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September 4, 2010
"Stealing the common from the goose": Henry Stern's compelling case against 15 Penn Plaza (and the glaring Atlantic Yards blind spot)
Atlantic Yards Report
Former Parks Commissioner Henry Stern was absent during the Atlantic Yards fight. He is now arguing against a variance being requested in Manhattan using much of the same reasoning as opponents of Atlantic Yards used.
Henry Stern, the former Parks Commissioner and founder of the watchdog group New York Civic, has written a compelling column, Gargantuan Tower Approved Two Blocks From King Kong, regarding the city's approval of 15 Penn Plaza, Vornado's fat skyscraper near Penn Station. (It's also on HuffPost, as The Great Giveaway.)
His point, relying on Community Board arguments, is that the issue is not accepting "change" or blocking a view from the Empire State Building, but whether a connected developer gets a set of variances to build 56% bigger than officially allowed.
(I referenced this point as well when I wrote about the issue on August 24, but could have emphasized it more.)
And his rhetoric is firm:
We believe that what happened in this case is a textbook example of unsound public policy, favoritism to a particular extremely well-connected developer, and lack of regard for the future of the commercial neighborhood around Penn and Moynihan Stations. To grant a massive upgrade to a property owner with no tenant, no financing and no immediate plans to build is premature and irresponsible.
...It is a top-down decision, clearly made at City Hall and not by the Planning Commission, which should have been embarrassed at the tricks they had to turn.
The blind spot
Sounds like... another top-down decision, the approval of Atlantic Yards, that had even less process, because the state, not the city, is in charge.
Remember, while Forest City Ratner very much wanted to build an arena, given the New Jersey Nets' losses at the Izod Center, the main tower, Building 1 (aka Miss Brooklyn), has no financing or tenant, the affordable housing depends on scarce subsidies, and the officially-stated plan to build the 16 towers in a decade is chimerical.
And remember, Forest City Ratner promised not to block the clock of the Williamsburgh Bank tower, but then it did, even after Miss Brooklyn was made a foot shorter than its neighbor, at the ostensible behest of the City Planning Commission, which should have been embarrassed at the tricks they had to turn.
But Stern is Bruce Ratner's old mentor, and Ratner has contributed to New York Civic. So Stern's critical scrutiny has reliably bypassed Atlantic Yards.
Posted by steve at September 4, 2010 7:54 AM