Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

In an article published today headlined Developer of Atlantic Yards Is Cited for Failing to Stop Demolition Work , the New York Times advances the story first broken on this blog, reporting that the Department of Buildings issued a violation yesterday to Forest City Ratner because it failed to stop demolition work at 622 Pacific Street. Contractors for the developers, though they resolved issues that led to earlier violations, did not first get the required reinspection. Was the backhoe used? Still at issue is whether the contractors used a backhoe, against regulations and in contradiction of a promise (to use "primarily" hand tools) made by FCR to the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC). The Times article states: Contractors began tearing down the vacant Pacific Street buildings with hand tools — as required by the Buildings Department — on May 30. A backhoe was brought to the site on June 7 to help clear debris and level the ground, company officials said. However,...

Did contractors for Forest City Ratner know that people were living in 624 Pacific Street, the building adjacent to 622 Pacific, where the demolition began rudely at 6:15 a.m. on January 7? The developer says yes; the tenants say no. Now that George Locker, an attorney for the tenants, has acquired a copy of the Structural Due Diligence Survey conducted for FCR by LZA Technology, he believes the document adds another layer to the eyewitness report. The document, completed 10/24/05, states: Adjacent properties include non-inhabited residential buildings. In a letter sent yesterday to Charles Gargano, chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), Locker charged that Forest City Ratner continued a mechanical demolition on Monday, despite a stop-work order issued that day, given that there was no permit for using a backhoe to demolish the building. He said his clients will seek to file a criminal complaint. (Photo taken June 7, copyright David Gochfeld) Demolition by hand?...

A New York Times article today, headlined In Major Projects, Agreeing Not to Disagree , takes on the issue of Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs). Though some dismay is expressed concerning the CBA negotiated around the Atlantic Yards project, major criticisms--that the signatories don't represent the community and that they've been funded by developer Forest City Ratner--are either muted or unmentioned. In other words, the Times missed an opportunity to say--or have a critic say--the obvious: the Atlantic Yards CBA is illegitimate compared to those model CBAs negotiated in Los Angeles because the coalition is far smaller, the signatories would not have otherwise opposed the project, and some signatories have accepted payments from the developer. The article, which combines some mentions of CBAs nationally with an emphasis on New York, appears on the commercial real estate page rather than the Metro section, which should have covered the Atlantic Yards issue in detail already....

It’s not so sweet for rent-stabilized tenants living in the proposed Atlantic Yards footprint, despite a New York Times report about developer Forest City Ratner’s apparent generosity to condo owners. The developer has offered settlement terms a lawyer for several tenants dismisses as inadequate, and actions surrounding a demolition last week have led the lawyer to charge harassment and the Department of Buildings (DOB) to issue three violations. Last Wednesday, Leigh Anderson, a tenant for eight years at 624 Pacific Street, was rudely awakened at 6:15 a.m. when contractors demolishing the adjacent 622 Pacific Street used a backhoe that sent vibrations through the wall of her building. "We thought the building was coming down," Anderson said, referring to herself and boyfriend David Gochfeld. "The building shook, and it felt like a wrecking ball was going through the side of the building." (Photo above right taken Wednesday, copyright David Gochfeld) Gochfeld went ...

Would Coney Island be a better place than the proposed Atlantic Yards site for a new basketball arena? Less than a year before Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan was unveiled, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz championed Coney Island as the location. City officials long have considered locating a Sportsplex for amateur and (later) professional sports there, first at the site of what is now Keyspan Park, and later next door at a parking lot in front of the somewhat antiquated Abe Stark Rink . (Graphic from the 1/31/04 Brooklyn Papers , p. 7 of the PDF.) Of course, Markowitz now fervently backs Forest City Ratner's plan for a Brooklyn arena at Atlantic Yards. And a Sportsplex has been scrapped from the city's ever-evolving plans for Coney Island. But Coney Island still deserves consideration, especially given that a glitzy new development is planned just a few blocks away from the potential Sportsplex site. On 6/9/06, Michael O'Keeffe of the Daily News'...

From today's New York Times: A picture caption last Sunday with the continuation of a cover article about the developer Bruce Ratner's projects misstated the site of his Atlantic Yards development. It is on rail yards and other land in Prospect Heights and on a block in Park Slope. It is not in Downtown Brooklyn, although it is near that neighborhood. I'd actually missed that error, but, then again, I'd thought they'd put the "Downtown Brooklyn" mistake to bed , once and for all. Still uncorrected: Nicolai Ouroussoff's statement that "Mr. [Bruce] Ratner has lopped several stories off the biggest towers in negotiations with the city." Actually, the tallest building, Miss Brooklyn, remains 620 feet, and the second-tallest was increased from 510 feet to 511 feet. Also uncorrected: the use of a graphic that portrayed the 512-foot Williamsburgh Savings Bank as nearly as tall as Miss Brooklyn and a good bit taller than the 511-foot second-tallest...

It looks a lot like payback. Council Member David Yassky , the only white candidate (of four Democrats) in a heated campaign to win the open seat in the black majority 11th Congressional District, on May 7 announced the support of several community activists, including three signatories to the controversial Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement, or CBA. (None of the three , who are black, were identified in Yassky’s press release as associated with the organizations that signed the CBA.) Within ten days, Yassky filed a City Council Priorities Request asking taxpayers to send $3 million for job training to Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development ( BUILD ), the most controversial of the CBA signatories, which is headed by James Caldwell, one of those supporters at Yassky’s press conference. (Photo from DavidYassky.com) The proposal was quickly derided by fellow Council Member Letitia James, who called Yassky's move "pandering," and Bill Batson, chair of Co...

Forest City Ratner has given much more money than previously announced to signatories of the controversial Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement (CBA), and the developer was negotiating that commitment before the CBA was signed last June. It's another reason to question the legitimacy of the CBA as compared with the pioneering examples negotiated in Los Angeles. While the developer previously acknowledged giving $87,000 to the Downtown Brooklyn Educational Consortium (DBEC), Freddie Hamilton (right), the director of the group, says that that the DBEC had received a $350,000 grant. That nearly doubles the known amount of total payments to CBA signatories, to $538,000, though the amount is likely larger. “We had discussed the support that would be coming,” said Hamilton, in an interview after the candidates’ forum Monday night at the Brown Memorial Baptist Church in Clinton Hill. “I had written a proposal and submitted it to Forest City Ratner.” After the CBA was signed, the ...

I’ve been trying to sort through the flap around the Daily News’s publication of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn spokesman Daniel Goldstein’s intemperate racially-charged email comments. Had both columnist Ben Smith and Goldstein been more careful, the controversy would have played out differently, and surely not escalated to Smith's Daily News story today, in which the Rev. Al Sharpton attacked three very different people: Goldstein, a sometimes hotheaded community activist; Nick Minucci, accused of uttering racial slurs and beating a black man; and David Yassky, a white candidate for Congress in a black majority district. (I clarify and correct my own accounts at the end of this post.) In the beginning First, it’s worth noting, this all happened on May 26. Goldstein was CC’d on an email between Smith and another Brooklynite, who had slugged the email a “private” response to Smith’s coverage of matters related to Brooklyn politics and Atlantic Yards. Because several peop...