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September 20, 2012
The Culture of Cheating: the developer's original Atlantic Yards map was much smaller, which suggests an arbitrary map of blight (and Forest City wanted to buy the Devils)
Atlantic Yards Report
The decision to declare the Atlantic Yards site blighted, a necessary precondition to the use of eminent domain, has long been suspect for several reasons:
- developer Forest City Ratner drew the map of the 22-acre project site, with the oddly missing gap in the south-central block
- the Blight Study conducted by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) concerned only the footprint of the project
- the consultant conducting the Blight Study was hired to conduct a "Blight Study in support of the proposed project"
- the consultant, AKRF, had always found blight as directed
- the consultant, though initially charged to do so, did not compare market conditions on the project site with conditions nearby (Prospect Heights was already a hot neighborhood, and even pro-Atlantic Yards legislator Roger Green said the area was not blighted)
- the criteria for blight, such a properties built out to less than 60% of allowable development rights, were arbitrary and never promulgated to warn property owners
- blight was not raised as an official justification when Atlantic Yards was announced
That should be enough to suggest that the Atlantic Yards eminent domain process qualifies as the Culture of Cheating.
But wait, there's more.
Posted by eric at September 20, 2012 11:56 AM