An evolution on Atlantic Yards
I tend not to have a problem with major development projects; I like big shiny things (it's a boy thing), and I'm aware, as some seem not to be, that this City will add another million residents in the next two decades, two over the next four. Our grandchildren will live in a behemoth of ten million souls, all of whom will need to be fed, clothed, housed, and entertained. Unless the pre-existing population is willing to double up still further, and see our already appalling vacancy rate of 3% citywide shrink still further, we will need to build new housing. This new housing, if we care about the environment and our carbon footprint, will need to increase the density of the City, and that in turn implies a larger number of high-rises, ideally serviced by public transport. One thing is for certain: those two million new New Yorkers will create dislocations for those of us already here; and considering how many of us came from elsewhere (I'm not a native either), we should welcome these new arrivals, and prepare for them. New York City is a global metropolis, and draws to itself the talent and vigor of every continent; that process has been the engine of our growth for two hundred years, and whether we deplore or celebrate it, it will continue. The least we can do is be prepared.
All of that said, I can't support the Atlantic Yards development any longer. That project amounts to the urban equivalent of rape.
On paper, Atlantic Yards is dazzling. The developer, Forest City Ratner, has prudently hired flavor-of-the-month starchitect Frank Gehry to design it (appeasing design snobs like me); the project bestrides a major transportation hub; it will put to good use the wasteland of a disused MTA lot; Acorn, the grassroots group, supports it, and God alone knows they've done a world of good elsewhere; and there is a community benefits agreement to provide affordable housing.
The problems emerge when you dig just a bit deeper.
The first problem is density. New York Magazine had an article recently (well worth a read) that went into details about that aspect of it.
Atlantic Yards’ inhabitants, renters and owners alike, could be occupying the densest residential space in the United States. Working with an average of 2.5 people per apartment, Oder points out that Atlantic Yards will have a population density of nearly 500,000 people per square mile. For comparison, the current population-density champ, a census tract in West Harlem, contains 230,000 people per square mile. Manhattan, which popular imagination ranks as the densest place in the city, averages 67,000 people per square mile.
That's comparable to the population density that obtained on the Lower East Side at the beginning of the last century. However, in a replay that should seem familiar to anyone with a sense of this City's history, that density – shades of Calcutta – is not being prepared for by any strengthening of the public infrastructure. No new sewage mains, no new schools, no police station or fire house, no concrete efforts to improve public transportation, a big fat nada. How Atlantic Yards will be anything other than a high-rise slum is not clear to me. Just a thought: density is conducive to crime, always has been, always will be. Who is going to patrol those towers, especially considering that the NYPD is downsizing? Who is going to pay for the extra subway station, or the expansion of the existing one? And what's going to happen when waste water - read: liquid feces - begins backing up in pipes that are a century old? In short, where is the price tag for the public services that will be required to accomodate this project?
The next problem is funding, and this one is complex. First, the City and state are kicking in up to $1.9 billion, in direct subsidies and tax breaks – because, presumably, the New York housing market is in need of public funds we have nothing better to do with. Newsflash: an apartment in the Time Warner Center sold for $45 million. Real estate in this town needs subsidies like Paris Hilton needs a tax break. It's also not entirely clear to me how exactly, considering this town's sad history of cost over-runs, the complexities of building in an urban environment, the non-traditional design (which will require custom-built components), and so on, this project will be paid for. Going through the web site put up by the developer, I can't find a price tag – not a good sign. I'd say the odds are pretty good that the taxpayer will wind up throwing good money after bad.
A third problem is the public process, or more accurately, the lack thereof. Large-scale public projects are not the easiest thing to build in a democracy; building always creates displacement and impacts neighbors, and people do vote. In the past, we have solved this problem – if that's the right expression, a debatable point –by executive fiat, specifically, by concentrating immense power in the hands of one Robert Moses. Without going too deeply into that dark chapter, the lesson that this city has learned in reviewing his legacy has been that a democratic process provides essential feedback on viability and consequences of public projects. The burning Bronx of the seventies is still vivid in many minds – and that immolation can be traced directly to the work of Moses.
In the case of Atlantic Yards, this vital democratic feedback has been manipulated, bought off, silenced, and shrugged off. In fairness, opponents of the project have too often played only the shrillest notes in the political register, making it that much easier for the subtle, polished flacks of the developer to dismiss them as the mere angry Nimby of past prominence; but I don't see, having now spent significant time near the site, that many people within forty blocks of the project footprint support it. Some opponents fully conform to stereotype – but most do not, and there are very many of them.
The public review process is ongoing, and it reveals what can only be a deliberate attempt to silence the opposition. Just as one example, the next public hearing is scheduled for September 12th, 4 PM to 8 PM; in a startling coincidence, that also happens to be the day of the Democratic primary, and the part of the day during which most people vote. Call that coincidence what it is: voter suppression, plain and simple. It's hard to see how any development that is truly in the public interest would need to rely on a sleazy tactic like that – and yes, I use the word 'sleazy' with full intent. This is the kind of tactic you would expect to see in a place like Florida, and New Yorkers should be howling with outrage over it.
There is more to be said about Atlantic Yards (the Community Benefits Agreement is legally unenforcable, 'affordable housing' includes units for families earning $109,000 a year, and so on and so forth), but this brief presentation should suffice. This project is an obscenity, and it must be stopped. New Yorkers can't let this happen to our fellow citizens.
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2006 Elections | Community Based Development | GOTV, Get Out The Vote | Personal story | Urban Development | New York City
Hear! Hear!
Submitted by sidnora on 31 August 2006 - 12:13pm.
Thanks for doing the homework and coming to an inescapable conclusion: that this project, as proposed, will turn downtown Brooklyn into a grotesque, steroidal behemoth with no relationship, either architectural or communitarian, to the area surrounding it, other than to overtax the infrastructure they would share with mounting discomfort.
At the same time, if this plan moves ahead, it promises to give Mr. Ratner a very generous handout of taxpayer money for the privilege of making still more money, while tossing a few employment crumbs to the people of the community.
I have not met one single person who thinks that nothing should be done with the proposed tract, but there has to be something possible besides this. Something better than this, that people would actually be eager to live in.
If the misbegotten West Side Stadium project could be stopped, I have to believe that we can change this, too. And yes, one thing a concerned reader could do is to vote for the people mole mentions, who will help the community's voice be heard, before it's too late.
Wait a second.
Submitted by MrLomez (not verified) on 31 August 2006 - 3:41pm.
Wait a second.
Last I checked there was one environmental impact statement out there so far, and it disagrees with most of your claims. This statement was commissioned by the state and has its biases, but it also has a fair amount of science behind its conclusions. You are entitled to your opinion, but it appears entirely uninformed as to difficult and technical issues.
Claiming that there will be "liquid feces" backing up without a shred of engineering analysis is pretty bold. Where did this certainty come from? What sewage prophet is whispering in your ear? I know of no careful analysis that has come to this conclusion.
Police, fire, schools? Again, where's the evidence? You don't get to just say it and have credibility. These issues are too complex.
I love the oft cited density claim. I did the math for the footprint of the building I live in. I calculate a density of nearly 400,000 people per square mile and I live in a 2-family brownstone. Again, you don't get to look at the footprint alone and start hand-wringing. Look at the zip-code or census block group, or something that makes sense. Find me a square mile that actually has square sides, and tell me what the density is.
This project has been supported by the most powerful elected officials in the state and the city. All of these were duly elected by landslides. They have made their support known. For better or worse, state government gets to decide on the fate of state land. Sometimes you get the Adirondack Park, and sometimes you get the Tri-boro Bridge and the South Bronx.
Finally, this project has the overwhelming support of a group that has been completely silent: the future residents. If they could speak, what would they say?
Wait two seconds
Submitted by mole333 on 31 August 2006 - 4:00pm.
First of all, that state agency that did the study cannot be trusted. Remember, they are the same agency that wanted to let Ratner hire his own lawyer at his own expense to oversee the study of his own project. That shows how compromised they are.
Second, look into the state of the Gowanus canal. That is where sewage overflow is already flowing, creating one of America's most polluted waterways. Furthermore, I can tell you from both experience and from what my building had to find out that a large chunk of Brooklyn, including everything downstream of Atlantic Yards, already has massive sewage backup problems. We have been flooded a foot deep by raw sewage. What happens is each building is forced to spend tens of thousands of dollars to install pumps to force their sewage into the overburdened system and prevent backup. Of course all buildings down stream of that then get MORE sewage backup. Poorer areas can't afford the pumps. And ultimately what gets forced into the system and doesn't overflow downstream apartments goes into the canal.
That is the CURRENT state. Of course there are plans to upgrade the system under the new development, but not any of the downstream areas.
I get this not just from personal experience but from the engineers my building had to hire at great expense to figure out how to solve our sewage backup problem. We tried simpler things to no avail.
As to the density issue, that is no big mystery. You add 17 skyscrapers to an area that has brownstones, throw in an arena, and it doesn't take an abacus to figure out you are greatly increasing the density of settlement.
Fire houses have been closed down in the area, leading to an already over-extended system and an increase in fire fatalities in Brooklyn. I have heard of no plan to even reopen the closed firehouses, let alone add new ones. No plans are in place for new classrooms. No one has produced any plan to upgrade these services. Some traffic diversions have been proposed to deal with increased traffic, but my experience of the streets throughout that entire region is there really isn't that much to divert traffic onto. It already is a gridlock nightmare at rush hour. That will get worse, though possibly mitigated by diversions.
The Atlantic Subway station has recently been upgraded and that should help deal with the added subway traffic. But it probably means we will be return to the same kind of horrible crowding we used to suffer at that station before the upgrade.
As to those elected officials, remember that Ratner is a law school pal of Pataki's. Getting the contract despite being the low bid smacks of cronyism.
Look into whay former city planning commissioner Schiffman has to say on it. His sound byte version is that it will "scar Brooklyn permanently." He knows his stuff and was originally a supporter of Ratner's plan. Look into the information on DDDB's website. They aren't idiots over there. They outline the problems in some detail as well as outlining the alternate plan that has been ignored by the politicians even though it also provides affordable housing and jobs but at a lower density.
Lastly, your comments completely ignore the lies that have been told about the project (e.g. sending out pamphlets purporting to show the plan but having a park where the arena is slated to be) and the backroom deals (for example, the surrounding area has ALREADY been promised to Ratner by Pataki and Bloomberg with minimal review and with no public input) and the threat of eminent domain abuse.
Whaaa?
Submitted by sidnora on 1 September 2006 - 9:12am.
"Sometimes you get the Adirondack Park, and sometimes you get the Tri-boro Bridge and the South Bronx."
That "crap happens" attitude sounds a lot to me like a certain Secretary of Defense's attitude towards the impact of his decisions on human lives.
I guess you, Mr. Lomez, must have a beautiful view of Adirondack Park.
Mr. Bouldin welcome aboard.
Submitted by planetb (not verified) on 31 August 2006 - 4:32pm.
Mr. Bouldin welcome aboard. what pushed you over the edge?
was it the New York Magazine article? was it the "shrill" opponents that became so "shrill" you began to realize perhaps they were "shrill" for a good reason? Speaking of which here is a brillian tessay on "being shrill":
http://meanderthal.typepad.com/dope/2006/08/shrilljoy.html
was it the hearing last week? i mean "hearing." this?
http://www.themusicdrop.com/fbr/deis_hearing_show_web_1.mov
was it this?
http://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com/2006/08/cba-accountability-where...
what was it, really, that put you where you are now?
correct. and reasoned
Submitted by planetb (not verified) on 2 September 2006 - 12:47pm.
correct. and reasoned advocacy is what you'll find from the vast majority of opponents.
so i'm honestly asking, what changed your mind. the infomration has been out there for a long time, the DEIS was just the confirmation of whats been said for a long time.
if you want to talk about Shrill, how's this-below- from project supporters (never seen a shriller bunch if we're going to talk about shrill. don't you realize that he "shrill" meme is an attempt by FCR and gang to dismiss the reasoned advocacy that is out there and that persuades people like you? the "shrill" label is a fabrication you've bought into. sure at times people when speaking the truth, out of frustration, get angry, but so what? reasoned advocacy usually comes out earnest anger)
Darnell Canada, a founder of BUILD and a CBA coalition member, cited the need for jobs among black men in Brooklyn. "I got to fight to get them to keep trying" to look for a job, he said, adding ominously, "If they stop trying, you're the victim." If the project doesn't go forward, he closed, "I guarantee you will have chaos and misery."
or this from the Brooklyn Papers, shrill to the hilt:
Many of those who spoke to bolster Ratner’s fortunes were woefully uninformed about key facts: They shouted about jobs, but didn’t know that the project would employ just 1,500 union construction workers — few of them black, by the way — each year over its projected 10 year buildout.
And few supporters seemed to know that the project includes only 2,250 “affordable†units — and 40 percent of them are earmarked for families earning more than $70,000.
Ratner supporters present a false choice: build or the black community suffers.
City Councilwoman Letitia James (D–Prospect Heights) saw through that lie. Like many elected officials and residents of the area, she wants development of the Atlantic Yards site — but she wants it done correctly.
James spoke eloquently about attending the funeral of a girl who died of asthma — and how many more youngsters would suffer from the chronic lung condition if Ratner’s project is built.
For this, she was shouted down by the thugs.
Shame.
This project is a bad idea
Submitted by rwallnerny on 31 August 2006 - 6:53pm.
There is no evidence that building an arena in a neighborhood either benefits that area economy much or creates many local jobs in the long run. In fact much of the evidence we've seen from around the country where new arenas and stadiums have gone up shows otherwise. The jobs and the money go to the few, not to the masses.
This is a power-trip for Bruce Ratner. Basically Ratner wants to be Brooklyn's version of Robert Moses. The man with the power. Let him throw around his money and get sweetheart deals to control downtown Brooklyn and he'll have that power. I would feel more comfortable about this project if it was divided among many companies, instead of being controlled by one company and one man. It is not good for the neighborhood to cede local control to any one individual, let alone somebody who doesn't even live in the borough.
I have read the opposition papers and I am unimpressed.
Submitted by AnonymMrLomez (not verified) on 31 August 2006 - 6:56pm.
The whole Pratt study has less substance than the EIS executive summary. The EIS then follows up with thousands of pages of analysis. Quotes from urban planners are not going to be persuasive without the volumes of documentation that these reviews require. Shiffman's "position paper" is not evidence regardless of the rhetoric therein. A huge amount of energy has gone into this fight, but the EIS has been there for a month without serious detailed challenge. This would seem a small price to pay given the rivers of feces we will supposedly be drowning in a few years from now. I will reserve my final judgement until the oppsition EIS materializes, but so far the response to the State's EIS has been shoddy.
Mr. Lomez. if you are
Submitted by planetb (not verified) on 31 August 2006 - 7:17pm.
Mr. Lomez. if you are "unimpressed", go read here, just some preliminary stuff:
4 bulletins you can read
btw, the State itself says this project's impacts are terrible, but its a trade off we will all have to make.
There are better things to build...
Submitted by rwallnerny on 31 August 2006 - 7:49pm.
There are better things to build on that land than luxury high rises. Like the neighborhood could use new schools, new library, new playgrounds. The idea should be to improve the neighborhood, not build over and remake it like its some dump.
Also look at Ratner's other projects there. The Atlantic Mall, new and old additions, both Ratner projects, are total eyesores. The building that houses the Pathmark is bad enough, they have a hard time keeping other businesses in there, because the upper floors are like a mausoleum. No character or warmth at all. No wonder the larger stores in that place have repeatedly gone under. The new building, that houses the Target store, is not much of an improvement, it is also poorly designed and aesthetically unpleasing. Now that entire block has a claustrophobic, not open feel, and if those buildings are an indication of Ratner's architectural skills, I have little hope for his new buildings he wants to put up across the street.
DEIS objective? Hardly
Submitted by Scott Turner (not verified) on 31 August 2006 - 10:57pm.
There's a very basic fact about the DEIS.
Not an anectdote or hearsay.
A fact.
State law requires the developer to pay for it, prepare it and bring it to the ESDC.
Forest City Ratner* spent top dollar to hire their personal choice for the DEIS, AKRF, a company described as "accomodating consultants" by Ratner lobbyist Richard Lipsky.
Over nine months, Ratner and AKRF worked together on the DEIS, and, when satisfied it said what Ratner, not the public or a democratic and open review process required, they submitted it to the ESDC.
The ESDC, who have admitted in court they are partners with Ratner, then released it to the public, giving all of us just a few weeks to weed through 4,000 pages of dense technical information.
The tone of the DEIS is this: There will be a few problems here and there, but overall, this 16-to-20 skyscraper project with upwards of 50,000 new people everyday will have no adverse affects on the current infrastructure of Brooklyn.
Of course it said that. Look who paid for it and oversaw every single page.
Mr. Lomez, a gentlemen with exacting standards regarding truth and documentation, insists that "[t]his statement was commissioned by the state."
It wasn't.
Mr. Lomez may have high standards that urban experts like Ron Schiffman cannot surmount. But surely he insists that an EIS paid for and overseen by Bruce Ratner lacks all due credibility.
Scott Turner
Fans For Fair Play
____________________________
* FCR has been absorbed by Forest City Enterprises, the parent corporation in Cleveland, OH. Bruce Ratner's FCR is so leveraged out that a complete restructuring was deemed necessary by FCE.
Interesting
Submitted by Neighborhood guy (not verified) on 1 September 2006 - 6:01pm.
The Atlantic Yards is a continuation of giving one Bruce Ratner a real estate monopoly in Brooklyn. Public Authorities need to be gotten rid, And Environmental Impact Statements need reform. The Law says the developer has to acknowledge their are impacts. His consulting firm AKRF does not even do that. Everyone from the Yankees and The City's Economic Development Corporation hires them because they will say what the developers want them to say. Staten Island Developer R Randy Lee said Environmental Justic left town a long time ago. The Atlantic Yards environmental impact statement is just the latest example.
How can you trust AKRF Ratners consulting firm who wrote the EIS. The same guys who said The Duffield Street homes in Downtown Brooklyn are not Underground Railroad safehouses. Charles Barron caught them lying about that. They are still lying that those homes are not underground railroad homes. So how anyone trust those guys when they write an environmental impact statement.
Funny how Ratner and Acorn never approached seniors and black homeowners living on Carlton Avenue in Prospect Heights or Clermont or Adelphi Streets in Fort Green. If you lived anywhere near the footprint he did not want to hear from you. After all this is the developer who was so scared of black children that he made Atlantic Center Mall, The Mall where Macy's, Alexanders and Sports Authority went out of business. The Fact that my taxes will pay for this vagrants development is an insult to taxpayers. Where was Build and Acorn when real estate brokers and banks were running wild displacing black seniors and renters from their homes in Fort Green, and Clinton Hill. Its easy for newspapers to focus on groups like Develop Dont Destroy. When it comes to low income residents trying to survive near this overdevelopment. We never hear from major newspapers.
However we can count on guys like Pataki,Bloomberg,Fidler, and the rest of the clowns connected to Bruce Ratner to help Ratner make life a living hell in Fort Green each development Ratner does gets worse not better.If my nephew was a city planner. He could plan a better project. What do you expect when this guy can found political campaigns of Rudy, and Pataki and lives around the corner from Spitzer and Bloomberg.
Thanks to Bouldin
Submitted by SteveFtGreene (not verified) on 1 September 2006 - 10:56pm.
As an opponent of the Atlantic Yards Development, I am, of course, gratified that Bouldin has stated sentiments I agree with.
I would just like to say "thank you" to Bouldin for publicly doing what so few are willing to do these days: have a change of mind.
Ahem...
Been saying this for months. Welcome aboard!
I would remind people that there is an alternate plan that still adds housing and jobs but not at the same insane density and the plan comes more from the community than imposed by the Pataki-Bloomberg-Markowitz triumvirate who back Ratner.
I would also add that politicians like Letitia James, Sean Patrick Maloney, Ken Diamondstone, Chris Owens, Velmanette Montgomery, Eric Adams and Bill Batson are all trying to get more community input and a better consideration for the needs of the community than Ratner's triumverate have allowed. So you might consider that on primary election day.