Not Too Late For AY to Go Through ULURP?
Although Dan Doctoroff signed an agreement with the state and Forest City Ratner in ’05 that allowed the developer to sidestep ULURP for Atlantic Yards, thus substantially weakening the community’s say in the mega-project, the outgoing deputy mayor is now singing a different tune. If it happened again, and the state were to ask if…
Although Dan Doctoroff signed an agreement with the state and Forest City Ratner in ’05 that allowed the developer to sidestep ULURP for Atlantic Yards, thus substantially weakening the community’s say in the mega-project, the outgoing deputy mayor is now singing a different tune. If it happened again, and the state were to ask if I would encourage them to take Atlantic Yards through the ULURP process, I would say yes, Doctoroff tells the Observer in an interview. But is it really too late for Atlantic Yards to go through the public-review planning process? In a press release, Develop Don’t Destroy spokesman Daniel Goldstein argues that it’s not. As the project has not begun construction—and can’t while it faces two court challenges—Mayor Bloomberg can get it right and send the development of the Vanderbilt Yards through ULURP; it’s what his soon-to-be former, highly praised and trusted right hand man thinks is appropriate,” says Goldstein. We agree: Better late than never for Brooklyn’s largest development, a project that is going to receive substantial public financing and forever alter the borough.
Doctoroff Looks Back on Atlantic Yards [NY Observer]
Doctoroff: Atlantic Yards Should Have Gone Through ULURP [DDDB]
Photo by pencer T. Tucker for nyc.gov.
AY opponents are never happy. There WILL be a temporary parking lot, which opponents have screeched about. But once Phase II of the project begins and that parking lot is built over, opponents will scream that there will be no parking for Nets fans. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Doesn’t matter when Ratner bought the team. He owns it. He wants the taxpayers to build HIS team a stadium. This is the very definition of BOONDOGGLE.
And if the developer didnt own the team (which he didnt when AY was proposed) – you’d say “why build an Arena if we dont even know if Brooklyn will get a team”
As for no one caring about the Nets – you can be assured that once they move to Brooklyn they will be a very hot ticket – no one cared about single A baseball in Brooklyn either before the Cyclones moved here.
No one expects “perfect” infrastructure, but a stadium without a parking lot? For a New Jersey Team nobody in Brooklyn cares about? That the developer just happens to own?
Because it would be nice for a city of 2.5M to have a professional sports team – which is a hugely popular leisure activity for the vast majority of the citizens of Brooklyn. Not to mention that Nets or not, any city of 2.5M should have at least a similar sized venue for other mass entertainment events like concerts, shows and the like.
3:32 – based on your argument we should close BAM, the Brooklyn Museum, the Botanical Gardens (and many other) entertaiment/cultural venues because heck many of the patrons don’t live in Brooklyn and we dont need the traffic – which BTW are all also subsidized
Opponents of the project are being called on to offer an alternative location for the arena. Let’s hear a convincing argument (that’s not based on sentiment) for why we should have the arena AT ALL in Brooklyn. Most of the fan base is coming from New Jersey and we’ve already got a hometown team at MSG – a subway trip away.
Higher residential density is right for the site, but I can’t see the planning argument to be made for having 3500 cars all moving through the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush and Fourth between 6-7 pm.
3:01 – Your right it wasnt always that way but when it wasnt:
1. The city/country was far less densly populated (meaning plenty of room to lay out transit and road routes)
2. Every large project didnt result in 10yrs of litigation
3. The planners who built these projects didnt have to be sensitive to communities, history or many labor laws.
Times have changed and if you hold up (sustainable development) till the infrastructure is ‘perfect’ then you’ll never get anything built ( or you’ll end up with totally unsustainable development)
And frankly many of your other issues are just silly – Water pressure??? Garbage collection…come on are you serious?
1:16 PM,
Your comment regarding your option 4: “It seems clear that everyone would want number 4 – but that just isnt going to happen (Governments are rarely that proactive- how are you going to sell BILLIONS of capital costs that wont be ready or needed for years?)”
This has not always been true. The NYC train system as well as trolley lines in other US cities were built awaiting later development. There are many examples of train lines running out into distant “suburbs†that were nothing but countryside at the time.
If you look at the highway and road systems: these often are built before housing goes in. Taxpayers foot the bill for however many millions of dollars per mile of roadway and then developers reap benefits along the new access points. This has repeated itself in the US so many times it has almost become religion.
In the case of urban development, these business people see the opportunity to cash in on an existing infrastructure. Certain cities around the world have had immense amount of private building without any investment in infrastructure or urban planning, for example, in places where the paved surface is just not sufficient for the density of housing in a given area. This leads to unbelievable traffic as well as supply problems getting goods in.
In terms of the location of this huge development, there are big questions unanswered on how the packed rush hour trains will handle the influx, how the area will handle additional vehicular traffic, where the services (police, fire, schools) and infrastructure (clean water in—and maintaining decent water pressure in the surrounding areas, sewage out, waste treatment, trash and recycling collection, etc.) will be provided for. These issues have not been addressed very well at all. It has been handled in a very unprofessional, almost lawless frontier kind of way. We’re talkin’ “BASIC urban planning†here. If you want to witness a “third world†situation (overbuilding with a disregard to available infrastructure), keep cheering for this private developer, write “Done Deal†on blogs and sit back to enjoy.
To 1:29 PM -plese remember these are our homes and neighborhoods that are being sacrificed without us being able to do anything about it. I have lived here 23 years and am wondering if I should sell now and move. So please give us our chance to vent. It is all we have.