Any construction at the Atlantic Yards site must be blocked until developer Bruce Ratner commits — in writing — to building the full state-approved project, three councilmembers said this week.
Bill DeBlasio (D–Park Slope), David Yassky (D–Brooklyn Heights) and Letitia James (D–Fort Greene) made the demand in a letter to state officials this week, just two weeks after Ratner announced that the 16-skyscraper project has been significantly downsized and that most of the promised below-market-rate housing is no longer scheduled to be built.
According to Ratner, the project now only consists of a publicly financed basketball arena and two or three smaller residential buildings around it.
“We need something in writing from Forest City Ratner [that] confirms what will be built when,” DeBlasio told The Brooklyn Paper. “We need to stop until there is a clear plan. The plans have changed, at least according to Ratner himself, so why should demolitions continue?”
DeBlasio, who backed the project because of Ratner’s promise to set aside 2,250 of its 6,800 units as affordable housing, said he could not support an arena-only version.
Last week, he told The Brooklyn Paper that he would not support any additional tax benefits for the struggling Ratner, saying that the public has been “generous enough.”
This week, DeBlasio again suggested that the full funding scheme for the $4-billion Atlantic Yards — estimated at $2 billion in public money — needs to be re-examined.
DeBlasio admitted that the councilmembers lack the legal authority to get a moratorium on demolition work in the Atlantic Yards footprint.
“I don’t know that FCR could be legally forced to stop demolitions, but they should stop,” he said.
Indeed, DeBlasio’s comments may end up being a case of “too little, too late,” as demolition work for the project is scheduled to be completed by the end of spring, clearing acres of land that may end up unoccupied for decades — a scenario that critics of the project predicted.
Forest City Ratner Executive Vice President Bruce Bender did not address the councilmembers’ specific concern, but said in a statement that “Atlantic Yards has been reviewed and debated extensively for over five years.”
In the statement, issued to the Daily News, Bender said that “all of Atlantic Yards, including all of the affordable housing, will be built.”
He also suggested that opponents should be held responsible for any further delays — even though Ratner himself cited the downturn in the economy, not the project’s opponents, as the reason the project had been so dramatically scaled back.
Forest City Ratner declined to comment to The Brooklyn Paper.
DeBlasio blasted Bender for suggesting that the state-run planning process that created Atlantic Yards had been reviewed extensively.
“I’ve never seen something so fundamentally mishandled in terms of excluding the community [as Atlantic Yards],” said DeBlasio, who is running for borough president.
