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tel/fax:
718.362.4784
Please note our new postal address when sending
contributions to the legal fund:
121 5th Avenue, PMB #150
Brooklyn, New York 11217
About DDDB
Our coalition consists of 21 community organizations and
there are 51 community organizations formally
aligned in opposition to the Ratner plan.
DDDB is a volunteer-run organization. We have over 5,000
subscribers to our email newsletter, and 7,000 petition
signers. Over 800 volunteers have registered with DDDB
to form our various teams, task-forces and committees
and we have over 150 block captains. We have a 20 person
volunteer legal team of local lawyers supplementing our
retained attorneys.
We are funded entirely by individual donations from the community at large
and through various fundraising events we and supporters have organized.
We have the financial support of well over 3,500 individual
donors.
More about
DDDB...
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April 30: Make Some Noise, Speak Up for the Community at the Atlantic Yards Public Hearing
PUBLIC HEARING on Atlantic Yards
Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement
Wednesday, April 30
5:30 PM - 9:00 PM
Long Island University
Room HS 107
75 DeKalb Avenue
This Wednesday, April 30th starting at 5:30 the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) is holding a court-ordered public hearing on the Atlantic Yards Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (DSEIS).
That's the Atlantic Yards project (not) being built by the Chinese government*, Russian oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov and their minority partner Forest City Ratner. *After Mikhail Prokhorov bailed Ratner out in 2009 the great subsidy—and green cards for cash—abuser has found a new savior - the Chinese government. The Greenland Group, a Chinese government-owned development firm has a joint venture agreement to buy a 70% controlling interest in the project from Ratner pending Treasury Department approval. The agreement would put Greenland in decision-making control of the project and the firm may eventually buy out Ratner's remaining 30% stake.)
If you thought that there was no oversight or accountability before a foreign government took control of the project, well...let's just say it's likely to get worse:
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How, exactly, will accountability and oversight come to be with the controlling developer on the other side of the world when there wasn't any with the developer based in Metrotech?!
- Who, exactly, will Greenland be accountable to; more to the point, who in our government will hold the Chinese government accountable moving forward?
- When the community has issues with the project over the coming decades, who can we turn to: Beijing???
Why is this hearing being held?
Because ESDC and Ratner lied to misled the court about key project documents. DDDB and other groups sued over this and won a court ordered supplemental review of the bulk of the project because it became clear that the developer's 10-year construction period was going to be at least 25 years, leading to a variety of new and unique impacts on the community. Had ESDC and Ratner not misled the court there is a good chance the project would not have been able to move forward at all back in 2010. (The back story to the long case history is here.)
Remember: Forest City Ratner and a basketball team's worth of elected officials (including the new Mayor) promised that the publicly funded, eminent domain fueled Atlantic Yards project would bring 2,250 units of "affordable housing," 10,000 jobs, publicly accessible open space, and would remove alleged "blight." They promised all these pies in the sky would arrive within ten years.
But four years after they broke ground what do we have? We have an arena enjoyed by ticketholders, a huge demolished hole in the neighborhood, ongoing real construction blight, rising rents and five stories (of 32) of the first of 16 towers that are to be built. Not a single housing unit, "affordable" or not, has been built and that first delayed tower is going to take at least a year longer than announced at its groundbreaking. (See last week's NY Times article.)
Why should you attend this hearing?
We encourage you to come to the hearing and give oral testimony expressing your thoughts about the project. While we have ten years worth of reasons to doubt that the ESDC will give a darn about what the community has to say, it is important to come and let ESDC, Forest City Ratner, and the media in attendance know what you think of the project, its failures and its impacts on the community:
- If you think oversight and accountability are the least the community and taxpayers deserve, come to the hearing and say so.
- If you want to say, "we told you so," come to the hearing and say so.
- And If you think the project would never had seen the light of day if it originated as the Chinese government's NYC taxpayer-funded plan to demolish a neighborhood and let it sit mostly vacant for decades while a Russian oligarch's vanity team plays a handful of playoff games where people used to live and work...then come to the hearing and say so.
Feel free to bring homemade Russian and Chinese flags and any other appropriate props.
(PLEASE BE WARNED: there is likely to be an abundance of dogs and ponies in attendance.)
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
5:30 PM - 9:00 PM
Long Island University
Room HS 107
75 DeKalb Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
The hearing is open to all. Visit Empire State Development's website for: access to the documents; instructions for submitting comments; and a protocol for the conduct of the hearing.
Written comments on the DSEIS will be accepted through Monday, May 12, 2014. Written comments should be delivered to ESD at 633 Third Avenue, New York, New York 10017, Attention: Derek Lynch, or may be submitted by e-mail to [email protected]. All email submissions will receive an email response confirming receipt from Mr. Lynch within two business days.
Posted: 4.28.14
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