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October 11, 2011
More Parallels: Atlantic Yards and the Way the Fossil Fuel Industry Is Setting Up An Approval For the Keystone XL Tar Sands High Pressure Oil Pipeline
Noticing New York
Michael D.D. White follows up on his comparison of Atlantic Yards and the Keystone XL pipeline.
Part of the testimony compared the Atlantic Yards megadevelopment with the Keystone XL oil pipeline proposed to carry the high pressure pumping of Canadian tar sands oil for shipping out of the Gulf of Mexico; both have involved collusion by developers with government officials to obtain public approvals incrementally so that complete disclosure of the true nature of the project and the full measure of the public’s sacrifice could be side-stepped as initial approvals were locked in.
For instance, the Atlantic Yards Forest City Ratner government-assisted mega-monopoly is consistently misrepresented as being just 22-acres. In truth those 22-acres are being added to additional government-assisted acres already owned by Ratner for a total of 30 contiguous Ratner-owned government assisted acres so that in the vicinity Ratner will control, in total 50+ acres of dense government assisted acres astride the subway lines. Now the public is being told it has to relinquish additional sidewalk to the monopoly after already having given up streets, avenues and sidewalk that should have inalienably belonged to the public. Now the public is being told that through variances and special permissions Ratner gets to jackhammer away throughout the night (and on weekends) at incredible hearing-destroying decibels for months when, in theory, his arena is on schedule and there is no need to rush its building with extraordinary measures. Now the public is being told that ongoing construction to complete the mega-project will need to be endured for decades (like the 40+ and counting year Roosevelt Island) when, and for purposes of public hearings, newspaper press release consumption and the Environmental Impact Statement the public was initially told construction would be a (comparatively) lickety-split 10 years.
Posted by eric at October 11, 2011 11:37 AM