Goldstein et al. File Suit Over AY Eminent Domain
Three homeowners, along with six renters and the owner of Freddy’s Bar, sued Governor Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg and Bruce Ratner in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn yesterday over the “misuse of government’s power to take property by eminent domain.” The Atlantic Yards proposal is premised on the abuse of eminent domain, said Matthew D. Brinckerhoff,…
Three homeowners, along with six renters and the owner of Freddy’s Bar, sued Governor Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg and Bruce Ratner in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn yesterday over the “misuse of government’s power to take property by eminent domain.” The Atlantic Yards proposal is premised on the abuse of eminent domain, said Matthew D. Brinckerhoff, the plaintiffs’ lead lawyer. It would mean the taking of one citizen’s property to benefit a powerful and influential private citizen, he said. The suit also claims that the politicians and developer failed to seek adequate community input. According to the NY Post, Mayor Bloomberg laughed when asked about the suit’s chances of stopping the project. “The Atlantic Yards project is something that Brooklyn, and this city, really needs,” he said. What do you think the suit’s impact will be?
Groups Aiming to Block AY Cite Eminent Domain [NY Law Journal]
Suit Against AY Challenges Eminent Domain [NY Times]
Suit Seeks to Dunk Arena [NY Post]
AY Project Abuses Eminent Domain, Suit Says [NY Sun]
Legal Shot Fired in Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards Fight [Curbed]
Photo by threecee
I am also pro-arena and pro-development on Prospect Heights. However, I want a project built according to good urban planning principles. Atlantic Yards as currently constituted is extremely ill-conceived.
Even the ESDC said the best place for an arena was coney island. Putting a glass and steel arena on top of the a busy transportation hub AND major intersection is a ridiculously irresponsible plan from a traffic, environmental and security standpoint (one truck bomb turns that glass into the world’s largest hand grenade) – that the ESDC didn’t even think about this is beyond simple incompetence and borders on criminal negligence
the suit has a very good chance, and it will do what forest city has been trying to avoid like the plague- expose this project and its financing to legal review.
if this project is so good, why has Forest CIty taken so many steps to avoid revealing the truth to the public? Why do they send fliers to residents that make it look like a small scale housing project and public park? Why have they NEVER in any of their fliers, shown the scale?
This isn’t about housing or an arena – its a corrupt land grab and huge boondoogle. It will cost taxpayers BILLIONS if it goes through with little or no benefit – like he did with metrotech (a complete failure) twenty years before. Ratner and STuckey are low life scumbags.
Many thanks to Goldstein and the other plaintiffs for standing up to the FCR/Bloomberg/Pataki machine. If you can, give to Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn so they can continue their work on behalf of all of us Brooklynites.
And thanks to conservatives who recognize the abuse of power then they see it.
I am also pro-arena and pro-development on Prospect Heights. However, I want a project built according to good urban planning principles. Atlantic Yards as currently constituted is extremely ill-conceived.
Dear Eryximachus ,
Love it or Leave it. Find tax burden too high in USA – go to some banana republic.
Most of your taxes go to support infrastructure and war machine of international corps. anyway. Just us working americans get stuck paying for all these right-wing capitalist ventures.
Eryximachus – dude or dudette if you think you will be able to afford THE LUXURY housing that Ratner wants to build, then you live in a world I wish I could find!
There is NO SHORTAGE OF LUXURY Housing, and that is all this ugly project is. So sick of you suckers!
Been to Astor place lately? 22 MILLION DOLLAR Apts. that is what Ratner is building. Affordable to who???????
Of course extra housing is a benefit- but not if the cost is greater than the benefit, and the benefit goes only to one group- the wealthy- and it overburdens the infrastructure, endangering everyone. Please don’t quote me the deal for low-income housing promised by Ratner. None of it is in phase one and by the time they get to phase 2 how many people will still remember or bother?
Eryximachus- in this day and age no one in this country is enslaved, especially by liberals. If you feel you are, you’ve been a willing participant. If you can’t afford to buy a nice condo perhaps you should reconsider how you’ve directed your efforts.
Eryximachus – dude or dudette if you think you will be able to afford THE LUXURY housing that Ratner wants to build, then you live in a world I wish I could find!
There is NO SHORTAGE OF LUXURY Housing, and that is all this ugly project is. So sick of you suckers!
Been to Astor place lately? 22 MILLION DOLLAR Apts. that is what Ratner is building. Affordable to who???????
Why does this suit have merit? And why should the courts take this very seriously? Here are two great reasons, courtesy of the NY Law Journal article above:
1. “It was conceived by a developer, Bruce Ratner of Forest City Ratner Companies, not by officials with the public interest in mind.”
2. “The project did not involve a competitive bidding process or a means of gathering public opinion before it was conceived.”
Has everyone forgotten that the MTA sold their crucial railyard parcels to Ratner for nada? With no bidding? Wake up! That was OUR money, ladies and gentleman. We all got screwed! Rich and poor, black, white, yellow, brown, brand new immigrant, 5th generation brooklynites, we’ve all been had, and they did it right in front of us and basically we’ve all acted like medicated zombies, unwilling to believe that there could be any non-altruistic notions on the part of our elected “officials.”
Let’s all hail our fearless leader: Michael Bloomberg, rich guy with a bad case of “grand egocentric posthumous legacies on the brain.” He’s already lost the Jets stadium and Olympics, so you’d better believe he’s been busy sharpening his knives with any and all AY opponents.
Oh, by the way, I’m pro-AY on a small scale, and pro-Brooklyn Nets. But I tend to favor business conducted with transparency and a sense of ethics.
When I can stop working half the year to pay for liberal vote buying schemes,
Eryximachus I am conservative..have you read james bovard, a conservative, about the current republican administration and congress? biggest taxing spenders in history, their excuse is the sham of ‘homeland security’ (it’s almost all pork)
we have to stop name calling and labeling – we have an ‘elite’ that HATEs us, and I mean that – look at bloomberg’s flippant attitude. Look at the smug mis-use of patriotism and homeland security while our borders go unguarded so the wealthy can have cheap nannies…