Jeffries says Assembly should hold AY hearing; FCR instead offers breakfast update

While the State Assembly Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions is holding a hearing today on the progress of development projects on Manhattan's West Side, there's a strong argument for a hearing to assess the status of the Atlantic Yards project as well.

Whether that hearing, including representatives of the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) and developer Forest City Ratner, will get scheduled is another question. Assembly leadership--apparently Speaker Sheldon Silver--has so far balked, according to Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries.

Joint committee hearing

Jeffries, who represents Prospect Heights and the AY footprint, is a member of the Corporations committee. He said last night that he and two neighboring legislators--Assemblywoman Joan Millman, who chairs the Oversight, Analysis and Investigation committee, and Assemblyman Jim Brennan, who chairs the Cities committee--want to hold a joint hearing of their committees regarding Atlantic Yards, given the uncertainty regarding the project.

"I'd like to get all of them, ESDC and the developer, on the record, under oath," Jeffries said at a meeting of the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council at P.S. 9 on Underhill Avenue. (Among the questions worth asking: how exactly were the generous timetables for the project determined?)

"There's been some resistance," Jeffries said. "The developer has offered to meet with legislators at a legislative breakfast. I think there's been enough back-room conversation."

He said hoped a hearing could sort out plans regarding eminent domain, the financing of the arena, the commitment to build affordable housing, and any negotiations to sell the Nets to an ownership group that would have them play in Newark's Prudential Center instead.

In Silver's court

Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, who chairs the Corporations committee, supports such a hearing, Jeffries said, but, "ultimately, leadership has to make the call."

While Jeffries didn't directly blame Silver, the Speaker wields ultimate power in the Assembly. Silver has supported Atlantic Yards. And Forest City Ratner's $58,420 contribution on January 7 to the Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee's Housekeeping account probably helps Silver bend an ear in the developer's direction.

Ward Bakery update: injured worker in good condition

Several people asked me about what happened at the Ward Bakery on Tuesday, after a worker was seen being removed on a stretcher and a stop-work order issued.

Empire State Development Corporation spokesman Warner Johnston offers this update: "The injured worker appears to be in good condition and we expect him to be released today. He was immediately taken to a nearby hospital... and my understanding is that he was kept over night for evaluation."

"With regards to the cause of the incident, the investigation is still being conducted," he added. "I don't have specific information to share until the investigation is complete." The stop-work order suggests a rotted beam as a possible cause for the collapse of a section of the floor.

(See pictures on Tracy Collins's blog.)

At MAS, AY as an example of a neighborhood planning struggle

When it comes to discussions of “David vs. Goliath,” the subject of a Municipal Art Society (MAS) Planning Center Forum on May 14, Atlantic Yards is an inevitable subject, though--as I’ll note below--the politics of AY means that more than one set of parties might consider themselves “Davids.”

(Photos by Jonathan Barkey)

The panel addressed the issue of “neighborhood planning in the face of large-scale development,” and planner/architect Stuart Pertz, in his introduction, noted that some projects are inherently large, and only work if built on a large scale. “Unfortunately, it often gets out of hand,” he said, suggesting that “Goliath in development has extraordinary leverage, using powerful lawyers, contractors, planners, and unions.” Then again, he said, “there are many Davids.”

So how empower communities? Anthony Borelli, Director of Land Use in the Office of Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, said the office has tried to even the playing field by offering land use training for Community Board members, a fellowship program that assigns urban planners to community boards, and practiced “proactive planning,” exemplified by a proposal for a West Harlem Special District, a reaction to Columbia University’s expansion. (The Manhattan Borough President is far ahead of the other four borough presidents on land use issues. Unfortunately, long-underfunded community boards are seeing their budgets cut rather than raised.)

City of limits

Architect Marshall Brown (right), a developer of the UNITY plan for the Metropolitian Transportation Authority’s Vanderbilt Yard (and beyond), said, with perhaps some retrospective bravado, “Four years ago we realized we needed to have something in place for the probable occurrence of Forest City Ratner’s plans running aground.” He suggested that Atlantic Yards exemplified a “willful ignorance of limits,” including the physical limit of an eight-acre railyard, the legal limit of eminent domain, the democratic limit of ULURP (the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, bypassed in this case for a fast-track state review), and “finally, the all too evident limit of the talents of a single architect.”

He noted that he wasn’t dissing Frank Gehry, just pointing out--as have others, and even Gehry himself--that megaprojects require multiple architects.

Brown suggested that questions of sustainability and the “looming environmental apocalypse” meant that the Bloomberg administration should prioritize quality ahead of quantity: “I’d say it’s a city of limits.”

Lawyer Candace Carponter (right), a co-chair of the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods (CBN), described how the coalition, formed to respond to the Atlantic Yards environmental review, moved from officially agnostic to ultimately oppositional, joining a lawsuit challenging the review, and becoming a supporter of the UNITY plan. She suggested that the combination of a new governor, “detrimental economics,” and the Newark option for the Nets might provide an opening for the UNITY plan--though of course, that remains to be seen.

Jordi Reyes-Montblanc, former chairman of Manhattan Community Board 9, offered an earthy explanation for his civic role: “I got involved in the Community Board to keep an eye on the S.O.B.s.” He noted that Columbia President Lee Bollinger wanted to break ground on the expansion project in 2002, the same year it was proposed.

The East Side sleeper project

Ed Rubin (right), of Manhattan Community Board 6 in East Midtown, described the board’s efforts to respond to developer Sheldon Solow, whose 6.1 million square foot proposal on three parcels between 35th and 41st Streets generated less notice than the Columbia or AY controversies. Rubin said that the CB’s own plan, as well as “an incredible Power Point,” helped the community, via Council Member Dan Garodnick, to get Solow to reduce some of the floor area, lower the office tower form 864 feet to 553 feet, pledge $10 million for a pedestrian bridge to an expected park, and include 20% affordable housing. (Not everyone's on board.)

Still, Rubin said that the Department of City Planning, under control of the mayor’s office, wasn’t much help: “Sadly, City Planning, they do rezonings, but I think their policy is, when developers come up with plans, they hold back and think they’re a reviewing agency.”

Tools needed

Moderator Alberto Vourvoulias-Bush, Executive Editor, El Diario/La Prensa, pointed out that not all “Davids” and not all Community Boards are equally equipped to critique and resist development. What are the most important tools to have? Rubin noted that Manhattan CB6 had never resisted development, and that its own plan for the Solow site allowed for a significant amount of density.

Reyes-Montblanc argued similarly, saying that CB9’s alternative plan offered Columbia “80%” of what it wanted. Reyes-Montblanc noted that CB9 was able to get help from the Pratt Center for Community Development to provide recommendations and to respond to Columbia’s proposal. (Pratt's Brad Lander, who worked with CB9, has suggested it was 60%.)

Carponter said, that she’d “like to think” that when the story of Atlantic Yards is told, “the fact that we had an alternative plan” was essential. The more opponents get elected officials to support calls for change, the more they’re likely to consider the UNITY plan.

Brown said it was a matter of information (often concealed by developers), communication (tapping collective local intelligence), and storytelling (“you’ve got to tell a better story; who can argue with something as positive as UNITY?”).

ULURP gone?

Vourvoulias-Bush also referred to the rumor that Bloomberg wants to do away with ULURP. In a 5/11/08 column, headlined Mayor Bloomberg puts $2.1M on City Charter revision, Daily News columnist Kirsten Danis wrote that, “depending on various theories floating around,” would enable, among other things, a revision in “the way development deals and zoning changes are done in the city.”

(Lobbyist Richard Lipsky has commented that the phase-out of offices like the Public Advocate "could win the mayor support for what he really wants: putting his stamp on the way government works day-to-day - permanently -- and changing the way land use and development projects are approved.")

Borelli (right) said that it was essential that Community Boards have planning capacity. “Planning is not just about zoning and land use,” he said. He praised ULURP, contrasting New York with Toronto, where, without such a systematic process, development depends on a thumbs-up from the local elected officials.

The 7.5-month timeline in New York is “not that burdensome,” he said, nothing that 99% of projects don’t go through ULURP because they’re not large enough. (Also, some large projects, like Atlantic Yards, have deliberately bypassed ULURP.)

News coverage

Vourvoulias-Bush also lamented the paucity of coverage regarding major development projects like Atlantic Yards and the Columbia expansion, observing that coverage is often “extraordinarily superficial,” despite clear evidence of the project proponents’ efforts to manipulate the media.

Borelli commented that it was very important to “use media.” Manhattan Community Board 4 was able to get an editorial from the New York Times backing its stance against the proposed West Side Stadium.

Brown said that, four years ago, a graphic designer friend suggested “you have a marketing problem, not an architecture problem.” Carponter said that blogs have been able to get the message out. (She might have mentioned that Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn has a blog-like news update and a--take your pick--persistent/pugnacious spokesman in Daniel Goldstein.)

She also suggested that Atlantic Yards opponents had helped push the New York Times to cover the delays in AY, culminating in the surprising front-page story March 21 declaring the project stalled.

Reyes-Montblanc said the Columbia coverage had gotten “tremendously large coverage,” most of it fair, some with “subtle pro-Columbia bias.”

Rubin observed that Atlantic Yards and Columbia actually got far more coverage in the Times than the Solow plan. (Indeed, a reporter at another newspaper told me last year that the East Side plan was receiving far less coverage related to its enormous size.)

Major newspapers, Rubin said, don’t necessarily look at a project from a community perspective and examine how the project might affect quality of life.

Some AY support

Then came a question from the audience that challenged one of the premises of the panel, that the side represented by Carponter and Brown constitutes the sole “Davids” of the Atlantic Yards battle. “Atlantic Yards means a lot of construction jobs,” asserted Martin Allen, a representative of People for Political and Economic Empowerment (PPEE), a Fort Greene-based group that tries to place construction workers at job sites and has loudly supported the project at some AY-related events, such as the Ward Bakery demolition and a community forum. “It’s a life-changing thing” for a person who can’t feed his family, Allen said.

Moderator Vourvoulias-Bush gave a partial nod to that sentiment but raised the question about whether pledges of housing and jobs in the Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) are enforceable. (He’s editorialized critically about Atlantic Yards and his wife, author Jhumpa Lahiri, is on the Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn advisory board. His newspaper is moving to Forest City Ratner's MetroTech.)

“Nobody’s against development,” Carponter said, suggesting it was a question of scale. She pointed out that the template for CBAs created in California involves groups that ordinarily would oppose a project--here's the definitive testimony, from Good Jobs NY-- but in Brooklyn, “the developer created seven out of eight organizations.”

(Actually, both ACORN and the New York Association of Minority Contractors were well-established, BUILD was fledgling, and the other five groups in the CBA had no track record.)

Allen was unbowed. “You all never gave the Community Benefits Agreement a chance,” he said. “You’re stopping [workers] from eating if you delay this project.” Vourvoulias-Bush moved the discussion along, apparently not wanting to turn the event into a debate about AY--after all, the amount of special subsidies granted Forest City Ratner could be brought up as a counter-argument--but the issue surfaced a bit later.

Brooklyn changing

Brown suggested that Forest City Ratner underestimated Brooklyn, thinking the borough was little changed from 1985 or 1988, when MetroTech was proposed: “The areas have come into their own.”

“Atlantic Yards is a world-class location,” Brown said. “Harlem is a famous place. It has to inform how we deal with developers.” The proximity of the AY site to the Atlantic Terminal transit hub and the Brooklyn Academy of Music means that it should’ve been seen as a source of negotiating power. (Of course, there never was a negotiation.)

Carponter noted that, after the passage of Atlantic Yards, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz “fired” nine members of Brooklyn CB6. (They weren’t reappointed.) There were similar reprisals in the Bronx after Bronx CB4 opposed the Yankee Stadium deal. By contrast, said Reyes-Montblanc, there were no reprisals in Manhattan.

The art of compromise

Did Solow really compromise or had he planned for such a scaleback, Rubin was asked. “Obviously he was pleased at the end,” Rubin said, suggesting that the CB’s backup 197-c plan was helpful. Compromise is essential, he suggested, because “an area that’s fairly well-heeled can litigate forever.”

Reyes-Montblanc suggested it might be easier to deal with a developer than an institution, since the former might compromise while the seemingly-benign institution wants all it requested.

DDDB spokesman Goldstein, from the audience, suggested that community plans could be more powerful if they gained the endorsement of construction unions, since no one opposes jobs. Borelli respondedd that Manhattan BP Stringer has convened a Community-Labor Task Force on Responsible Contracting.

(According to the BP’s web site, the group “is forging a broad-based consensus in favor of development that provides job opportunities for community members, safe work sites governed by fair labor practices, and real opportunities for minority- and women-owned businesses.”)

The goal, he said, is to get labor unions and the community to speak in one voice. And another effort, he said, is to get union members on community boards.

In Brooklyn, so far, the “one voice” goal remains a challenge, as exemplified by the "Time Out" rally and "Build It Now" counter-protest on May 3.

The Manhattan Borough President stresses land use

As noted in the discussion May 14 at the Municipal Art Society, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has advanced ahead of the other borough presidents in stressing the importance of land use issues and in training Community Board members on land use issues.

A series of screenshots (click to enlarge) helps tell the story. Note, for example, how Community Boards and Land Use get two tabs at the top of the page.


Like other borough presidents, Stringer offers a page on ULURP.


Unlike the other Borough President, Stringer has urban planners devoted to community boards, as well as planning interns to offer additional help.


Particularly useful is the Land Use 101 presentation--one example is below.


Brooklyn

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz's web page describes a range of roles and issues, including a certain amount of borough promotion. ULURP appears somewhat lower on the page.


Applications for Community Boards appear further down the page.



Queens

The web page for Queens Borough President Helen Marshall lists issues alphabetically, with Community Boards near the top, and Planning and Land Use somewhat lower down. Queens comes in second to Manhattan, at least according to how information is provided and presented on the web.


The Planning and Land Use page has several sections.


Notably, the page on Community Boards to a new Queens Community Board web site, with events, announcements, and other information, thanks to a grant from Con Edison.



Staten Island

Land use doesn't seem too high a priority on the web page for Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro.


There is, however, a zoning map with a special report on overdevelopment.


The Bronx

The web page for Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion mentions Community Boards near the top, but not land use.

The page on Community Boards does mention land use issues.

Stop-work order at Ward Bakery

[Updated: 11:05 am] Demolition at the Ward Bakery between Pacific and Dean streets was met with a stop-work order because the work is alleged to undermine an adjacent building and also because of an injury.

While the overview indicates it's been resolved, Department of Buildings spokeswoman Kate Lindquist says, "The Stop Work Order is not 'resolved.'” (The word is used by DOB as an administrative tool to track complaint dispositioning.)

(Photo by Tracy Collins.)

She offered this explanation, "The Stop Work Order was issued on Monday after a worker, employed by Gateway Demolition, was injured during demolition work. The worker was brought to a nearby hospital. The Stop Work Order remains in effect. Workers are able to conduct remedial work to maintain a safe site – such as removing loose debris and tools – but demolition remains halted at this time. The Stop Work Order will remain in effect until the engineer of record, Thornton Tomasetti, fully assesses the structural conditions of the building and submits a revised demolition plan taking into consideration its findings."

Brodsky on West Side deal: subsidy info needed

From yesterday's New York Times, in an article headlined New Developer Signs $1 Billion Deal to Transform West Side Railyards:
“Until we get a handle on the level of subsidies involved, there’s no way to determine whether this is a good deal or a bad deal,” said Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, a Democrat from Westchester who is holding a hearing on West Side development on Friday.

Last week, I reported on similar comments. "Developers have learned the fight is about the subsidies," Brodsky said. "That distorting element is so powerful we don't know how much to give, what is proper." That, he said, makes it hard to assess "what exactly is the public good."

The same questions could be raised about the Atlantic Yards deal, where, for example, the amount of scarce housing bonds needed was not made public until after the project was approved.

Gehry's dutiful B1 charade and the marketing of naming rights

In for a dime, in for a dollar--or many, many thousands of them. The opportunity to build his first arena, and maybe even "a neighborhood practically from scratch", means starchitect Frank Gehry dutifully participated in a charade over the name of the flagship Atlantic Yards tower, which is now--as predicted by me and NoLandGrab--up for a naming rights sponsorship.

The New York Observer's Real Estate blog reported yesterday:
Bruce Ratner is looking for a new name for the signature office tower in his $4 billion-plus Atlantic Yards project.

The Frank Gehry-designed tower was known as “Miss Brooklyn” until it was shrunk, redesigned and re-unveiled in April under a new, more staid moniker: “B1.” It turns out that that name, too, may change, should developer Forest City Ratner, led by Mr. Ratner, find a tenant eager enough to attach its name to the building.

B1 was the original moniker.

Gehry's statement

“The design for Miss Brooklyn, which we now call Building One, has become very special for me," Gehry said in a May 5 press release from developer Forest City Ratner.

In a May 5 e-newsletter, the developer upped the ante, suggesting that the utilitarian placeholder "B1" had been "christened": And today Forest City Ratner released new renderings showing Frank Gehry's beautiful redesign of the Barclays Center arena, the first residential building and the office tower now christened B1 (formerly known as Miss Brooklyn).

As I wrote May 6, actually, it was always Building One; I noted comments in September 2006 from the Department of City Planning and the official site plan. It's likely, I added, that B1 is just a placeholder, ready to be jettisoned if and when an anchor tenant is recruited.

Unskeptical press

Still, the press wasn't skeptical enough. The New York Daily News, on May 5: Originally envisioned as a 620-foot residential and commercial tower, the newly named "B1" - or Building One - will be slashed to 511 feet and feature commercial office space only, Gehry said yesterday.

Curbed on May 5 called it [T]he unfortunately named B1...

The Brooklyn Paper, on May 6, wrote: Ratner has said he won’t build the Frank Gehry–designed tower, now called “Building B-1”

(Lumi Rolley of NoLandGrab commented on the likelihood the name was just a placeholder.)

Even Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn's press release stated: The paper reports that the so-called "Miss Brooklyn" signature skyscraper, is now called simply "Building 1."

Metro , on May 6, reported: Gehry — who once said his inspiration for his centerpiece building, “Miss Brooklyn,” was a bride he saw in the borough — jilted her for a tower now called “B1” (Building One).

The Toronto Globe & Mail, on May 19, wrote: The now dubbed B1 replaces the former Miss Brooklyn...

Expect more coverage if/when Forest City Ratner secures an anchor tenant.

Senate report warns of breach of duty in "done deal" Polytechnic-NYU consolidation

Two-and-a-half months after the board of Polytechnic University (Poly) in Brooklyn voted to approve a controversial consolidation into much larger New York University (NYU), the chairman of the State Senate Committee on Higher Education has raised some serious questions about the deal, though it's unclear whether those questions--outnumbered by allegations dismissed--are enough for the state Department of Education or the Board of Regents to withhold their approval.

State Senator Kenneth LaValle, a Republican who represents eastern Long Island, did not issue a statement accompanying the release of the report (PDF), titled Proposed Affiliation: Polytechnic University and New York University, which appeared yesterday afternoon on his web site. Nor does the report offer final recommendations.

That may indicate he considers the results inconclusive: while the report rejects most charges made by Poly alumni that the consolidation into NYU is a sweetheart deal, it does conclude that the Poly board, in its eagerness to approve the merger, in three instances did not act with the duty of care and/or loyalty required by a fiduciary, notably negotiations conducted in secret, the exclusion of dissident board members from working committees, and the failure to update a three-year-old appraisal of the university's valuable Downtown Brooklyn property.

There's little precedent regarding such findings; thus, it's hard to predict what the Department of Education and Board of Regents might do. Still, the report throws some cold water on the exuberant press release issued by Poly on March 6 and partially validates a statement made by a faculty member, who told LaValle's office that the plan was presented by the board as a "done deal."

[Updated Wednesday 1:45 pm: Poly board chair Craig Matthews commented, "I would just affirm that after an intensive four month review, the Senator found no basis to object to the merger, no evidence of fraud or impropriety and affirmed the propriety of the process. We are pleased that we can now proceed with the next step which is approval by the Board of Regents."]

NYU's Brooklyn opportunity

Poly, a small engineering school at Brooklyn’s MetroTech that draws mainly on local students, offers NYU, a Greenwich Village-based university with international reach, two things it needs: an engineering school and, crucially, land, including air rights subject to a letter of intent Poly has signed with Forest City Ratner, its neighbor and lead partner on MetroTech.

Poly would gain the umbrella and cross-pollination of a larger university, and significant potential increase in revenue: improved opportunities for grant funds and a larger and better-qualified student body, compounded by NYU’s higher tuition. Poly has been struggling, and the "merger"--the two universities' term of choice--would help it with enrollment, collaborative research, library resources, and overall financial reach.

However, NYU would gain control of Poly with no money down, offered to loan Poly $50 million over five years, according to LaValle's report (confirming previous reports), based on the engineering school’s unused air rights.

While a February 7 "Sense of the Board" vote indicated more than a supermajority (75%) supported the merger, the vote was postponed a month so LaValle could investigate charges raised by three dissident trustees, including conflict of interest, failure to do due diligence, secret negotiations, and failure to consult faculty. After the board voted its approval in March, LaValle expressed dismay that the board acted before his report was issued.

Issues dismissed; "done deal" claimed

LaValle's report first dismisses alumni claims that 1972 legislation that required NYU, then experiencing fiscal crisis, to let its school of engineering and science merge with Poly, subsequently barred NYU's re-entry into the field of engineering.

The report then goes through several allegations of conflict of interest. A few are summarized below.

While one Poly trustee is a partner with the law firm represeting the university in negotiating with NYU, the board had gotten a legal opinion that there was no conflict of interest and thus acted in good faith.

While the Poly board did not explain why it concluded that the use of an accounting firm that had previously done work for NYU to evaluate NYU's financial condition was not a conflict of interest, the choice was "conceivable." Though it would have been more sensible to avoid the appearance of impropriety, "there is insufficient evidence" to conclude the decision was a breach of fiduciary duty, the report concludes.

While Poly denies that President Jerry Hultin was promised a position with NYU, one Advisory Trustee recalls two NYU officials saying Hultin would head the "new Poly." Still, there's no evidence of a concrete promise, and Hultin would be a natural candidate, the report says; hence, no conclusion of misconduct.

While Poly did not conduct a faculty vote, it offered numerous meetings and noted that ten of eleven department heads supported the affiliation. One faculty member who wished to remain anonymous contacted LaValle's office and claimed that board members "consistently characterized the affiliation as something of a 'done deal'" and that faculty members could view the merger agreement only in the presence of a Poly administrator and were not permitted to take notes. Still, given the "overwhelming support" of the faculty, it does not appear that Poly trustees breached their fiduciary duty, the report concludes.

Money issues

The Polytechnic Alumni Association points out that the board long claimed that Poly was not financially viable without the merger, due to debts dragging the school into the red, but, in a May 2007 court filing, had claimed that the university had $154.6 million in assets.

While the Alumni Association has complained about the terms of the deal, given the promise of loans rather than cash, "it takes more than unfavorable terms and questionable decisions by the Board to conclude there was a breach of the fiduciary duty," the report concludes.

What's acting in good faith?

The Business Judgment Rule “bars judicial inquiry into actions of corporate directors taken in good faith and in the exercise of honest judgment," the report states.

The report cites three areas of concern that are not protected by the Business Judgment Rule. "While some of the remaining allegations suggest a significant lack of diligence or good faith on the part of Polytech, they are not substantiated by evidence which definitively says that the Board did not uphold the duty of loyalty and care owed to the institution," the report states.

The three areas:
(1) The affiliation negotiations between Polytech and NYU were being conducted by President Hultin some six months before they were announced to the rest of the Board. "There is no legitimate excuse for not holding these meetings sooner particularly when, by Polytech’s own admission, preliminary discussions began some three years prior," the report states.

2) Board members not supportive of the affiliation were excluded or marginalized from the working committees set up address the affiliation. "Additionally, the statements made by Deborah L. Devedjian, a Polytech Trustee who is not an alumnus of Polytech and has no obvious bias in favor of the Polytech Alumni Association, says [sic] that she was removed from one of the working committees for 'asking too many questions' and encouraging 'due diligence,'” the report states. "These two facts coupled with the resignation of Trustee Herman Viets... lead to the conclusion that those on the Board in favor of the affiliation were attempting to marginalize the participation of those individuals who opposed the affiliation."

3) An updated appraisal of Polytech’s real property was never obtained by the Board. The Alumni Association stated that the board has in part promoted the affiliation by claiming Poly is not solvent enough to operate independently for long. "While Polytech has claims [sic] that they are in debt by approximately $33 million dollars, by their own admission, they relied upon a 2005 appraisal of their real estate," the report states. (A January 2005 appraisal valued Poly property at $213 million; surely the value of Brooklyn real estate has skyrocketed, a point not made in the report.)

"Their failure to obtain an updated appraisal, regardless of the cost involved, is inconsistent with the duty of care that the Board owed to Polytech," the report states. "Given the fact that the Polytech Board is comprised of individuals who are, inter alia, attorneys and leaders of large corporations, it is inconceivable that they would not have thought it prudent to obtain an updated appraisal of Polytech’s real property."

What next?

The section of the report labeled Conclusion does not make any recommendation regarding the fate of the consolidation but instead raises general questions about affiliations and consolidations, including:

• Whether procedures should be put in place requiring institutions to inform students, faculty, administration and alumni about their plans and allow a "reasonable period of time" for input.
• When and to what extent an institution’s Board of Trustees and other members of the institution should be involved in negotiations.
• Whether procedures should be put in place to ensure that faculty, administration, students and alumni are aware of potential conflicts of interest regarding such mergers and the steps taken to resolve those conflicts.
• Whether procedures should be put in place, before a final vote is held to approve an affiliation/consolidation, to inform interested parties of the terms of the transaction and to obtain their input.

The Department of Education and Board of Regents are expected to examine the issues by the end of June.

How build big in NYC? Not via the AY example, panelists suggest

What are the right ways to build big projects in a growing city? Although panelists who spoke Monday night didn’t make the point explicitly, the answers they offered--public planning, realistic timetables, public ownership, infrastructure first, and media skepticism toward overhyped renderings--generally point to the opposite of the process behind Atlantic Yards.

The panel, titled Can NYC Build BIG Anymore?, was sponsored by Democratic Leadership for the 21st Century and held at Iguana Restaurant in Midtown. Notably, the acting head of the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) also offered a hearty defense of Atlantic Yards, adopting some of developer Forest City Ratner's talking points.

The question, panelists agreed, was not “can” but “how.” “One of the problems we have to confront is that people want to build big too fast,” observed Avi Schick, acting president of the ESDC, which approved and is overseeing Atlantic Yards. “Sometimes they bit off a little too much when they tried to push an entire plan forward at once.”

It sounded exactly like Atlantic Yards, with its announced ten-year timetable, one “anticipated” by the Gov. George Pataki-era ESDC when it approved the 17-building project in December 2006. Schick and other appointees of incoming Gov. Eliot Spitzer did not weigh in on that timetable, though the ESDC in September 2007 quietly agreed that developer Forest City Ratner had six years after the close of litigation and delivery of property via eminent domain to build the arena and 12 years to build the (presumed) five towers of Phase 1, with no deadline for the remaining 11 towers.

Though it wasn't announced at the meeting, today's Times reports that Schick, who was said to be a candidate to head the ESDC, will step down in September and return to the private sector. Photo from New York Observer.

Infrastructure first

Robert Yaro, President of the Regional Plan Association, offered a slightly different formulation. “We need to build big but build smart... The city will grow if we create infrastructure,” he said. “The projects that are the product of a real process of engagement end up being better projects.”

Charles Bagli, who covers real estate and dewvelopment for the New York Times, suggested that Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s administration may have had “a lot of good ideas, but without a well-thought-out idea of how to pay for them or how long it would take.” Repeating a favorite riff, he noted that “the era of the grand PowerPoint presentation... has ended.” He noted that plans for redevelopment of Times Square went through several iterations.

A new Moses?

Do we need another Robert Moses, the panel was asked. Bagli said that Bloomberg had compared the departing Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff to Moses, but noted that Moses held power for 44 years, while Doctoroff served for six years. Whatever the criticism of Moses, he thought he was building “for the public,” Bagli said. “Critics of this administration would describe them as facilitators of the private sector.” (Indeed, critics of Atlantic Yards might say the same thing.)

Yaro scoffed at the idea that one powerful person is necessary. “What we really need are capable administrators in the agencies,” he said. “Empire State Development is the most powerful urban development institution in the country.” (Remember, planner Alexander Garving said the agency has "truly amazing powers.")

“If you’re going to build public works,, you have to pay for them,” he said, saying that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Port Authority of NY & NJ needed “real money.” The Bloomberg administration, he said, “didn’t discover public works until the second term.”

The “arena” was a public work, suggested the moderator. (While he used the term “arena,” subsequent reference suggested he was referring to the West Side Stadium.)

“It was private works with public money,” Yaro responded--again, another observation that could be levied at AY.

Schick praised the Bloomberg administration’s efforts at rezonings and said, “What you do need is planning.” He noted that the state had taken the last remaining parcel in Battery Park City and given it to the city to build a public school, so “the needs of the city can be met.”

Changed projects, overhyped renderings

A number of projects have been stalled, the moderator pointed out, and Moynihan Station and Atlantic Yards have generated some significant opposition. Schick noted that the Moynihan plan “morphed” from a project to build a new station to another that promised huge office towers to another that accommodated the relocation of Madison Square Garden--and that it wasn’t out of line to “ask a question or refuse to move.”

Schick suggested that the release of renderings creates unrealistic public expectations. When designs are released, he said, “the papers eat them up and it becomes real before it is.”

Was that a dig at the Times? (At right, the 7/5/05 rendering released exclusively to the Times.) Bagli noted that Moynihan Station plans have never been fully unveiled. But no one on the panel mentioned how Atlantic Yards has gone through four rounds of renderings, each treated as a media event, and how the Times--especially its architecture critics--bought into the hype.

Yaro brought up the concept of “city-building,” an effort that spans several terms of elected officials and demands structures to guarantee long-term input and oversight. “City-building doesn’t do well with term-limited mayors,” he said, noting that the city’s plans for the West Side, following the rejection of the stadium plan, are vastly improved.

Schick backs AY

Has community participation gone too far and should it be scaled back? Schick said that wasn’t feasible, and that “a transparent process” will make things better. He referred to Bagli’s reference to 46 lawsuits regarding the Times Square plan and said, “in Atlantic Yards, I think the litigation record is something like 18 and 0.”

In that case, Schick was repeating Forest City Ratner propaganda, since there have been five or six lawsuits, depending how you count, and if motions are counted as victories, they also should be counted as losses--not to mention a lawsuit that a Ratner ally has lost.

Schick acknolwedged that there are “vocal opponents” of AY, “and there are also supporters.” At a rally held May 3, he suggested, “there wasn’t press coverage because supporters outnumbered opponents.”

That doesn’t make sense. There was coverage in the Brooklyn media, but it’s likely that citywide media didn’t send reporters because 1) Saturday afternoon is a time when newspapers are understaffed and 2) Forest City Ratner, relying on stealth, deliberately did not cultivate press coverage for the counter-protest.

Typically, the developer tries very hard to attract press coverage. Nor did Schick acknowledge that the counter-protest was culivated by Forest City Ratner staffers.

Stadiums = "scams"

Bagli suggested that the West Side Stadium project was sui generis, since it was “condemned by every single civic group, except one.” He noted that economists uniformly conclude that sports facilities don’t provide much bang for the public investment buck.

Yaro said that the current bidding for the West Side Yards indicated the value of the site that was not acknowledged at the time. “I don’t think you can say the same about the parking lot next to Shea Stadium,” he said, adding that the new Yankee Stadium is more controversial.

Indeed, the city and state quickly arranged for parkland to be “alienated” for the Yankees owners, and promised to deliver replacement parks--in an asthma capital of the city--later on. Here's the analysis from Good Jobs NY.

Stadium projects, he said, are “one of the bigger scams in the country.”

AY deal "cut in 2003"

Bagli suggested that approval for Atlantic Yards and the two baseball stadiums was tied up in “the history” of the West Side Stadium, “a huge public fight” unprecedented in the city, with Madison Square Garden owners Cablevision in a “pissing match” with the city.

After that, he suggested, there was “more or less a tacit agreement” among politicians not to fight the mayor on every single thing. “The deal was cut in 2003 for Atlantic Yards,” he said. “To some extent, that precluded a lot of the impact of the opposition,” he added, which, though “as much as they bothered the hell out of me,” had grown from a small persistent group to a larger movement.

Curiously enough, he spoke in the past tense, as if the Atlantic Yards opposition had faded away or no longer had any role.

Schick on AY

Schick said that the previous administration had rushed to approve projects before the end of 2006. “Having gotten to ESDC on January 1, 2007,” he said, “the stack of things moved in November and December 2006 was pretty darn high.”

Schick was asked about second thoughts regarding Atlantic Yards. He noted that it had been approved by the Public Authorities Control Board in December 2006, so he couldn’t speak about the project before 2007. He did offer this observation: “I do think the developer did a fairly good job, by developer standards, of putting his plans out.”

By contrast, consider Chris Smith’s August 2006 assessment in New York magazine: Ratner’s team has mounted an elaborate road show before community boards and local groups, at which people have been allowed to ask questions and vent, and the developer has made a grand show of listening, then tinkering around the edges. But the fundamentals of the project... has never been up for discussion... What at first seemed to me impressive on a clinical level—a developer’s savvy use of state-of-the-art political tactics—ends up being, on closer inspection, positively chilling.

Schick said that he’d met with a variety of local elected officials, some for the project, some against it, and some on the fence, not about whether it should’ve been approved, but about how mitigations can work. He pointed out that multiple agencies are involved. “Without everyone coming together, we can’t move them forward.”

Goldstein's challenge

In the audience, Daniel Goldstein, Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn spokesman, raised his hand and identified himself. The room got quiet. He challenged Schick to elaborate on the claim of 18 victories and pointed out that, despite the 2006 document that “anticipated” a ten-year buildout, the ESDC last year allowed Forest City Ratner a much longer leash.

What can ESDC do to make sure the public gets some of the benefits in a time frame that’s reasonable, he asked, noting that demolitions are already occurring. [Goldstein tells me he thinks he said "purported benefits;" my notes are imprecise and I didn't bring a tape recorder.]

Schick, a lawyer, said he wasn’t going to answer legal questions at the forum, given that Goldstein and DDDB had chosen to litigate. As for the main question, he responded with pablum, saying that officials must recognize that developments do impact communities, which is “why community engagement is so important.”

At the end of the forum, I introduced myself to Schick and said I wanted to follow up on the question. He said to call the agency’s press office.

Yaro gave Schick something of a pass, observing that Atlantic Yards was “signed, sealed, delivered” by the time the Spitzer administration took office.

Of course, several groups, including Yaro’s RPA, in December 2006 asked Spitzer to request that the project be held over to his administration before official approval, but the Governor-elect ignored such entreaties. And the RPA expressed support for the first phase of Atlantic Yards but has not publicly raised questions about the delays in achieving that first phase.

Yaro suggested that the proper framework for such developments was that similar to Battery Park City, in which a public authority maintains ownership, manages and master plan, and offers long-term leases to multiple devleopers. “We ought to maintain public control,” he said, especially when public land and eminent domain are involved.

Role of the press

A resident of Midtown’s East Side implored Bagli to look at the deal behind developer Sheldon Solow's plan to build more than 5 million square feet.

Bagli acknowledged the press had a lot of work to do. “The role of a reporter is to illuminate what’s going on behind the scenes,” Bagli said. “I don’t see my job as being a scribe... Sometimes we’re better at it than other times.”

Could the latter be read as an acknowledgement that the Times has flubbed at least part of the Atlantic Yards story?

The proper balance

Asked about the balance between the private sector and the public sector, Schick said, “The private dollars will come if there’s a plan, with certainty and clarity.”

The government’s job, Bagli added, “is not to roll over.”

Did the government roll over with AY?

Eminent domain and planning

Asked about the controversial plan for Willets Point, Bagli turned his musings back to Atlantic Yards. Some people had lived on the AY footprint for years, but, just as the neighborhood “is coming into its own, they’re told to move. Where’s the equity? I’m not saying it’s wrong or right, but it’s a real issue.”

Yaro cautioned that urban renewal and eminent domain are “blunt instruments.” He pointed out that, in Japan and Korea, the practice of “land readjustment” makes current landowners shareholders in joint ventures. The increase in floor area ratio, he said, makes the current owners “all millionaires.”

Yaro cautioned that, to accommodate new waves of New Yorkers, the city will have to take “some extraordinary effort” to infill and redevelop sites.

While Yaro wasn’t recommending “land readjustment” explicitly, Schick expressed concern: “I’m not sure it’s realistic to say if we invited the displaced to become joint-venture participants our problems would go away.”

“I’ll take you to Japan,” Yaro riposted.

Asked if the area’s infrastructure investments were behind the curve, Schick said that “it all comes back to smart planning. If you’re not planning for the long-term but responding to a developer’s short-term demands, the state is not necessarily going to be making the wisest choices.”

Was Atlantic Yards long-term planning?

"Predatory equity"

In his final statement, Bagli wisely and poignantly pointed to a peculiar inflection point in the real estate market. “We’ve had a wave of gentrification, but I think there’s something profound going on we have to think about,” he said, noting how international investors in private equity firms are buying “meat and potatoes” rent-regulated buildings in working-class neighborhoods like the South Bronx and East New York. (Some call the firms "predatory equity.")

“Something big is going on,” he said. “They believe there’s going to be a complete withering away of rent regulation. Those neighborhoods are going to change. What kind of a city is it we’re going to have in the future, if those private equity firms are right?”

The answer, he suggested, may be “the European model” of cities like Paris, in which the city center is the home of the well-off, with the poor and working-class relegated to unsavory suburbs. It was a sobering thought for an evening that began with a cocktail hour.

Decoding the Daily News's belated story about Brooklyn Tech and AY

Seventeen months ago, after approval of the Atlantic Yards project in December 2006, the Daily News massively overhyped--with the headline "Nets go High Tech: Ratner throws in new home for elite Brooklyn HS in arena deal"--a vague plan by Forest City Ratner to "work with the City, State and the United Federation of Teachers on the creation of a new 21st Century Brooklyn Tech High School, at a yet to be determined location in the borough."

There was no promised new home, and it certainly wasn't guaranteed to be Atlantic Yards. In April 2007, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle shot down any such plans, saying that influential alumni were opposed to the idea of leaving the largest high school in the country--prime potential real estate--and that the Department of Education had no plans to move.

Now they tell us

The Daily News should've responded immediately. Instead, more than a year later, we get a story today, disingenuously headlined Brooklyn Tech building not slated for Atlantic Yards. The article states:
A new building for Brooklyn Technical High School won't be part of the controversial Atlantic Yards project, city officials said.

"There's no such plan," said Mike Weiss, chairman of the Fort Greene school's alumni foundation. "Nobody's working on anything like that."

Developer Bruce Ratner had agreed to work with the city, state and teachers union officials, after the project won key state approval in December 2006, to include a new building for the specialized high school.

That's false. The plan was for a "yet to be determined location."

Where's UFT?

The article quotes Department of Education officials reps as saying the plan never got off the ground, and offered this telling detail:
United Federation of Teachers officials did not return calls seeking comment.

UFT head Randi Weingarten has been a prominent supporter of Atlantic Yards. She should at least explain how this all came about.

Another school at AY, but much smaller

Today's article misleadingly suggests that Forest City Ratner, in its agreement to provide space for a school at Atlantic Yards, might have been able to accommodate Brooklyn Tech:
As part of another agreement, the Memo of Environmental Commitments, Ratner also agreed to provide space for a kindergarten-to-eighth-grade school.

"If Brooklyn Tech is not interested, a space will be provided for a school, regardless," said Forest City Ratner spokesman Joe DePlasco.

The city has until 2010 to ask the developer to set aside space for that school. City officials said it could potentially be part of the capital plan due out in November.

The school at Atlantic Yards would be 100,000 square feet. Brooklyn Tech has 600,000 square feet. DePlasco is up to his old tricks. The Daily News should've included that context.

More evidence about AY as a developer-driven project

More than a year ago, on 2/27/07, I wrote about how, despite claims by Forest City Ratner's lawyers that the developer did not conceive of Atlantic Yards, evidence suggested otherwise.

Let's look at two pieces of additional evidence, which seem to contradict each other. When the project was announced, a 12/11/03 New York Times article, headlined A Grand Plan in Brooklyn For the Nets' Arena Complex, reported:
Mr. [Bruce] Ratner said his effort began after [Borough President] Mr. [Marty] Markowitz called urging him to buy the Nets and move the team to Brooklyn.

The implication is that only upon the sale of the Nets did Ratner begin to consider development at the railyards.

"Next great site in Brooklyn"

But consider some more evidence of a developer-driven project. It's from a 9/9/05 Q2 2005 Forest City Enterprises, Inc. Earnings Conference Call (for sale) that representatives of parent Forest City Enterprises (FCE) had with investment analysts.

Chuck Ratner, CEO of FCE, said:
I will confess that it was less than two or three years ago we were sitting around in New York wondering where the next deals were going to come from. We had finished a whole bunch of office and we completed MetroTech and we didn't have the next great site in Brooklyn. That was one of the reasons we got so aggressive and creative, Bruce and his team did in this Atlantic Yards project. We saw that land sitting there for this last 10 years, realizing it would be a great opportunity if somebody could turn it on. We hope we've found a way to do that.

AY appeal

That sequence may be relevant to the pending appeal of the AY eminent domain case at the Supreme Court. (The court is still awaiting briefs on whether to even accept the case for consideration.)

In a decision issued 2/1/08, a federal appeals court waved away the plaintiffs' argument that, unlike in the Supreme Court's Kelo v. New London decision (which upheld eminent domain for economic development rather than addressing the broader justifications cited in the AY case), Atlantic Yards was proposed by the developer rather than the result of a response to an RFP.

The court stated: However, here, New York long ago decided by statute not to restrict the ESDC’s [Empire State Development Corporation] mandate to those “projects in which it is the prime mover.”

That's true, as I pointed out, but the court didn't address Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s observation in his nonbinding Kelo concurrence that the case was legitimized by “the substantial commitment of public funds by the State to the development project before most of the private beneficiaries were known” and “evidence that respondents reviewed a variety of development plans and chose a private developer from a group of applicants rather than picking out a particular transferee beforehand.”

Both those conditions were absent in the Atlantic Yards sequence. Whether the Supreme Court considers them significant we should know within a few months.

Launch of Nets' suite sales met with partial shrug

While the New Jersey Nets and Forest City Ratner put a lot of effort (Tiffany key chain!) into launching the sale of suites in the yet-unbuilt (heck, ground has not been broken) Barclays Center last Thursday, the media responded with what must be considered a partial shrug. The Barclays Center web site (right) touts articles from the Bergen Record, the Newark Star-Ledger, and the New York Times, but that Times article--as I failed to point out in commentary last week--appeared only online.

The media roundup includes several blog posts and coverage on WNYC radio, but the tabloids--which previewed the announcement in March--didn't cover the event. I think that's a recognition that the story, for now, didn't deserve more attention.

Of course, the entire announcement should've been treated with more skepticism--I read the locution about opening "in calendar year 2010" as allowing for a lot of wiggle room. (There were some skeptics on the NetsDaily blog.)

And, if Atlantic Yards stalls further, we'll see if NoLandGrab's Eric McClure was right in his Shakespearian observation of the Nets' CEO:
NLG: Alas, poor [Brett] Yormark. He and his Nets and Forest City Ratner cronies doth protest too much, we thinks, when it comes to the unrelenting efforts to dispel the inconvenient Nets-to-Newark rumors.

ESDC in disarray, says NYT; AY "not a done deal," says Barron

In a news analysis today, headlined State Development Agency Buffeted by Slowing Economy and Internal Rifts, the New York Times reports that the agency in charge of Atlantic Yards is in trouble. The article, however, doesn't give us any new clues about the state's posture toward the project.

The article states:
For more than a year, the state’s main economic development agency, the Empire State Development Corporation, has been in disarray, plagued by turf battles, poor management and the political collapse of Gov. Eliot Spitzer, business leaders and state officials say.

...Now with the economy slowing, credit markets tightening and tax revenues shrinking, the agency must make some hard decisions about its priorities. But at this important juncture, it remains rudderless.

...Moreover, the governor has sent conflicting messages, preaching fiscal austerity while suggesting that the state can move forward on a host of costly projects, including the Second Avenue subway, the extension of the No. 7 line, the $14 billion redevelopment of the West Side railyards, the $14 billion Penn Station project and the $4 billion Atlantic Yards basketball arena and residential complex in Brooklyn.

A senior adviser to [Gov. David] Paterson rejected the idea that the administration had sent mixed messages, saying the governor would not commit to projects that the state cannot afford.

What does that mean for Atlantic Yards? It's unclear. Paterson has expressed his support for the project, which likely requires less state funding than some of the other projects, and he left it out of a major speech on development last month.

The Assembly on Friday will hold a major hearing on the progress of several development projects on Manhattan's West Side. Perhaps some clues about AY will emerge then.

Barron on AY

The annual convention of FUREE (Families United for Racial and Economic Equality), held Saturday at P.S. 67 in Fort Greene, concerned such issues as gentrification in Downtown Brooklyn/Fort Greene and regulations regarding child care providers, but Atlantic Yards was on the mind of one invited guest.

City Council Member Charles Barron, a candidate for Brooklyn Borough President and a champion of the poor, got his own slot on the dais, preceding a panel featuring four elected officials who represent the immediate neighborhood. The one-time Black Panther began with a call and response, first “Black Power,” then “Latino Power.”

Then he declared, “Atlantic Yards is not a done deal.” The statement generated a moderate amount of applause, even though AY was not on the agenda. “We’ve got a whole new [city] administration coming in 2009." Some 150-200 people were in the audience at the time.

Barron prefaced his AY comment by allowing that City Council Member Letitia James might have said it first. She hadn’t spoken yet, and during her time at the microphone, she didn’t mention AY, though she did acknowledge a couple of members of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn in the audience.

"More with less"

Barron suggested there were better uses for city money than “$100 million to [Atlantic Yards developer Bruce] Ratner” or “$100 million to the Yankees.” (Actually, both figures would be greater, with $205 million in direct city spending for AY.)

Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Barron said, “says we have to do 'more with less.' Tell [Yankees owner George] Steinbrenner to do more with less. Tell Ratner to do more with less.”

Bloomberg's quote came in a May 6 press release regarding salary increases for employees at human service providers.

(I'll have a longer report on the FUREE convention published later in the week in the Brooklyn Downtown Star and on this blog.)

AY's "modern blueprint" and today's reality

Remember this article?

The article did acknowledge opposing views:

But it came to a conclusion:


The full article. My critique (and another).

Yes, Forest City Ratner was successful in gaining approval for the project. However, the expected results, and benefits, seem to be out of the control of those who approved it. And we know a little more about how to "nourish" and "harvest" community backing.

It doesn't look like as much of a modern blueprint now, especially since Forest City Ratner, post-approval, wants supporters to "reach out" to public officials.