Posted on 12/14/2006 1:04:35 PM PST by FLOutdoorsman
BROOKLYN, NY-On Monday the Empire State Development Corp. approved the modified General Project Plan for the Atlantic Yards project and authorized eminent domain to seize the final properties needed for the project to go forward. The Public Authorities Control Board is the final hurdle developer Forester City Ratner Cos. must overcome. The PACB is expected to vote on the plan Dec. 20, although given the board’s track record it is uncertain if the project will receive the unanimous decision required.
“Today’s approval is another important milestone in the creation of tens of thousands of construction jobs, thousands of permanent jobs, and critically needed housing, including affordable housing,” Gov. George Pataki says in a statement.
The $4-billion Atlantic Yards project is taking a 22-acre blighted part of the Brooklyn and transforming it into a mixed-use area that will include a stadium for the New Jersey Nets basketball team. Forest City Ratner expects the project to generate 17,000 new residents, 22,000 construction jobs, and 5,000 jobs once the project is complete. The project is also expected to generate $944 million in tax revenues for New York State.
For the project to go forward, eminent domain may be needed to acquire the last property holdouts. In a notice for a public hearing issued in August 2006, Forest City Ratner listed 70 properties that would need to be taken through eminent domain. The majority of the properties are located on Atlantic Avenue, Flatbush Avenue, Pacific Street and Dean Street. Some property owners have filed lawsuits to keep their property from seizer by the government.
Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, a local community group, assembled Monday at City Hall to ask the PACB to postpone the vote on the General Project Plan. The group claims the plan is not ready for approval. Its two major concerns are: the validity and accuracy of the Environmental Impact Statement and full disclosure on the public financing and personal profit for the developer.
In the middle of November, the final Environmental Impact Statement was released and Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn issued a statement calling it ‘fatally flawed’. “As we dig into the FEIS we expect to find that it fails to accurately consider the very real adverse impacts caused by the project and that the proposed mitigations are insufficient.”
It is uncertain whether the PACB will be able to reach the unanimous consensus it needs for the project to go forward. The three-person board of Pataki, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno could not agree in October on the Moynihan Station project, as reported by GlobeSt.com. Silver voted against the project. It remains to be seen how Silver will vote in regards to this project. But groups like Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn are asking the PACB vote be put off until Gov.-elect Eliot Spitzer takes office.
Another article, from the New York Post: http://www.nypost.com/seven/12142006/postopinion/editorials/atlantic_yards_questions_editorials_.htm
This stood out:
' But failure to bless this project would be unforgivable.
After all, there's virtually no downside.
Which is why - but for a handful of holdouts with personal stakes and misguided, ivory-tower, eminent-domain purists - there's little real opposition'
I'd like to know more specifics about the holdouts and their properties. I'm an "eminent domain purist", but have little tolerance for hypocrisy. To the extent that any of these properties are housing businesses or residences that operate primarily on the taxpayers' dime (and there are a LOT of those in NYC), I'd have a little trouble with the property owners' claim that it's all theirs and the government has no right to take it for a fair price. If the mortgage and taxes on a property have long been paid with money taken from the taxpayers, it's a little difficult to regard the property as truly privately owned.
If these are really private properties and the owners don't want to sell, then the city should only authorize the developers to build their big project around those properties. If they have trouble figuring out how to do that, they can ask Donald Trump -- he did it in Atlantic City, altering the plans for a hotel/casino to fit around the modest home of stubborn little-old-lady Vera Coking (who is still living in her home).
For those not familiar with Mrs. Coking, she put her foot down in 1994, and kept fighting in court while then-owner of the property Bob Guccione had construction workers literally building a hotel OVER her house. In the end he was forced to dismantle the partially completed structure, and sell to Trump. Trump built around Mrs. Coking after she turned down an offer of $1 million for her home (she wanted $3 million). As of a couple of months ago, Trump was trying once again to buy her out, to put up a new, bigger casino. She's given him her price (not made public) but he's not willing to pay it (yet).
Good recent summary:
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/story/6878196p-6743121c.html
What's interesting about this project is that it is located on the exact same piece of property that the Brooklyn Dodgers wanted for a new Ebbetts Field back in 1958 (yes, that's 1958). The Dodgers weren't even looking for the city to pay anything towards the stadium -- they just wanted a land use approval to build on the Atlantic Terminal site. The city turned them down, the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, and the site has been sitting there -- for nearly 50 freakin' years.
The officials steal property from some and give it to their friends.
Sounds like a downer to me.
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