Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

Foreset City Ratner and its government partner, the Empire State Development Corporation, could not have liked the press conference yesterday, involving a wide range of elected officials, urging that the Atlantic Yards Development Agreement be revised to require the affordable housing to be built on the originally promoted ten-year schedule before the developer is allowed to sell 70% of the remaining project to the Chinese government-owned Greenland Group. If the politicians' logic was sometimes wobbly--that the arena subsidies were justified because it would bring that housing--they indubitably pointed out that the Development Agreement signed at the end of 2009 was negotiated after an economic downturn, and now the residential market is roaring. That's a very strong case for revising the agreement, and a sign that the state agency did a lousy job in writing protections for the public. And they made a case that, in the ongoing Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement ...

Six elected officials, along with a district leader, have sent a letter to Gov. David Paterson asking him to make public any documents requesting stimulus funds for Atlantic Yards, to hold a public hearing with opportunity for public comment regarding such allocation of funds, and to have "responsible state officials"meet with them before any decision is made regarding such funds. While the letter, dated March 3, does not go so far as to oppose stimulus funds for AY, as several community groups did in a recent letter , it essentially sets up many more roadblocks beyond those faced by any other request. And the letter points out that not only the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) but also the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) have not requested stimulus funds for the project. (It was known that AY was not on the initial MTA list, but there's been no public disclosure of ESDC requests.) The Times reports that, though the state has $4 billion to spend, l...