Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

There was an interesting aside in Bill Mahoney's report in Capital New York' yesterday, Real estate money fuels controversy in Assembly race , concerning the very contested race to succeed Karim Camara in Brooklyn. Most of the article deals with the real estate support for candidate Shirley Patterson--support via the Independence Party, gaining contributions from real estate investor Alexander Rovt and direct support from Leonard Litwin’s Glenwood Management. But Working Families Party candidate Diana Richardson, who has pledged not to take money from landlords and developers, is not completely pure, suggests Mahoney: The W.F.P. itself has also taken money from wealthy developers. It received a combined $25,000 from Bruce Ratner and his wife last October . More on Ratner Why would Ratner and his wife Pamela Lipkin support the Working Families Party? Perhaps they were asked by WFP co-founder Bertha Lewis, longtime Atlantic Yards ally/partner, who now heads the Black In...

Remember the issue of security? The good-government group Citizens Union (CU), in its lengthy comments to the Charter Revision Commission on land use and other issues (more here ), says "there is a need to integrate 21st century security concerns into land use decision-making." Oh. The CU was never out front on Atlantic Yards, and its comment do not specifically invoke AY, but they essentially back up concerns by AY opponents and critics that terrorism and security should have been considered not merely--as they surely have been--by the developer and the police, but in the environmental review. As of now, no streets are supposed to be closed outside the Atlantic Yards arena, even though--at least in a previous incarnation--the distance to the arena was no greater than at the Prudential Center in Newark, where streets are closed. (Given the re-orientation of the arena, the distance from the street, at least on Flatbush Avenue, likely would be greater. Then again, comments ...

The venerable good-government group Citizens Union (CU), as I wrote in March, has played it carefully regarding Atlantic Yards, in December 2006 calling for a “limited delay” but saying it “does not align itself with those who oppose the project"--and never speaking out further. Now the CU, which has a special role in the Charter Revision Commission's work, is also playing it carefully, proposing reforms--some of which (land use review regarding security and architectural character) could affect future Atlantic Yards-like projects, at least if they are be subject to city review. But those reforms would not fundamentally change the power balance in the city. CU will present its 49 recommendation to the Commission at a hearing tonight at 6 pm at Brooklyn College, the first of five hearings in response to a preliminary staff report . That report scanted issues of land use and concerns about local decisionmaking (as pointed out by Brooklyn representative Carlo Scissura, B...

One of the enduring questions regarding Atlantic Yards regards the failure of longstanding good-government organizations to make a difference. The Municipal Art Society has played a careful role, calling for major changes in design but not opposing a process critics consider fundamentally skewed. The Citizens Union (CU), responding in December 2006 to a drastic decline in estimated tax revenues--first revealed by AYR, then picked up by the New York Times-- called for a “limited delay” in the process and noted that it “does not align itself with those who oppose the project and wish to use the process of delay to kill the project, because we believe that economic development is needed so that the city can continue to be a dynamic place of business and meet the needs of a growing population.” Of course the economic development figures remained questionable, but the CU thereafter remained silent, despite cogent criticism by not-so-radical representatives of local community boards. The ...