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tel/fax:
718.362.4784
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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
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signers. Over 800 volunteers have registered with DDDB
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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
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Impending Scaleback Won't Cut It
Last week the NY
Sun's Dave Lombino reported
that a scaled back Ratner plan was in the works. This scaled-back plan was long
expected but first tipped-off by Borough
President Markowitz's remarks at the August 23rd DEIS hearing. Lombino's report
was denied by the Empire State Development Corporation. Today the NY Times
reports a 6-8% scaling back of the Ratner plan in an article, Developer
Is Expected to Snip Away at High-Rise Project in Brooklyn.
But this is what we called a "Scale
Scam" last week, and it's the same this week. Anyone who
thinks that the immense opposition to the project is simply about building heights
and can be quelled by "scaling back" to the original scale of the
project when unveiled in December 2003 is fooling themself.
We're not buying it's significance and neither is Assemblyman Jim Brennan:
...“I don’t think the bottom-line community concern is really about
aesthetics, which is what shaving a few stories off the heights of the buildings
is about,” said James F. Brennan, a Brooklyn assemblyman. “I don’t think
this flies.”
Daniel Goldstein, a spokesman for Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, added, “They
could chop Miss Brooklyn in half in terms of the height and that won’t change
our position.” Mr. Goldstein’s group opposes the arena, the project’s density
and the state’s use of eminent domain to acquire some of the property.
Mr. Goldstein said he suspects that the developer has had this proposal “in
their closet for a long time.”... It's worth repeating what we posted here last week about all of this:Don't be fooled.
Developers have long padded the scale of proposed projects, and then sat back
while communities cried foul. Once the press has voiced the public?s concerns,
the developers, amidst massive fanfare and a show of magnanimity, role back the
project by 25% or less ? removing the padding ? and claiming responsiveness to
the people?s concerns.
That said, scale is but one issue.
The proposed location of the basketball arena is another.
(There
is a way out of that problem...)
The extreme
density is a third
The environmental
and socio-economic
impact is a fourth.
The abuse
of eminent domain is a fifth.
The undemocratic
process is a sixth.
These are just six of the deep-rooted concerns over the "Atlantic
Yards" proposal.
The Times continues:
...At that point, there could be a long line of politicians and activists
hoping to take credit, including the Bloomberg administration, Mr. Silver, Ms.
Millman and Mr. Markowitz.
“Everyone’s going to take credit for something that everyone knew would happen,”
said an executive who works with Forest City. “For these guys, it’s very important.”
No doubt they will try; but credit for what? The kabuki
is not entertaining.
Atlantic Yards Report, getting back to its roots as the Times/Ratner
Report, raises critical issues that The Times misses in the
article. The most substantial of which is that the project, even with this reported scale
back, will have grown in size. AYR's Norman Oder writes:
AY
likely still larger than the original under new scale back (but does the Times
notice?)
A New York Times article today, headlined Developer
Is Expected to Snip Away at High-Rise Project in Brooklyn, describes a proposed
6 to 8 percent cutback in Atlantic Yards, stating:
Officials say that Forest City has not settled on the final numbers for the project, but that it plans to reduce the size by 500,000 to 700,000 square feet by eliminating hundreds of market-rate apartments. That would enable the developer to cut the height of some of the towers, including a 350-foot building on what is known as Site 5, on the west side of Flatbush Avenue, and possibly at Miss Brooklyn.
Unmentioned is the sequence of proposals,
which show that the project could still be bigger than originally announced:
December 2003: 8 million square feet
September 2005: 9.132 million square feet
March 2006: 8.659 million square feet
A reduction of 500,000 square feet would make the project 8.159 million
square feet, while a cut of 700,000 square feet would mean 7.959 million square
feet.
Posted: 9.04.06
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