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April 15, 2008

De Blasio Blasts Ratner on AY Obfuscation

Last night Councilman Bill de Blasio held a meet-up for Brooklyn bloggers at which he spoke for a couple of hours about development topics including Atlantic Yards, rezonings, affordable housing, and what he'd like to accomplish if he's elected borough president. Like Gowanus Lounge, we were most interested in what de Blasio had to say about Atlantic Yards: The councilman said he thinks there should be no more demolitions in the Atlantic Yards footprint until Forest City Ratner puts its current plans for the project into writing. De Blasio said he was "livid" about the interview Bruce Ratner gave to the New York Times last month since the likely stall "calls the entire Community Benefits Agreement into question." The Councilman also said that he thinks the entire development should be reviewed again by the state if Forest City Ratner is now conceiving of a vastly different project, particularly one that reneges on its promised affordable housing. "I held out hope for the project because of the amount of affordable housing it would create, as well as the number of jobs it would bring," he said. "But I have been constantly disappointed in the lack of community involvement...I've never seen anything that's been mismanaged so fundamentally in terms of community involvement." The councilman also talked about the possible Coney Island and Gowanus rezonings. While he's not thrilled with either the city or Joe Sitt's possibly competing visions for the area ("I'm not comfortable with the Manhattanization of Brooklyn" that both plans represent), he says that "by and large" he likes Planning's draft framework for rezoning Gowanus because "the best way to get the canal clean is to get residential development around it." As borough president, de Blasio said he'd like to be involved with "shaping more than just promoting Brooklyn." In keeping with one of his primary platforms, affordable housing, de Blasio said he'd use the office to "start addressing the have-nots."
De Blasio Calls for Moratorium on Atlantic Yards Demolition [GL]

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Comments

Whats with the soft focus on that photo? It looks live vintage Penthouse magazine.

Posted by: guest at April 15, 2008 9:14 AM

I hope what he says is true and he's just not saying that to get elected. Stop demolishion!

Posted by: guest at April 15, 2008 9:38 AM

what did he have to say about congestion pricing?

Posted by: guest at April 15, 2008 9:41 AM

what did he have to say about congestion pricing?

Posted by: guest at April 15, 2008 9:44 AM

Who was the third guy in Demolition? Smash? They were a bad ass tag team.

"Manhattanization" "start addressing the have-nots." i'm not satisfied with that level of populism. he needs to add a cheap line about sustainability.

Posted by: guest at April 15, 2008 9:51 AM

EVERYTHING Bill DeBlasio says is to get elected - he is the consummate political hack - there will be no faster way to return NYC to the dis-functional mess that it was in the late 80's then having a former Dinkins officials like DiBlasio become more powerful in City Government.

Posted by: guest at April 15, 2008 10:16 AM

Wow - sorry for multiple posts. Still stand by my point, though - do NOT elect BdB and the wife, who wears the pants.

Posted by: guest at April 15, 2008 11:25 AM

9:39 - DeBlasio is a guy who literally changed his name to get elected (his given last name was Wilhelm - his Fathers), but he changed it to DeBlasio (his Mother's) to sound more ethnic for his 2001 City council run in Brooklyn.

The guy is not to be trusted

Posted by: guest at April 15, 2008 12:12 PM

Thank you, Mr. de Blasio! You have my vote, if this is how you really feel.

Posted by: guest at April 15, 2008 12:13 PM

I love the depth of political commentary from some posters:

"He'll say anything!" "But his wife is a lesbian!" "He changed his name! Don't trust him!"

Yeesh.

Posted by: guest at April 15, 2008 12:18 PM

Really 12:18 - do you really think changing your (last) name at age 40+ is superficial political commentary? -especially when doing so will make you infinitely more electable in the the ethnically diverse areas of Red Hook/Cobble Hill/PS/Boro Park etc...

I mean I could cite his flip flop on AY - the hypocrisy of claiming to be for affordable housing and yet pushing for downzoning. I could cite the stupidity of watering down of the City's anti-housing discrimination laws with his new Section 8 law or his PAID endorsement of John Edwards.

But really isn't his insincerity and ambition so much better demonstrated by his name change??

Posted by: guest at April 15, 2008 1:14 PM

It looks like the candidates are scrambling over themselves to be more anti-AY. Charles Barron is also in this race, so we won't have many candidates running on a pro-corporate welfare platform.

Remember it was the Borough President who decided to hand over local oversite to the state. It's looking like AY will be stalled for the next few months, and if it's still stalled by next fall, it could be killed by the political process (if the financing doesn't kill it first).

Posted by: guest at April 15, 2008 1:24 PM

Killed by the "political process"? How so? Even the unhinged crazies at DDDB admit that Ratner has through 2009 before public funding is lost. The court cases will be resolved in that time, though, and yet another DDDB fantasy will have fallen by the wayside.

Posted by: guest at April 15, 2008 1:46 PM

de Blasio would be a very good bp. He is smart and articulate and would fight for good things for Brooklyn and Brooklynites. That means good jobs, good teacher salaries, affordable housing.
All politicians have to be a bit forward to get elected. Once elected good people remain good. His track record has been very good as a councilperson. That record should be what matters to people. Even if true, who cares in this day and age about sex orientation? So last century!

Posted by: guest at April 15, 2008 2:09 PM

Wow apparently De Blasio has schizophrenia, where was he when his voice actually mattered?

Posted by: guest at April 15, 2008 4:20 PM

Even the unhinged crazies at the brownstoner blog posts are blank blank you mean

Posted by: guest at April 15, 2008 4:24 PM

Beep didn't give state oversight on AY; that was good ole Dan Doctoroff.

BP has zee-roh power. Except putting stupid signs up for when you exit and enter the borough. Oh, and your wife gets the chance to rip-off expensive place mats.

All that said, DeBlasio got religion pretty fast once he saw Yassky taken down by AY in his run for the Congressional seat.

Posted by: guest at April 15, 2008 6:45 PM

AY is the new monica lewinsky. go away cog.

Posted by: BrooklynLove at April 15, 2008 8:35 PM

http://www.streetsblog.org/2008/04/11/de-blasios-excuse-there-shoulda-been-a-brooklyn-lock-box/

Not the sharpest knife in the drawer...

Posted by: guest at April 15, 2008 10:27 PM

Oh the irony...He professes to be opposed to the Manhattanization of Brooklyn yet supports (supported?) the Atlantic Yards project.

He "held out hope" for the project because of its affordable housing components, but couldn't see that Ratner promised lots but the binding "Community Benefits Agreement" guaranteed absolutely nothing?

Luckily, the BP holds little power, but don't think for a minute that deBlasio plans on staying BP. He ALWAYS has his sights on the next thing. Maybe if Hillary is elected, he can go to Washington where he can do less damage to our neighorhoods.

Posted by: guest at April 16, 2008 12:16 AM