Although the state will provide the only formal review of developer Bruce
Ratner’s Atlantic Yards basketball arena, office and housing plan
a Queens City Council member has scheduled a hearing to investigate whether
the plan provides the best deal for the city.
Councilman James Sanders, chairman of the Economic Development Committee,
has tentatively set May 4 for a hearing on the $2.5 billion plan.
But Ratner is trying to postpone the hearing because it is scheduled for
the same day as a hearing before the same committee on the New York Jets
football team’s proposal for a West Side stadium in Manhattan, according
to city officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Public opinion polls point to general support for Ratner’s construction
of an arena to house his recently purchased New Jersey Nets, provided
no public funding goes into the plan, but opposition to the Jets stadium,
which is also a lynchpin of the city’s push to host the 2012 Olympics.
That plan would cost taxpayers about $600 million.
According to the sources, Forest City Ratner executives fear that acrimony
directed toward the Jets plan would extend to the Ratner plan if they
are held the same day.
Joe Deplasco, a spokesman for Forest City Ratner, declined to comment.
Ratner unveiled plans for the 21-acre development in December when he
announced his intention to purchase the New Jersey Nets and bring them
to Brooklyn. As part of that project, Ratner is asking the state to use
eminent domain to seize more than two square blocks of private land that
according to some estimates holds more than 500 residents and workers.
The developer is also asking the state-run Metropolitan Transportation
Authority to sell him air space over 11 acres of Long Island Rail Road
storage yards stretching along Atlantic Avenue between Fifth and Vanderbilt
avenues.
Several actions that would ordinarily go through the rigorous city land
use review process, including street demappings, will instead undergo
the state’s far less stringent environmental review process.
In addition to a 20,000-seat basketball arena, Ratner is proposing four
sweeping office towers and 4,500 apartments. He hired architect Frank
Gehry to design all the structures.
But Sanders says he wants to see if Atlantic Yards presents a “good
financial deal for New York City” and plans to bring in development
experts to critique the plan.
“I want to examine the economic consequences of such a development,”
Sanders told The Brooklyn Papers.
Local residents applauded the move to hold the hearings.
“This is one of the largest development proposal in the history of
Brooklyn and will forever change the very nature of Brooklyn and we therefor
demand that the city council scrutinize the proposal,” said Daniel
Goldstein, a resident at 636 Pacific Street.
Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, a coalition of local residents, is
asking the council to hold all-day hearings on the plan.
