DDDB Holds Fifth Fundraiser Against the Yards
Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, the Atlantic Yards watchdog organization, held its fifth annual Walk Don’t Destroy fundraiser on Saturday, which raised over $40,000 according to the Atlantic Yards Report. City Council Member Letitia James, DDDB spokesman Daniel Goldstein, actor John Turturro, and about 200 others walked the 2.3-mile route, which included a stop at Borough…
Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, the Atlantic Yards watchdog organization, held its fifth annual Walk Don’t Destroy fundraiser on Saturday, which raised over $40,000 according to the Atlantic Yards Report. City Council Member Letitia James, DDDB spokesman Daniel Goldstein, actor John Turturro, and about 200 others walked the 2.3-mile route, which included a stop at Borough Hall, headquarters of Borough President Marty Markowitz, a supporter of the Atlantic Yards development. This is about working-class people, Ms. James said as she marched across Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues, according to The New York Times. This is about saving our homes and businesses against billionaires. We want our community back. The cash raised by the event will presumably go towards DDDB’s efforts to prevent the Atlantic Yards stadium and residential development project, such as its current lawsuit against the MTA for negligence of due process in its sale of land to developer Forest City Ratner.
Staying Power at Fifth DDDB Walkathon [AYR]
Walking Against the Bulldozers [NY Times]
Atlantic Yards: Suit Filed Against MTA [Brownstoner]
Photo by Tracy Collins
Hmm brokedeveloper, I guess it is NIMBY, because I don’t want 19 luxury condo buildings that won’t be available to any actual low income people who live in the neighborhood and I don’t want an arena that will stand to only align the pockets of Bruce Ratner and a Russian Billionaire, who probably can not even locate this project on a map, in my backyard. You are right, if that is NIMBY so be it. Finally.
East New York
” There has been no public referendum on this project, so how can you say most people do not support it?”
Exactly, prove otherwise.
and
“If someone came along and offered me a solid 2-2.5X what the market value for my apartment, then yeah, I wouldn’t mind stepping aside.”
Again, nice fantasy. Since that was and never will be the case, it is hard to believe you would move aside for a wealthy developer and a billionaire Oligarch.
In fact I bet you would not even move for a shelter, or an actual public use.
Let’s hope you are never forced to answer the question truly.
Seems a little odd to make this about renters- eminent domain may be kicking them out, but its their landlord who is losing the property. If Ratner owns the property, and he has been given the right to build, renters are the least of his worries.
“Ratner owns these buildings, but even he can’t get rid of the tenants who refused his buyout offers (which weren’t that great for renters — he agreed to pick up three years’ worth of rent payments and to pay the broker’s fee, as well as offering them a unit in one of the to-be-built buildings — as market rates) without ED”
Of course that deal was inferior to “ad infinitum” renewal – that’s why the renters turned it down! Eminent Domain is intended for the “greater public good.” So tell me, does the desires 50+ of rent-stabilized renters to remain in under-market-priced housing for the rest of their lives represent a greater public good than the potential jobs, housing and amenities AY could create? In my opinion, they don’t.
The real reason Ratner wants to use ED is to get the remaining RS tenants out. Under rent stabilization laws the LL is required to offer the tenant a renewal lease (provided the tenant is not in default) ad infinitum, unless the apartment is needed for the LL’s family (obviously not the case here!) or the property is seized by eminent domain — Ratner owns these buildings, but even he can’t get rid of the tenants who refused his buyout offers (which weren’t that great for renters — he agreed to pick up three years’ worth of rent payments and to pay the broker’s fee, as well as offering them a unit in one of the to-be-built buildings — as market rates) without ED. He wants the state to take his property away from him so he can get rid of them.
by last week’s new semantics that makes you a raging bull on AY!! (paraphrase, if you’re a market realist or anything short of a raging bear on real estate prices then you are a brownstone bull. what crap!)
i also am a bit mystified by the uproar that moving a renter seems to cause. i’m for old folks and all but i don’t understand why living as a renter somewhere for 10-, 20-, or 40-years entitles one to live in the same place ad infinitum. RS laws take care of these situations. if we don’t like the results let’s start by changing RS rules.
this of course also makes me a bull on AY.
“Nasty uneducated uninformed name calling is easy, easy.”
For instance:
“would you mind stepping aside, miss big mouth?”
Anyway, the “piles of cash” that the condo buyers in the Atlantic Arts building, for example, received are pretty well documented. I just looked up an apartment there that was purchased for $445k and sold to Ratner for over a million. Try 01127 1106 (and subsequent numbers) in ACRIS.
I’m not going to begin to say that Ratner is completely above board, nor am I even saying that an arena is the best thing for the area. Its just that I still just don’t understand why this whole thing is being done in the name of Eminent Domain, which in this case is really only affecting renters, who by defintion, are temporary occupants.
I think a lot of it (and I will not claim to know your intentions, NotIgnorant) is just NIMBY disguised as a campaign against Eminent Domain and the poor renters.
“There has been no public referendum on this project” That’s part of the problem — we’ve all been swept aside by this developer and our mayor (for life, or so he seems to think), with this deal being made directly in Albany, with help from Mike and Marty.
“Because of DDDB this ONCE THRIVING neighborhood looks like SHIT!”
“Your argument backwards. That once thriving neighborhood was blighted by Ratner.”
You’re both wrong. I’ve been here since 1963, and it looked like crap THEN and since that time has only changed in degrees of relative crappiness. It was crappy long before you guys or Ratner for that matter happened along.
“The majority of residents do not want AY as it is planned.”
bxgrl, do you have any evidence to support this claim? Because I disagree. There has been no public referendum on this project, so how can you say most people do not support it?
“Let’s build the arena, on your apartment, would you mind stepping aside, miss big mouth?”
If someone came along and offered me a solid 2-2.5X what the market value for my apartment, then yeah, I wouldn’t mind stepping aside.
NotIgnorant- there’s plenty of us fighting alongside you.