes, the simplest answer is the best.
Urban design expert David Sucher, commenting on the Appellate Division decision blocking the state's use of eminent domain for the Columbia University expansion, observes:
If you are really concerned with blight, “abate” it
There is another tool which government has to control “blight.” It doesn’t cost nearly as much as purchasing the land and so far as I understand, it can be very very effective. It’s called abatement. There is little doubt that a local government can use abatement if it wants to.
Of course the standard for forcing someone to abate the nuisance they are creating requires some real facts and not merely hand-waving claims. So it is not as useful for institutions and organizations which wish to get land cheap or without having to bother with capitalism.
Manifest destiny, in West Harlem and Prospect Heights
From a New York Times profile today of Nick Sprayregen, the winning (so far) main plaintiff in the challenge to eminent domain for the Columbia University expansion:
He pulled out a copy of the inaugural address by Columbia’s president, Lee C. Bollinger, in 2002, and read several passages. In one, Mr. Bollinger described the university’s need to expand and said, “I will do everything in my power to build this new Columbia.”
“That almost sounds like it’s coming from a religious figure,” Mr. Sprayregen said. “Do they think this is fallow land with no one on it, and they’re settlers and there are a bunch of illiterate Indians here and it’s their God-given responsibility to tame us and take control?”
It also sounds a lot like Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner's statement, upon the December 2003 announcement of the AY plan: "We are going to get the Nets to Brooklyn if it’s the last thing I do."
So, how to sort out the tension between an Appellate Division decision denying the Empire State Development Corporation's (ESDC) use of eminent domain for the Columbia University expansion and a Court of Appeals decision enabling the ESDC's use of eminent domain for Atlantic Yards?
"We have a little bit of a messy situation right now," observed Patricia (Patty) Salkin, Director of the Government Law Center of Albany Law School and author of the Law of the Land blog, on yesterday's Capitol Pressroom, a daily one-hour public radio news magazine broadcast from Albany. (The segment begins at about 14:33 of the show.)
While she wasn't ready to say that the Columbia decision would be reversed on appeal, she did suggest that loose standards to determine blight, allowing the inclusion of cracked sidewalks--which, I'd pointed out, were also cited in the Atlantic Yards Blight Study (right)--would prompt a new legislative look at eminent domain.
There have been periodic bills and hearings, including a state Senate hearing in September 2008, but no action. In fact, a New York State Bar Association Task Force in 2007 called for a state commission on eminent domain, but there was no follow-up.
Read the rest of this post for a discussion on what the New York State Court of Appeals may do when the ESDC appeals this week's decision against the use of eminent domain on behalf of Columbia University. Also covered are public opinion on eminent domain and what state legislation might be forthcoming to tighten up the standards for declaring blight.
Has FCR "refuted" the claim that the naming-rights deal was cut in half?
According to Sports Business Daily, the Nets Refute Claim That Barclays Naming-Rights Deal Cut In Half, as I and others reported yesterday.
The rest of the story is subscription-only, but yesterday Forest City Ratner spokesman Joe DePlasco claimed that the agreement includes "the arena, team and hospitality assets."
Maybe it hasn't been cut in half, but there's no reason to think it adds up to $20 million a year. In other words, they may be saying that recent reports are imprecise, but they're changing the subject by not answering the more important question: what the deal is worth.
NoLandGrab: < sarcasm > We always depend on Ratner flack DePlasco to tell us the real story < /sarcasm >.
Bloomberg: the public has a right to know about public monies (when it comes to the DA's office)
Take each instance of "DA" from this quote from Mayor Mike Bloomberg and replace it with "Bruce Ratner".
"The DA comes to us every year for his budget," Bloomberg continued. "How are we supposed to know what his budgets needs are when they're sitting on tens of millions of dollars. Monies we give to the DA are monies we could use for other things if they're not needed.... This is the public's monies, and nobody--no agency--has a right to hide what they do."
When Norman Oder tries to find out how much money is being handed over to the developer here's what happens:
But when I last year asked via a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request why the city had added $105 million in subsidies for Atlantic Yards, I was stonewalled.
Posted by steve at December 5, 2009 11:59 AM