Street closure creep, signs on trees, construction vehicles on residential streets--the routine violations of Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park

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Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park is routinely characterized by small lies and violations that--whatever the reason--serve the interest of the developer and partners by diminishing disturbing statistics or untoward impacts. They routinely go unpunished.

Consider the lowball estimate of the upper bound of "affordable" rents, or the planned closure of Sixth Avenue at Dean Street--coming this weekend, likely--for a longer period than initially disclosed.

Here's another example. On Friday, it was disclosed that, because a crawler crane would be disassembled on Vanderbilt Avenue and Dean Street on Monday, Feb.15, from 6 am to 9 pm, two streets would close: Dean Street, between Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues, and southbound Vanderbilt Avenue, between Pacific and Bergen streets.

That's not what happened. As noted in the Instagram post below, not only was southbound Vanderbilt closed for another block, up to Atlantic Avenue, Vanderbilt was closed intermittently northbound.

Here's the street closure notice posted on Vanderbilt. The same info was on Dean as well. Note it differs from what was distributed to the public because it states Vanderbilt southbound is closed from Atlantic to Bergen instead of from Pacific. In actuality Vanderbilt was closed intermittently northbound as well, with the traffic routed down Dean. #nypd78thpct #Greenlandforestcitypartners #esdny #hdr_inc #stv #nycdob #nycdot #bciza #pacificparkbk #550vanderbilt #nyc311

A photo posted by @pplegacy on Feb 15, 2016 at 9:50pm PST

Also, four No Parking signs were stapled to trees, which is illegal.

Altogether there were 4 signs stapled into the trees. It is hard to see how this illegal step continues to be made. Early in the project the Pacific Park developer cut from 86 to 90 street trees and committed to planting 116 by the time of the anticipated project completion in 2016. Up to now- 2016 -- they have successfully planted around 7. The area continues to be devoid of street trees and they don't seem to respect the ones that are left. #nycdob #nycdot #baycrane #roux #stv #pacificparkbk #bciza #empirestatedevelopment #esdny #Greenlandforestcitypartners #nycparks #nypd78thpct #cityparksfoundation

A photo posted by @pplegacy on Feb 15, 2016 at 5:29pm PST

Though residential Bergen Street, a block below Dean Street, was not supposed to be affected, the photo below shows a construction vehicle using Bergen Street.

Pacific Park construction vehicle heading down Bergen Street. It entered by traveling south on the northbound lane of Vanderbilt against the direction traffic. #lovenyc #bciza #pacificparkbk #nyc311 #nycdot #Greenlandforestcitypartners #nypd78thpct #hdr_inc #stv #roux #baycrane #nycdot #nycdob

A photo posted by @pplegacy on Feb 15, 2016 at 4:38pm PST

As noted, trucks were seen idling for more than the allowable three minutes, a violation that is routine (but might be diminished if witnesses got a bounty, as some Council Members have proposed). See video at bottom.

On two separate visits to Vanderbilt today to observe the street closure and procedure for breaking down and removing the crane, I witnessed numerous problems both with implementation and public notice. 1). During my morning visit trucks were idling for long periods -- much longer than is legally allowed. For video go here: http://youtu.be/gKP0g5DgowQ. 2). The implementation was different than announced. The signs on Dean and Vanderbilt announced the southbound closure was from Atlantic to Bergen. The public announcement was from Pacific to Bergen. In addition the northbound lane was intermittently closed which wasn't disclosed. This problem occurred last time this operation took place as well. 3). 4 no parking signs were stapled into street trees. This is illegal and merits penalties being implemented since this happens over and over. 4). In the short time I observed this I watched 2 construction vehicles use Bergen Street which they should not do. #nypd78thpct #nyc311 #nycdob #nycdot #empirestatedevelopment #stv #hdr_inc #Greenlandforestcitypartners #pacificparkbk #bciza #nycparks #lovenyc #nycdep

A photo posted by @pplegacy on Feb 15, 2016 at 4:31pm PST

The video