Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

After what they presumably considered a discreet amount of time-- one month --the law firm representing Daniel Goldstein in the Atlantic Yards eminent domain proceedings issued a triumphant press release about the settlement. The press release is not aimed at people interested in the Atlantic Yards fight or the nitty-gritty of the settlement figure, which was driven by Forest City Ratner's interest in vacant possession in time for the NBA lottery (and the entrance of new Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov), a lowball offer from the state which pushed Goldstein to settlement, and a judge very interested in getting a deal done in one day. Not to mention a delay in negotiations caused by the developer's interest in a full gag order. The aftermath? Forest City Ratner's spurious claim that the sticking point was money. Rather, the release from Goldstein, Rikon & Rikon ( disclosure ) doesn't offer such context. It seems aimed at generating professional acclaim and business ...

A judge's decision yesterday to grant a condemnation order (below) for seven properties in the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park project site was a fairly routine process, as the Observer reported , with a new map being filed that transfers ownership to Empire State Development, the state agency overseeing the project. (I wasn't in the courtroom, but I hope to update this with an account from an observer.) But the judge did make one decision to give an edge to property owners, as reported by the Observer: Michael Rikon, a partner at Goldstein, Rikon, Rikon & Houghton representing two of the property owners—at 700-714 Atlantic Avenue and 718-728 Atlantic Avenue—asked only that the court extend the deadline by which owners (er, former owners) must file for just compensation, which represents the next step in the process. Judge Wayne Saitta agreed, pushing it back from 120 days to two years. Mr. Rikon told the Observer that although he will file immediately on behalf of his c...

Eminent domain attorney Michael Rikon wrote a letter to Stephen Brown of the Brooklyn Paper regarding the article (misleadingly) headlined Ratner exec: Goldstein was in it for the money! Gilmartin: 'He was in it for the money!' . I read your story in which you quote Forest City executive [MaryAnne] Gilmartin saying "the sticking point was how much money he wanted." This is an absolute untruth. I know that you were in court. After the argument, ESDC’s attorney asked for a conference. The reason was simple: its papers were defective as a matter of law. It could never obtain an eviction order on the Order to Show Cause it presented for a Writ of Assistance. We had a conference before the Court, first together and then individually. At this point is was only me. My son Joshua joined me much later as he was finalizing an Order to Show cause for Judge Gerges’ signature on another case. The amount of money was calculated based on what our appraiser had indicated would ...

The issue of eminent domain and blight got short shrift at the hearing on Atlantic Yards held Friday by State Senator Bill Perkins. One person who submitted testimony, but couldn’t attend, was Michael Rikon , an attorney since 1980 in private practice representing property owners in condemnation proceedings. (He also represents some property owners in the AY footprint.) “In my opinion, it is fundamentally wrong to take someone’s property and turn it over to a private party,” Rikon said in his prepared testimony . “We understand that eminent domain is necessary on occasion. But the use of this most extreme power should be limited to a true public purpose. Atlantic Yards should be limited to a stadium site for the Nets.” Interestingly enough, Rikon does not challenge condemnation for an arena whose profits would go to a private developer far more than any public entity. After Kelo As a result of the Supreme Court’s widely-criticized 2005 Kelo v. New London decision, which narrowly uphe...

Eminent domain attorney Michael Rikon , speaking on the Brian Lehrer Show last Thursday, offered both cautionary and encouraging words to those hoping to challenge the Atlantic Yards project in court . On the one hand, Rikon said that eminent domain law offered a lot of leeway to government agencies making determinations of blight. "Our courts will allow the taking for anything that has the slightest incidental public benefit," said Rikon, who represents parties threatened with condemnation. "In this case, they allege the area is blighted and the project will clear the blight up. Blight is a standard that is in the eyes of the beholder. I’ve seen blighting studies that were totally absurd. If it wasn’t blighted, it will soon be blighted by the cloud of condemnation." Chimed in Brooklyn Papers editor Gersh Kuntzman, "It’s funny to think of a area that’s blighted where brownstones neighboring this supposedly blighted area sell for $1.5 million." Rikon again...

A Brooklyn woman who wanted to open a day care center in a building in the Atlantic Yards footprint has achived a six-figure settlement her lawyer called a good compromise. Shirley Milligan, according to her attorney, Michael Rikon, had originally been offered $40,000 to reimburse her for her investment, plus the return of her $3000 security deposit. Milliken signed a lease apparently uninformed that the property was slated for demolition. (Someone--whether it be her or those on the other end of the transaction--apparently could've done more disclosure or diligence.) Milligan, who stopped paying rent in ground floor space at 487 Dean Street (building at left in photo), last October was slated for eviction . Had that succeeded, Forest City Ratner, which had purchased the building after Milligan signed a rental contract, would've had no obligation to compensate her for a “trade fixture claim,” which includes improvements made, including capital expenditures. Rikon last October s...

Why did Forest City Ratner settle with Daniel Goldstein last Wednesday for $3 million? The most obvious reasons were to save the alleged $6.7 million monthly cost of delay it alleged, and to pave the way for Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov's purchase of the Nets, which was depending on vacant possession of the site. Another reason--and a reason for Goldstein to settle--was that Kings County Supreme Court Justice Abraham Gerges pushed for a settlement. He didn't want to adjudicate the case, nor preside over an eviction that could easily have become a media event. Given the Empire State Developmeny Corporation's initial and ridiculous lowball appraisal of his apartment, Goldstein had to calculate his vulnerability to pursuing the case and getting a check that was worth far less than a replacement apartment. That said, it would have been of significant interest had the case continued, because, at least according to a response from Goldstein's attorney, the ESDC was ...

They should have stuck around. Though three representatives of the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), answering questions about contracting with AKRF and the operation of the Brooklyn Arena Local Development Corporation (BALDC), faced persistent (if not all too lengthy) scrutiny from state Senator Bill Perkins during the first hour of an oversight hearing Tuesday, they left before hearing others offer forceful criticism of both the agency's performance and the state's notoriously condemnor-friendly eminent domain laws. After all, the ESDC representatives who spoke--Executive VP Darren Bloch and General Counsel Anita Laremont--not only admitted no qualms about hiring AKRF but were unwilling to suggest any ideas for reforms. (The third representative, Executive Director Peter Davidson, was silent. He's their boss, but didn't join the ESDC until September. At bottom is the full four hour-plus hearing video .) Assessing the ESDC That left Perkins highly critical...

(This is one in an irregular series of articles about issues that a State Senate committee might address when it holds a hearing on Atlantic Yards.) When on May 8 I wrote about the case upholding Henry Weinstein's right to three properties on Block 1129 in the AY footprint (see oval in map ), I noted that the Empire State Development Corporation's (ESDC) Modified General Project Plan (GPP) states: All of the properties within the Project Site would be acquired by ESDC... at the outset of Project implementation. So that suggests that, whatever the dispute over Weinstein's ownership and the value of the lease to Shaya Boymelgreen (which Boymelgreen, according to the courts, improperly transferred to Forest City Ratner), the ESDC will just condemn Weinstein's property, along with the rest of the 22-acre AY footprint, once the eminent domain appeal is dismissed.  (The properties in white, or with asterixes, would be condemnations of the unwilling, while most of the rest w...

From John Brennan's coverage in the Record, headlined Holdouts' deal clears way for Nets arena in Brooklyn , of the scene outside the courtroom yesterday. Daniel Goldstein of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn was describing the settlement he'd reached with Forest City Ratner: During the interview, Goldstein’s attorney, Michael Rikon, asked for the identity of a man lurking nearby and who appeared to be taking notes electronically via a hand-held device. The man said he was Michael Rapfogel, a vice president with Forest City Ratner Companies, the developer. When Rikon asked the reporters to move down the hall, Rapfogel followed and continued to eavesdrop. A Michael Rapfogel is son of William E. Rapfogel , Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty , a powerhouse social service organization. William Rapfogel is a longtime friend of Assembly S...

Opponents of governmental plans to use eminent domain for Atlantic Yards, the Columbia University expansion, and Willets Point redevelopment were at center stage yesterday at a State Senate hearing on reforming state eminent domain laws, where they and others pointed out that, in the years following the Supreme Court’s 2005 Kelo v. New London Supreme Court decision, New York has been among the few states that has made no effort to tighten eminent domain laws either through legislative or judicial action. “Nowhere else in the country is eminent domain used to benefit private interests so rampantly and so brazenly,” declared Christina Walsh, a representative of the Institute for Justice , the libertarian legal organization that has led the fight nationally against eminent domain. Harlem State Senator Bill Perkins, an opponent of the Columbia expansion who convened the hearing, called for a moratorium on the use of eminent domain in the state and a stall on the Columbia plan. He said h...

Any attending the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods press conference Monday could have noticed an odd thing: a piece of the Ward Bakery is not, in fact, shrouded for asbestos abatement and demolition but continues to operate as a moving and storage company. How can part of the building be intact? Why isn't the company gone? A representative of Pack It Away Storage pointed me to attorney Michael Rikon , a well-known representative of condemnees, who answered my questions. (Here's an article co-authored by Rikon on the expansion of the doctrine of "public use.") Ten-year operation Pack It Away, Rikon said, has been at that location for more than ten years and the building--while connected to the rest of the bakery--is stable and structurally sound. "The demolition may not interfere with the continuing activities of the business in any way," he said. (The last bakery operation at the building closed in 1995 . The aromas, hardly unpleasant, wafted into Park ...