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tel/fax:
718.362.4784
Please note our new postal address when sending
contributions to the legal fund:
121 5th Avenue, PMB #150
Brooklyn, New York 11217
About DDDB
Our coalition consists of 21 community organizations and
there are 51 community organizations formally
aligned in opposition to the Ratner plan.
DDDB is a volunteer-run organization. We have over 5,000
subscribers to our email newsletter, and 7,000 petition
signers. Over 800 volunteers have registered with DDDB
to form our various teams, task-forces and committees
and we have over 150 block captains. We have a 20 person
volunteer legal team of local lawyers supplementing our
retained attorneys.
We are funded entirely by individual donations from the community at large
and through various fundraising events we and supporters have organized.
We have the financial support of well over 3,500 individual
donors.
More about
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Atlantic Yards Seems To Be Failing
It
was exactly one year ago today, December 20, 2006, that the Public Authorities
Control Board (PACB)--Pataki, Silver, Bruno--voted their approval of the Atlantic
Yards proposal. It was the first and only vote by any elected official on the
project. It was covered in depth here
and the Times's story was here.
On that day DDDB issued
a press release headlined:
Done Deal? The Judiciary Will Decide.
Fate of Atlantic Yards
To Be Determined by the Courts
PACB Approves Atlantic Yards
Despite Utter Lack of Public Financial Disclosure
Looking back at the day, that headline is accurate. All sides await
two pending legal decisions: a federal eminent domain court decision and a
State Supreme court decision on a challenge to the project's environmental review
and approval. And still there is a severe lack of financial disclosure of the
cost of the project to the public. Our best, most recent, estimate is at
least
$2.119 billion in direct cash subsidies and government backed financing.
And as we think back to that swift, uninformed vote by representatives of the
three men in a room, we see a stalled project: infrastructure activity is occurring
in the Ratner-selected footprint, and demolition has taken place on some
of the buildings the developer owns, but there appears to be a lot of soil pushing
and dirt shifting on the rail yards. As of today, the construction of the project
hasn't moved forward, and cannot move forward.
One year after political approval, and the project seems to be failing. The project
is stale. And the markets don't look promising for the overly-dense behemoth.
In the New Year we look forward to these legal decisions, new political and public
pressure, and a new, clean slate to develop the Vanderbilt Rail Yards with a proper
process and a proper plan, based on sound urban planning principles and community
input.
Posted: 12.20.07
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