Big Week for Atlantic Yards Sweetheart Deal-Making
The MTA will present a new deal for Atlantic Yards today to its board’s finance committee in advance of a possible vote on Wednesday by the authority’s board to green-light the revamped plan, according to Daily Intel. The revised plan is poised to be breathtaking in its concessions to Forest City Ratner. Rather than the…
The MTA will present a new deal for Atlantic Yards today to its board’s finance committee in advance of a possible vote on Wednesday by the authority’s board to green-light the revamped plan, according to Daily Intel. The revised plan is poised to be breathtaking in its concessions to Forest City Ratner. Rather than the developer forking over $100 million upfront to the MTA for the right to build on state land, “the MTA appears willing to settle for a drastically reduced price in order to salvage some kind of short-term development at Atlantic Yards: Sources say the new price tag is likely to be either $20 million upfront or $10 million per year for ten years.” But wait, there’s more! Ratner’s pledge to build a new LIRR rail yard may result in a facility with 25 percent less capacity than the existing one. And, as Crain’s reports, tomorrow the Empire State Development Corp. board is scheduled to vote on a new timetable for the project that would push the completion date for the mega-project way past the original 2014 target year. (No big surprise there.) AY Report posits that the negotiations are rooted in Forest City’s need to start building this year or risk losing out on tax-exempt bonds for the arena, as well as to stop losing money on the Nets. Seven elected officials who have long been opposed to the project—including Councilwoman Letitia James and State Senator Velmanette Montgomery—shot off a letter last week urging the MTA to disclose changes to its deal with FCR to the public before voting on them: “We respectfully suggest that a hasty decision to modify the obligations of the developer could be detrimental to the needs of the mass transit system and that any decision should only be made after the public and elected officials have had a fair opportunity to present their views.”
Ratner Close to Railroading MTA on Atlantic Yards [Daily Intel]
Electeds Want Delay on M.T.A. Atlantic Yards Vote [Observer]
Atlantic Yards Won’t Be Derailed [Crain’s]
AY: “Out of the Barn” or Driven by FCR’s Tightening Timetable? [AY Report]
” The city can’t afford to do it, and no private developer will attempt it due to the insane building costs in this city. ”
So how does this make sense? The only way for ratner to be able to build AY is with the same public financing you say the city can’t afford.
Also– and not to sound like a jerk, but:
“Jobs – at what cost? Spend the money elsewhere and still creates jobs. The city’s laying off people ’cause they can’t afford to pay them so the net increase in jobs/taxes of this is actually less than zero.”
You do realize that money in government agencies is the least efficient job creation tool possible, right? And that’s not a right wing yarn– Obama recognizes this, which is why so much of his stimulus and green jobs program is aimed at public-private partnerships.
Look, Johnny, I would love to build more schools and parks– but the refrain of “Then support rational development” is so completely cliche, not to mention FUBAR. Define rational development. Show me all these rational development projects that exist in dense urban areas.
Almost no city in the world has the cash for public development (especially now) so they depend on public-private partnerships. As someone who works in finance, you know this. Is Ratner a prick? Yes. Will he make money off this? Sure he will. But the city lacks the cash to build just about anything on it’s own, so it will always need people like him if they want to get anything done.
The way to build parks (or in this case affordable housing) is to mandate it as part of a bigger deal. The city can’t afford to do it, and no private developer will attempt it due to the insane building costs in this city.
Ratner tries to con the New York taxpayers out of $2 billion and the villain here is DDDB???
Hate to sound, even temporarily, like the What but his is – and always has been – a scam. We build Ratner’s Nets a free stadium and in return he lets us buy tickets to the Nets.
OK, so the amounts of the corporate welfare have declined of late. Big effin’ deal. Don’t like looking at the hole in the ground? Then support rational development. And if you think the bills stop when the stadium’s done, think again. The tax breaks we give Ratner will only get worse when the lease is up. Then we have to pay him to stay or else we’ve got an empty stadium and even more needless expense.
Jobs – at what cost? Spend the money elsewhere and still creates jobs. The city’s laying off people ’cause they can’t afford to pay them so the net increase in jobs/taxes of this is actually less than zero.
A disaster from day 1. Either this stops or our grand kids will be footing the damn bill for our stupidity.
Boerum Hill said it right.It’s very easy to try to put the blame on DDDB but just look around at all the stopped projects (and these involved much less money and on a much smaller scale) in the City to get an idea of where AY would be today- DDDB or not.
Granted development is wanted there (to claim its needed is to imply the borough will be decimated without it- despite the fact Brooklyn has fared rather well all these years without an AY project). But the kind of development ratner wants to build is the worst kind of urban plan. There’s no reason to waste billions on a crap project instead of rethinking what could go there. And for what? The promise of 25 million dollars return over 20 years? That’s laughable. Jobs? Yes- for the construction industry, which are transient. As much as I want jobs for construction workers and tradesmen , for the public to finance jobs for them with billions of dollars while so many other workers get little to nothing, and so many organizations need funding- is a real travesty.
And lets not forget the main beneficiary of all this – Ratner. People keep complaining about how awful DDDB is and how they are singlehandedly ruining Brooklyn by stopping him- I see them as saving us money, because AAY will be a huge money pit. Ratner doesn’t have the money to build it- never did.
havelc,
You’re right that financing was available when AY was signed off at (sub-sidized financing at that). If the Developer had started the project when he wanted, he’d be defaulting on that financing as we speak because his project isn’t economically viable
If we’re going down the route of spending tax dollars on construction because its a jobs program, then the projects undertaken should clearly be for the public good and not for the benefit of private interests i.e. let’s build some new schools or new parks (i.e. a non-cmmercial Brooklyn Bridge Park). Or rebuild the BQE. We don’t need an arena that isn’t going to make money or high end apartments that are going to get sold at a loss.
From my perspective this is a pox on all their houses type situation. I live in Prospect Heights (the neighborhood that will supposedly be most adversly effected by AY) and can tell you that development on this property is desperatly needed. The northern edge of prospect heights (north of Bergen) and the souther edge of Ft. Greene/Clinton Hill are desolate and poorly designed areas. Smart and sensible development of this parcel could have a tremendous positive impact on both neighborhoods. While I have always felt that the Ratner plan was too big and too out of scale, something clearly must be done. I am disapointed that DDDB and our local elected officals chose to leap for the baricades (and press conferences) instead of working with the developer to create a sensible and economically workable alternative.
And Arkady, gimme’ a freakin’ break. I’m so sick of people who live in some of the wealthiest communities in the borough hyperventilating about “gifts to the rich” and all this class warfare bullshit. That sort of language does a tremendous diservice to the entire conversation and serves to discredit the more reasonable critics of AY.
Like it or not, wealthy & greedy developers built this city…from day one. And that includes the precious brownstone blocks we all adore in Park Slope. Who the hell do you think built those??? A not-for-profit community affordable housing cooperative using sustainably quaried brownstone and union workers?
But again, I don’t like the problems of traffic, sewage, school capacity or services; nor am I naive enough to think the market provides for those problems given demand.
My main point is this– put yourself in the shoes of our politicians. They want to get re-elected and many of their constituents don’t have jobs. AY will provide jobs to their base and it has a guarantee of 30% of contracts going to minority-owned businesses.
If you can come up with something that will increase pol’s popularity among their base more than delivering that, then you have a political argument, not a parlor room argument such as traffic or caring capacity.
Look, Boerum Hill and Arkady, I’m not some huge AY proponent, nor do I think stadiums should be built with public financing. But step back from your Ratner-rage (which is hard, because he’s such a prick), and consider a few things.
1. DDDB’s efforts absolutely lead to this. AY had been approved back in the fall of 2006. I remember, I was at the meeting, because I thought it was B.S. Financing was available for almost 1 complete year afterward, but the 20 lawsuits (or whatever) completely stalled it. I’m not suggesting DDDB intended for this to happen, but it was the unintentional consequence. To say “The project would have finished up where it’s at right now with or without DDDB’s involvement” misconstrues the facts of the lawsuits and the financial climate.
2. There simply aren’t tons of other projects with huge job potential for construction workers right now. Please name those that are happening in BK at the moment. I’m a Democrat, but at least I’m in touch with the reality of what that means in NYC– that the unions will get their way. Who do you think contributes the most money to our party? If we were in Nebraska, we’d be powerless to stop a megachurch instead of an arena.