Governor Paterson Allows ESDC to
Move Forward With Illusory Atlantic Yards and
Eminent Domain Home & Business Theft
Two Days Before XMAS Despite “Master Closing”, Big Legal Challenges Against Project Remain Special Report From Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
[Contact: DDDB Spokesman, Daniel Goldstein. 917-701-3056]
[December 23, 2009] Brooklyn, New York—Even foreclosing banks and unpaid landlords
provide a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions for the holiday month.
However, not Governor Paterson and the State of New York.
Without compunction, Governor Paterson and his appointees on the
Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) today filed legal papers
to start the process of stealing the homes and businesses of
Brooklynites by eminent domain, to eventually evict them and give the
vacant buildings to Bruce Ratner for one dollar. Ratner would then
demolish those homes and businesses in an effort to construct a
taxpayer subsidized, money-losing arena—the world’s most expensive
arena, Barclays Center—in the middle of a fiscal crisis and a housing
crisis.
Forest City Ratner also announced that they have signed a “master
closing” for the Atlantic Yards project with various city and state
agencies. But Ratner failed to disclose that he was forced to put the
closing and arena bond proceeds into escrow because of numerous
outstanding issues, including several serious legal challenges.
The property owners and tenants fighting to keep their homes and
business will vigorously challenge the legal papers filed by the ESDC
today.
There are also two outstanding lawsuits against the project that
would stop it cold (with oral argument scheduled for January 15th)
and one pending decision by the Court of Appeals on a motion to
reargue the challenge to the state’s use of eminent domain in light
of the recent eminent domain decision against Columbia University.
Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn is also currently planning on suing,
most likely the ESDC and the mysterious Brooklyn Arena Local
Development Corporation, for bypassing the legally mandated review of
the $511 million arena bond financing by the Public Authorities
Control Board and New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.
“Governor Paterson, who once opposed eminent domain, has clearly
decided that the best thing to do for the holidays is to evict men,
women and children from their homes. He has decided that the
avoidance of minimal scrutiny and review of the largest project in
Brooklyn’s history is an acceptable way to govern. He has decided
that reform apparently means allowing and supporting the same old bad
faith, backdoor dealing with powerful, land-grabbing real estate
developers,” said Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn spokesman Daniel
Goldstein. “Shame on Governor Paterson for throwing good money—
taxpayer money—at Ratner’s boondoggle money pit and for stealing a
viable neighborhood to do it. Ratner’s project will never produce the
benefits the developer and the ESDC have lied about for years, and
should it go forward the Governor and other project supporters will
rue this day.”
“I want to make it very clear to the Governor, the ESDC and Ratner,
that Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, our scores of allied community
organizations and our thousands of supporters will not easily give up
our fight against Atlantic Yards,” Goldstein said.
It should be noted that there is not a single city or state
politician in and around the Atlantic Yards project site that still
supports the drastically altered project. And there are none
anywhere, besides project cheerleaders Marty Markowitz and Michael
Bloomberg, who vocally support it.
After six years of exposing the Atlantic Yards project as a corrupt,
boondoggle financed on the backs of New York taxpayers, Governor
Paterson, Mayor Bloomberg, Sheldon Silver, Charles Schumer, and Marty
Markowitz apparently have decided that the best thing for New Yorkers
is to look the other way as state and city appointed bureaucrats sign
papers handing over 22-acres of prime real estate to a single
developer to turn into massive parking lots for decades.
The most powerful “leaders” in the state have apparently decided that
the best way to change the face of Brooklyn—the best way to spend
massive taxpayer subsidies, grant extraordinary tax breaks and gifts,
sell public land at a sweetheart price, give away city streets, abuse
eminent domain, provide a city zoning override, create millions of
square feet of density for free for a politically-connected developer—
is to do it without ever having any legislative, democratic
oversight, and to avoid even the minimal oversight and accountability
provided by the financial review of State Comptroller DiNapoli and
the Public Authorities Control Board.
[DEVELOP DON'T DESTROY BROOKLYN leads a broad-based community coalition
fighting for development that will unite our communities instead of
dividing and destroying them. DDDB is 501c3 non-profit corporation supported by over 4,700
individual donors from the community.
As the legal fight moves forward, your financial support is critical. Please consider and end- of-year tax-deductible contribution. Please donate to Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn so we can all win in the courts: http://www.dddb.net/donate]
[See also EMPTY DOMAIN: Land Confiscated In "Public Interest" Under Supreme Court Eminent Domain Decision Goes To Waste in Issue #54 of The SHADOW, as well as New Life For Eminent Domain Lawsuit and Atlantic Yards Arena Bonds Appear To Be Illegal]
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