To the surprise of many Prospect Heights residents, enormous drills have
begun test borings of the earth below several sites within the 24-acre
swath upon which developer Bruce Ratner plans to build his Atlantic Yards
arena and high-rise development.
The borings, in preparation of a potential environmental cleanup of portions
of the site, began almost concurrently with the announcement last Friday
of an agreement signed by Ratner and government officials that commits
city and state property and money to the project. That memorandum of understanding
also calls for the condemnation of property within the project’s
footprint for use by Forest City Ratner — the developer’s company.
With that agreement signed, neighbors of the 24-acre site, most of who
are protesting the development, knew to expect signs of the elephant next
door soon enough. But when bushes were torn out of backyards and construction
cones set out to accommodate equipment the size of a backhoe, the neighborhood
alarms — in this case ringing telephones — started sounding.
David Sheets, who lives at 479 Dean St. at Sixth Avenue, where he rents
an apartment, said he was awakened by the ruckus on Feb 28.
“People were knocking my fence down and drilling in my backyard at
7:30 am,” he said. Sheets first noticed the massive equipment in
the last week of February, and said he only recognized it as a drill “from
having watched them put on many drilling attachments.”
Sheets was miffed, he said, because his building had not yet, to his knowledge,
been sold to Ratner.
“Shouldn’t he have decided if the land was good before he asked
to build the arena?” he asked.
James Stuckey, an executive vice president of Forest City Ratner, said
the company wasn’t readying the entire six-square-block site —
only properties upon which the company had permission to test or that
they had already purchased. That includes 479 Dean, 816 Pacific, and the
city-owned streets and sidewalks.
“All that’s being done now is testing that would allow us —
in the properties that we either control or in street-beds or in sidewalks
— that would allow that information to subsequently be turned over
for when the EIS [Environmental Impact Statement] is prepared,” said
Stuckey, who confirmed that the company has hired an environmental investigation
firm, CMI Investigations, to conduct the ground surveys.
When asked if he had either sold the property or made an agreement with
Forest City Ratner to test on his land, the Rev. Paul Hamilton, who owns
the building in which Sheets lives, said, “I’m sorry, I have
nothing to say.”
A spokesman for the Department of Transportation, Craig Chin, said CMI
was issued four permits, valid 7 am to 6 pm on weekdays from Feb. 24 through
March 24, and one valid from March 1 to April 5. The permits “allow
partial use of sidewalk” but must maintain at all times a 5-foot
sidewalk for pedestrians along Fifth and Carlton avenues, between Atlantic
Avenue and Pacific Street.
“I think we all have a desire to understand whether there are problems
that resulted from the prior use of the buildings that fall within the
project area,” Stuckey said, and cited the terms of the agreement
with the city and state, in which Ratner agreed to pay up to $20 million
in any remediation costs associated with the property without receiving
any tax credits.
After that, Stuckey said, the company will consider applying for such
tax abatement programs, but either way, the results of the tests will
be available to the public.
“The next step is the environmental review process; there’s
also some business terms that need to be finalized,” said Deborah
Wetzel, a spokeswoman for the Empire State Development Corporation, the
lead agency for the Atlantic Yards project.
“If they’re on property that they own already, they can move
ahead [with the EIS], if it’s either MTA or city-owned property,
they need to get a license or a waiver,” she said.
By the terms of the agreement, the city would sell Forest City Ratner
the street beds, two city lots and sidewalks in the project’s footprint
for $1.
Any private development company is granted access to work on streets and
sidewalks, said a spokesman for the Department of Transportation, as long
as they ask for it and provide liability coverage for the property.
“They tell us what work they need done, and they tell us if there’s
special traffic detours needed,” said Chin. “If we can accommodate
that, we issue the permits.”
According to the state Department of Environmental Conservation, a developer
can also begin the EIS process in pieces, which is why the work has commenced
despite outstanding negotiations Forest City Ratner will depend on to
gain control of the property in the footprint of the site, which is bounded
by Pacific Street and Vanderbilt, Flatbush and Atlantic avenues.
“It may be that as parts of this project get done, it could begin
that [process],” said DEC spokeswoman Gabrielle Done. “It may
[later on] end up being all combined into a single process,” she
added.
Done also said she believed that the reported results in the EIS were
subject to review prior to any remediation of the property.
Sheets noted that he was surprised to see that the company returned the
garden to normal following the tests.
“To my utter surprise, they came the following Monday [March 1] and
replanted the bushes and covered the holes,” he said.
Daniel Goldstein, the last holdout who has not sold his condominium apartment
in a building on Pacific Street to Ratner, who is a spokesman for the
anti-arena group Develop — Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, said he heard
the soil testing had been going on for the past month.
“They’ve been doing borings and testings for awhile now,”
said Goldstein, who thought starting the EIS was inappropriate when much
of the land, including the 10 acres of MTA rail yards, were still privately
held.
“I think it’s incredible that an EIS can be done before the
rail yards are even determined who gets them,” he said.
The MTA has said it will consider all bids for development rights over
the yards, which Ratner needs in order to build a basketball arena for
his New Jersey Nets.
“I understand legally that they can do this,” he said. “It
is amazing that the city makes it so easy for them.”
