Hearing for Lingering Atlantic Yards Case
Atlantic Yards Report has a lengthy piece on yesterday’s hearing in Manhattan Supreme Court on one of the only remaining legal challenges against the mega-project. The main issue yesterday, according to AY Report: “A lawyer for the community coalition BrooklynSpeaks assailed a ‘cover up’ by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) over the legitimacy of…
Atlantic Yards Report has a lengthy piece on yesterday’s hearing in Manhattan Supreme Court on one of the only remaining legal challenges against the mega-project. The main issue yesterday, according to AY Report: “A lawyer for the community coalition BrooklynSpeaks assailed a ‘cover up’ by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) over the legitimacy of the ESDC’s response to a court order requiring it to explain why it didn’t need issue a Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement to study the impact of a potential 25-year buildout.” After hearing from lawyers representing the community groups and the ESDC and Forest City Ratner, the judge “heard a request for a stay on Atlantic Yards construction—a request with the provision that ongoing arena construction could continue—but did not indicate when she’d rule.”
Inconclusive Hearing Over AY Timetable Impacts [AY Report]
Photo from AtlanticYards.com
The housing construction which theoretically contains the affordable housing units that we’ve already paid Ratner for. One of many cons this crook perpetrated on us.
are any of these lawsuits suppose to yank the public funding or only to stop or slow the construction?
ENY- when the economic benefit of those jobs- most of which will not be hi paying, in the long run, nor even full-time, outweighs the money taxpayers are losing to Ratner, then we can talk.
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Must a job be high paying for to be worth taking? Certainyl not all jobs pay highly. I would imagine the person who takes this sort of job can’t find something better immediately, and takes this until they can upgrade. I done the same thing in my career. I wasn’t worried about the larger tax issues at those times, I simply needed a job, and was glad to get a chance when it came along.
Johnny nailed it. This isn’t about how nice the arena looks, or whether traffic will be bad, or how much the Nets suck. It’s about corporate welfare going to a politically connected private development with no realistic expectation that any of the promised economic benefits will actually happen.
If Ratner had paid fair market for the rail yards and bought private property without the hammer of eminent domain, then as far as I’m concerned he could build whatever he pleases.
This lawsuit is not even about the arena, it is about the schedule of the housing construction.
11217- very true, at this point pretty much anything will be an improvement on what’s there now. But the sticking point for me is how the project got rammed through and how much money the public is paying for it. I’m still waiting for them to pay for the air rights-with the economic situation in the city such as it is, I think it’s a travesty that FCR basically isn’t giving us one red cent that he promised, and we are , instead, giving him quite a few. I have to agree with Johnny and Bkhabitant’s points.
ENY- when the economic benefit of those jobs- most of which will not be hi paying, in the long run, nor even full-time, outweighs the money taxpayers are losing to Ratner, then we can talk.
all for yanking the public funding. but if that cant be yanked, then just build the fucker already.
this project is a perfect example of wasting it, while getting little to nothing in actual return. Unless you’re a Nets fan- then you can pay for an expensive beer while you watch them lose.
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I would think someone who gets a job in the arena, and needs it, might think differently.
Yeah, I’m not gonna shut up. And I sure as hell aint gonna apologize for my opposition.
The taxpayers got conned. Plain and simple. Vitality? Economic development? History tells a different story. Public money goes into private hands and stadiums never, ever generate the revenue they cost or create the economic development their developers (and the recipients of the corporate welfare) claim.
All that happens is the value of the sports franchise that taxpayers subsidize goes through the roof. The taxpayers build the stadium and foot the bill on an ongoing basis. Which, again as evidence shows, drains funds, costs jobs and causes long term economic decline.
Look at the area around Yankee stadium. Decades of corporate welfare going to the Yankees for what exactly? Vitality?
Economic study after economic study shows the same thing. Texas Rangers, Mets, Yankees, Montreal Expos and now the Nets. The public foots the bill to the tune of several hundred million. The owners get the benefit.
As Stadiums Vanish, Their Debt Lives On
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/08/sports/08stadium.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&ref=general&src=me