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February 26, 2010
It came from the Blogosphere...
Streetsblog, Forest City Ratner: Carlton Avenue Bridge Closed Until 2012
New information did surface about reopening the Carlton Avenue bridge: Forest City Ratner has shifted the timetable again. This missing piece of the Prospect Heights/Fort Greene street grid -- a critical link for cyclists who use the Manhattan Bridge -- was originally expected to be rebuilt two years after closing in January 2008, with Forest City facing a three-year deadline to complete the work before incurring penalties. Now, Oder reports, the reconstructed bridge is unlikely to open until 2012 at the earliest, according to Forest City's Jane Marshall.
Largely unmentioned at the meeting was Forest City's intention to construct more than a thousand "interim" surface parking spaces on the site, mostly to store vehicles belonging to their employees and construction workers. Since all this new parking could sit around generating traffic and blighting the landscape for quite some time, neighborhood groups want to know how exactly how much would be constructed, and how it will be priced and managed. They didn't get any answers on Wednesday.
Brownstoner, Carlton Avenue Bridge Closed Through at Least 2012
The Volokh Conspiracy, Nicole Gelinas on Blight Condemnations in New York
Nicole Gelinas has an interesting article on the expansive use of “blight condemnations” in New York. As she points out, New York courts have defined blight so broadly that virtually any area can be designated as such, and then condemned. This has created massive opportunities for abuse by politically connected interest groups who can use eminent domain to get the government to take property they covet.
Gideon's Trumpet, Is “Central Planning” Behind Urban Redevelopment?
Many — possibly most — redevelopment decisions are made by individual developers — New York’s Bruce Ratner being the proverbial Exibit A — who identify an urban area that seems to them to be a likely spot for construction of a lucrative project, and then proceed to persuade the local government to get the land in question for them. It is not unusual to see cases where a developer approaches a land owner and offers to buy the latter’s property, but when negotiations fail to produce a deal, the local municipality miraculously declares the subject property to be “blighted,” and takes it for redevelopment by — who else? — the developer who was unable to acquire it in a consensual transaction.
Reason Hit & Run, "Eminent Domain as Central Planning"
Streetsblog, Community Benefits Agreements: What Do They Mean for Livable Streets?
In New York, however, the history of community benefits agreements is stained with failures. The CBAs crafted here are often held up as models for what not to do, said Lavine. Millions of dollars that the Yankees promised to local organizations have never been distributed. In Brooklyn, the Atlantic Yards CBA has been criticized as little more than a fig leaf for the developer.
Lavine cited the lack of real community involvement in the negotiations of the Columbia, Atlantic Yards, and Yankee Stadium CBAs as undermining those agreements. "There have also been issues with people taking money from developers," she added. "That's certainly not a best practice."
Transcendentalist Television, Ed Sullivan On Acid
Ed Sullivan On Acid at Freddy’s Backroom, the longest running stand-up comedy show in Brooklyn has been on the verge of being shut down most of its run. What is threatening Freddy’s is the Brooklyn famed Atlantic Yards construction. And Freddy’s, a perfect Prospect Heights bar with creative graffiti all over the bathroom (above the hand dryer are dozens of suspected shooters of JFK) stands right in the way.
Posted by eric at February 26, 2010 5:21 PM