The Huffington Post

What would you do if your favorite neighborhood watering hole was being demolished for a rich, greedy developer? Handcuff yourself to the bar, naturally.

Since hearing their favorite tavern was going to be condemned, regulars at Freddy’s Bar & Backroom in Brooklyn bolted a chain to the bar and have been practicing handcuffing themselves to it in protest of the imminent bulldozers. Voted one of the best bars in America by Esquire and consistently one of the best dive bars in New York City, the pub will soon be ripped down so tycoon developer Bruce Ratner can build himself and his Russian playboy business partner Mikhail Prokhorov 16 skyscrapers and a basketball arena for the worst team in the NBA. Today marked the groundbreaking for the development, called Atlantic Yards.

Freddy’s isn’t falling down in disrepair and pays all its bills. So why is this humble and adored bar being evicted?

It exists on land that a politically connected developer covets–and in New York, that means your property is not your own.

As is commonplace in the Empire State, Ratner’s friends in high places (Michael Bloomberg and the Empire State Development Corporation, among others) have backed his development efforts with the power of eminent domain, the ability to forcibly take private property for what is supposed to be a public use.

“Public use” conjures up images of roads or court houses–exactly what the power of eminent domain was intended for by the Framers of the Constitution. But even Bruce Ratner himself has admitted this isn’t a public project. “Why should people get to see plans?” he told Crain’s last year. “This isn’t a public project.”

So how can he use this despotic power for his own private profit? One word: “blight.”

“Blight” to most people means truly horrible slums–areas where falling-down buildings and crumbling roofs present a real risk to health and safety. But in the ’50s and ’60s, urban planners, along with pliant courts, began to expand the definition of “blight” so they could use eminent domain to raze entire neighborhoods merely because they didn’t look the way urban planners wanted them to. In the process, more than one million people nationwide, a disproportionate number of them racial minorities, were uprooted and displaced to make way for brand-new development–development that, with remarkable frequency, never actually happened.

This expansion of the eminent domain power culminated with the U.S. Supreme Court’s infamous decision in Kelo v. City of New London. In that case, the city wanted to seize the homes of Susette Kelo and her neighbors for a ritzier private development that would enhance Pfizer’s new research facility located next door. The Court declared the takings constitutional: Private property could be condemned for private development–even when it is not blighted–so long as a plan was in place and there was some promise of increased tax revenue or jobs. With that decision and without exaggeration, every property in America was on the chopping block.

New York had terrible eminent domain laws prior to Kelo. Nearly any property could be declared “blighted” using the state’s vague and amorphous criteria that have doomed hard-working property owners for decades. Kelo emboldened New York officials with a renewed charge to trample the property rights of the little guy for the sake of lining government coffers and developers’ pockets.

My organization, the Institute for Justice, represented Susette and her neighbors. Following the decision, the homeowners were kicked out of their neighborhood–and the developer skipped town because of financing issues. Most recently, Pfizer announced that it too will leave New London. Susette’s old neighborhood is now a vacant wasteland of weeds and feral cats–who presumably don’t contribute to the city’s tax base as the former residents did.

After Kelo, 43 state legislatures passed laws limiting their powers of eminent domain, but New York has yet to do so and remains the worst state in the country for eminent domain abuse.

Unfortunately, New York’s high court has demonstrated it will not provide any protection for home (or bar) owners in the state. In a stunning act of judicial abdication, the Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court, deferred completely to the state’s determination that Freddy’s and the surrounding neighborhood was “blighted.” The blight study–paid for by Ratner and conducted years after the project was announced–relied on findings like “underutilization,” which means that a property could make more money as something else. That could be said about virtually any property including the mayor’s home, the New York Times headquarters (also developed by Ratner through eminent domain) or the new Nets arena itself (the way they’ve been playing, it certainly will be underutilized).

A law originally intended to remove direct threats to public health and safety has been manipulated in New York to suit the whims of any Bloomberg, Ratner or Goliath. Agencies in New York are permitted and encouraged to declare blight by fiat.

Fortunately, the state’s high court has a chance to redeem itself: a lower court has since ruled that Columbia University–an elite, private organization–could not seize surrounding businesses to expand its campus. (Again, Columbia isn’t a public university; it is a private one.) The state has appealed, and oral argument is scheduled before the Court of Appeals in June.

As long as New York’s high court continues to rubber stamp any declaration of blight and the Legislature refuses to reform its bogus law, favorite neighborhood dives like Freddy’s will continue to be seized and handed over to any developer who comes along with promises of glitzy towers and arenas–no matter how pie-in-the-sky the proposals are. In fact, the grander the promise, the better.

Sadly, eminent domain abuse will continue to disproportionately target minorities and the less well-off, as IJ found in its nationwide demographic study on eminent domain abuse, Victimizing the Vulnerable. A closer look at project areas in the New York City metropolitan area found that 92 percent of project area residents are minorities, versus 57 percent in surrounding communities. Residents are also overwhelmingly more often renters and have lower incomes.

Barring sudden intervention by the governor or other powers-that-be, Ratner will successfully uproot and destroy a vibrant piece of Brooklyn. Freddy’s will be torn down and hopefully rebuilt elsewhere. The Nets will undoubtedly secure the worst record in the NBA.

But in the meantime, we raise our glasses to Freddy’s Bar and its loyal patrons for taking a last stand against this landgrab. Cheers.

Christina Walsh is the Director of Activism and Coalitions for the Institute for Justice (ij.org), which fights eminent domain abuse nationwide.

The Goldstein family is the only family remaining at 636 Pacific Street, part of the site where the New Jersey Nets’ new arena is expected to be built.

The fight over property rights is getting ugly in Brooklyn. Homeowners living in the way of a new stadium projects say they’ll go on fighting despite losing a major court battle. CBS 2 met the central figure in the battle who has seen almost all of his neighbors move away.

Atlantic Yards is the site in Brooklyn where developer Bruce Ratner plans to build a massive construction project anchored by a brand new basketball stadium for the New Jersey Nets, even if has to force the last few unwilling residents to move out. At 636 Pacific Street, it’s coming down to high noon, a half-dozen years in the making.

“This’ll be the largest project in the history of Brooklyn. It’ll be larger than the footprint of the World Trade Center,” said Dan Goldstein, a condo owner on the site. “They’re stealing my property. My property is not for sale, but they’re going to make me sell it to them if we lose this next round of litigation.”

Six years ago all the apartments in Goldstein’s building were all occupied. There were 31 units in the building, but that was before Atlantic Yards was announced and everybody wound up moved out over the course of 18 months.

On Monday there is one hold-out: the Goldstein family. They are the only occupants on the floor, the only occupants in the building, and they say they’re not going anywhere.

“This about the principle – should a citizen of New York State have to the greatest powers of the state who want to take my property and hand it over to a billionaire,” said Goldstein.

Goldstein lives in the building with his wife and daughter. Some believe they are just getting in the way.

“Over a couple of hold-outs? I don’t know, I think for over a few people they should compromise,” said Brooklyn resident Robert Marion.

Matthew Brinkerhoff represents a total of 10 clients who are in the way and want to stay. He said the recession, among other things has made the project’s promise of affordable housing to go with stadium a bad bet.

“They are seeking to take their homes based on facts that existed three years ago and no longer exist and everyone knows they no longer exist,” he told CBS 2.

There are still four active lawsuits. Ratner predicts the Nets will be playing in their new stadium by the 2011 season in Brooklyn. A spokesman for Ratner Monday told CBS 2 the developer expects to sell $700 million in tax-free bonds that should be issued this week to help finance the project.

From Reason.com

Last month, New York’s highest court heard oral arguments in Goldstein v. New York State Urban Development Corporation, which centered on the state’s controversial use of eminent domain on behalf of real estate tycoon Bruce Ratner, who wants to build a basketball stadium, a hotel, and some office and apartment towers in central Brooklyn. As I’ve previously argued, it’s a blatant case of eminent domain abuse.

And as it turns out, Bruce Ratner himself agrees with that judgement. In a startling interview with Crain’s New York Business, Ratner finally admitted what his critics have maintained all along: “This isn’t a public project.” Here are the key paragraphs from Theresa Agovino’s article (emphasis added):

In light of a financial crisis that has hobbled many developers, Mr. Ratner refuses to discuss what the project will look like, whether or not it will include an office building and even who will design the first residential tower, which he’s slated to break ground on early next year.

Initially, the project called for four office towers, but by early this year, only one was on the drawing boards. Asked when it will go up, Mr. Ratner responds with a question: “Can you tell me when we are going to need a new office tower?”

He has no intention of sharing the designs for the complex. “Why should people get to see plans?” he demands. “This isn’t a public project. We will follow the guidelines.”

How dare those taxpayers ask to see how their money is being spent! Keep in mind that in addition to getting the state to forcibly seize private property on his behalf, Ratner has received at least $300 million in capital contributions from the city and state of New York, as well as a host of zoning overrides, low-cost financing, property and mortgage tax exemptions, and assorted taxpayer subsidies. As Daniel Goldstein, the lead plaintiff in the eminent domain lawsuit, aptly put it:

If Atlantic Yards ‘isn’t a public project,’ as Ratner now proudly claims, then he should return the public’s money and renounce his attempt to seize properties, like my home and my neighbors’ homes, that, until today’s sudden and uncharacteristic brush with honesty, Ratner always said he was taking for ‘public use.’

Go here for more on Ratner’s eminent domain abuse.

From the Develop-don’t Destroy Brooklyn website

Charles Bagli at the Times tells us what a desperate busy beaver Bruce Ratner has been over the past months, travelling to Moscow for money, city hall and Albany for subsidies, and bond rating agencies (wherever they hang out) in order to get his Atlantic Yards proposal off life support.

We and Bagli and many others have been down this road before: Bruce opens mouth, stuff comes out and then none of it pans out. Why believe him this time? We don’t. It is especially funny to read that Bruce hopes to build more “affordable” subsidized housing than required. Why funny? Because subsidized housing is ALL Ratner can build right now and the money wouldn’t have to come out of his pocket. Of course he wants to build more of it.

Finally, there is anemic speculation on whether Ratner can float his tax-exempt arena bond prior to the December 31st IRS deadline to do so. Not much light is shed on that in the article, but bond (and more) blogger Gari N. Corp does his own lengthy speculation on the bond and on the bond speculator on his GumbyFresh blog—I am the god of capitalism, and I give you nonsense.

From the Times:

Atlantic Yards’ Developer Races a Court Hearing, a Bond Deadline and Opponents

New York Times. By CHARLES V. BAGLI

As the usual tumult greeted the final public hearings on the Atlantic Yards development last month, it was business as usual for the developer Bruce C. Ratner.

He visited three rating agencies in preparation for selling bonds this fall to finance the first project in the 22-acre development near Downtown Brooklyn: an $800 million, 18,000-seat arena for the New Jersey Nets.

He flew to Moscow to meet with the billionaire Mikhail D. Prokhorov about investing in the money-losing Nets.

He went to and from City Hall and the state’s economic development offices on Third Avenue to complete the paperwork for the Atlantic Yards development and to start work on the arena.

“We are racing to the finish line,” Mr. Ratner said in an interview as the public hearing drew to a close. “Our sense is that while this project was important five years ago, it has become even more important given the economy and the job situation in the city.”

Remember, it was on May 15th that Bruce told the world that his dying project had jumped its “last hurdle.” Then why all of this scurrying about?

Bagli continues:

…Mr. Ratner must clear a number of important hurdles before starting construction of the arena and the first four residential towers.

There is an Oct. 14 hearing before the state’s highest court, where opponents hope to scuttle Atlantic Yards by challenging the state’s use of eminent domain. Beyond that, there is a looming deadline: he must get the financing done and start work by Dec. 31 in order to qualify for a much needed tax-exempt bond status and hold on to a $400 million naming-rights deal with Barclays Bank for the arena.

Mr. Ratner acknowledged that he was also seeking additional investors for the Nets, but he said he and his company would retain a substantial stake in the team, which he hopes to move to Brooklyn during the 2011-12 season…

Critics, led by the group Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, contend that Atlantic Yards will overwhelm the neighborhood and unfairly benefit a developer who they say has received too many subsidies, including $305 million from the city and the state, along with tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks.

The Court of Appeals has set an Oct. 14 date for oral arguments: some local property owners are challenging a unanimous lower court decision approving the state’s use of eminent domain. Daniel Goldstein, a spokesman for Develop Don’t Destroy and one of the property owners, said “the project is dead” if their appeal is successful. A decision is expected in November.

Regardless, he added, “We plan on bringing at least two more significant lawsuits against the phantom project,” a reference to the developer’s failure to release new images of his buildings after scrapping the original designs.

Mr. Ratner said he expected to release new images of the arena before Labor Day. “I think the final architecture will be really beautiful,” he said.

The developer disputed critics who claim that he may never build the parks and affordable housing that he once promised, now that the expected completion date has been pushed out to 2019, from 2016. Mr. Ratner said there was a continuing need for affordable housing for the city’s teachers, nurses, firefighters and hotel workers.

Ratner and ESDC pretend the completion date is 2019 while ESDC and MTA have given him until 2031.

Bagli continues:

“There is a stable and steady group of takers for work-force housing in the city,” Mr. Ratner said. “The goal is not just to create the required amount but possibly more than that.”

In recent weeks, the developer has sought additional housing subsidies from city officials, who have so far declined to go beyond the standard incentives for developers…

Continue reading

On his Atlantic Yards Report Norman Oder takes a look at the Times article and notices that what Ratner VP MaryAnne Gilmartin said just a few weeks ago is contradicted in the article. We’re shocked!

Business as usual: Times notes Ratner’s seeking more housing subsidies, but ignores lack of a cost-benefit analysis (and omits disclosure)

…Third, it reveals that Forest City Ratner has sought additional housing subsidies from the city, despite the careful statement by FCR executive MaryAnne Gilmartin last month that “Forest City does not expect to ask for more subsidy.”

The reason that’s news: while Forest City is now framing Atlantic Yards as an affordable housing project, the developer won’t build the affordable housing without sufficient city subsidies. And we still don’t know–though serious doubts have been raised by experts like Michelle de la Uz of the Fifth Avenue Committee–how the cost-per-unit compares to alternatives…
Read the Full Article

from the Next American City

When Developer Bruce Ratner of Forest City Ratner Companies announced the fanciful vision of a sports stadium in Brooklyn surrounded by world-class architecture designed by Frank Gehry, little did he know he was about to head one of the most controversial development projects in the history of New York.

A protest mural on the Atlantic Yards site. Image via flickr.

In addition to the stadium, the master plan of the project, in an area known as Atlantic Yards, showed a mixture of commercial, retail, and housing units, as well as green space. The original price of the project, slated for a 2006 completion, was $2.5 billion and included 8 million square feet and 22 acres of development. By the time the Public Authorities Control Board finally approved it in December of 2006, the cost had doubled to $4 billion, partly due to rising costs associated with Gehry’s designs.

The original design for the 20,000-seat arena, named Barclays Center after the British Bank, incorporated Gehry’s now almost customary usage of titanium. The plan also consists of 16 towers, including a 620-foot tower dubbed “Miss Brooklyn.” In 2008, the tower, which had drawn some controversy for its size, was scrapped for a new 511-foot tall Gehry design, named B1. The general design was quickly met with concern and opposition from numerous residents in the area who feared the size of the development, as well as related factors, like traffic congestion, which they believed would negatively alter the character of the neighborhood.

Locals were more enthusiastic about the proposed addition of housing, particularly affordable housing. Forest City stated that almost 2,000 of the 6,400 approved units would be condominiums, and about 200 of those would be subsidized. Half of the rental units were supposed to be reserved for moderate to low-income households. To further express their commitment to affordability, the developer and Brooklyn office of ACORN signed the Housing Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in 2005 to solidify their pledge of making 50 percent of the residential units affordable.

However, as time has passed, affordable housing has become an issue that many opponents of the project have scrutinized as the project continues to change. One of the big issues has been what the term “affordable” really means. Brooklyn Speaks, an umbrella group that is more generally concerned with the fact that the scale of the project makes it impossible for it to integrate with the rest of the neighborhood, makes the point that “60 percent of the affordable units would only be affordable to families making in excess of the Brooklyn median income…$35,000.” The Atlantic Yards Report, a blog that follows news on the project and offers analysis, has brought to light a variety of possible loopholes in the MOU and the way Residential Project was defined as consisting of 4500 (rental) units, leaving a gray space for units added later that may not have to be part of the 50/50 program, as well as non-rental units.

Seen as the project’s main opponent, Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn makes it very clear that they support growth and development in the Atlantic Yards area but are against Ratner’s “inflated, false claims,” and lack of interest in community input. They are also opposed to the use of eminent domain in this project, which they see as “inappropriate and abusive.” The project proposes to seize 68 privately held properties through eminent domain, which the developer sees as necessary to deal with “blighted conditions” in the area. Such seizures would displace many residents and businesses in the area and disrupt the general fabric of the neighborhood by introducing very dense development.

Such opposition, which in a few cases has manifested into lawsuits and court challenges, has added to construction delays and dramatically changed the timeline of the project. In fact, in June, the New York State Appellate Court agreed to hear an appeal challenging the use of eminent domain to take the property for the project, which could cause another significant delay. Still, Ratner is determined to break ground on the project before the end of the year and is very aware that in order to qualify for tax-exempt bonds the project must begin before the end of 2009.

Since June, when the anticipated completion date was announced to be 2019, the cost of the project has ballooned to $4.9 billion. In addition, the $25 million in revenue that the city hoped to gain once Atlantic Yards was completed is seen as a lost cause to most. Furthermore, Frank Gehry, the man whose architectural vision won over many proponents, will no longer be designing any of the buildings. The rising costs, coupled with the current economic situation, called for designs that are less expensive than Gehry’s (albeit less impressive).The Kansas City firm, Ellerbe Becket, will now design the less expensive –and more generic-looking—stadium. The New York blog, Gothamist, describes the redesign as “a banal homage to any number of unremarkable ‘field house’ arenas across America.”

Being able to borrow money and raise capital in this fiscal climate has placed the project at a severe disadvantage. And with a less than exciting main attraction, resolute local opposition, and legal and financial hurdles, it is hard to say if Ratner’s Atlantic Yards will ever—or even ought to—come to fruition.