Bloomberg’s Reign of Neighborhood Destruction: Atlantic Yards as Poster Child
Bruce Ratner with Mayor Bloomberg
FUNY Issue Two
By Daniel Goldstein, Co-founder, Develop Don’t Destroy
When a woman approached Mike Bloomberg over plans for a new Nets arena in Downtown Brooklyn, Mr. Bloomberg sympathized by saying, “if I lived here maybe I wouldn’t like it either.”
– The New York Times, October 12, 2005
A little known fact about Mayor Bloomberg: while his minions like to call New York City residents concerned about undemocratic overdevelopment in their neighborhoods NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard), the quote above illustrates that Bloomberg is the real NIMBY, basically saying: “Overdevelopment for New York City, but not where I live.”
Anyway, when campaigning for his first term in office Mayor Bloomberg promised that not one cent of public money would be spent on sports stadiums or arenas.
Here we are eight years later and he has used hundreds of millions in taxpayer subsidies to fund the construction of not one, but two baseball stadiums (Yankees Stadium and the Mets’ CitiField) and he attempted to construct a stadium for the Jets on the West Side also funded by the taxpayer.
And for six years he has been attempting yet another publicly subsidized professional sports facility—Forest City Ratner’s Barclays Center Arena (part of the gigantic and embattled Atlantic Yards development proposal in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn).
In June the Independent Budget Office (IBO) testified at a State Senate hearing that the Barclays Center Arena, if built, would be a money loser for New York City. Yet the Mayor, who has told us that only his firm financial hand can guide this City, still supports and pushes for the money losing white elephant Ratner wants to build.
On June 24th he pressured the MTA Board into approving a new sweetheart land rights deal for Forest City Ratner. Just after the MTA had been bailed out, purportedly fiscally prudent Bloomberg pressured the Board to accept $20 million up front and $80 million over 22 years from Ratner for the rights to the valuable 9-acre rail yard portion of the Atlantic Yards site in the heart of Brooklyn. Never mind that the yards had been appraised at $214.5 million and Ratner had originally agreed to pay $100 million in cash at closing, after a non-competitive, sham of a bidding process.
Sole-source, no-bid contracts and cronyism for a money-losing, publicly funded arena do not demonstrate sound economic stewardship.
Term Limits Override Not First Anti-Democratic Action
When Bloomberg overturned the twice-voted for term limits law it was not a surprise to anyone paying attention to the Atlantic Yards saga. Because back in 2003 Mayor Bloomberg unilaterally overrode New York City’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) taking the decision-making power over Atlantic Yards away from Community Boards, City Planning and the City Council, and allowing a complete zoning override, thus fostering billionaire crony Bruce Ratner’s land grab. Overturning term limits was just another action in a long line of anti-democratic, strong-arm tactics.
Eminent Domain As the First Resort
Bloomberg has taken many steps to remake the city and its many neighborhoods in his vision of a cleansed playground for the well off. And how best to drive out the unwanted? Eminent domain is a handy tool to do that. He has wielded it with Columbia University’s expansion, the Willets Point rezoning, Downtown Brooklyn rezoning, in East Harlem, Bronx Terminal Market and, of course, for the Atlantic Yards project. Eminent domain, of course, is the government’s right to take private property for a public use. But over and over, under Bloomberg, it has been used to take private property from owners and tenants to transfer it to private interests for private purposes.
At least Robert Moses used eminent domain for consensus traditional purposes like roads (not defending Moses’ neighborhood destroying activities here) rather than for well-connected, billionaire developers.
And for the people of New York who have tried to challenge the various abuses of eminent domain under the Bloomberg reign, what does he have to say? He says that we can’t let one little guy stand in the way of progress.
He’s right, we can’t let this one little guy stand in the way of progress, and that is why he’s got to go. When crony capitalism in the name of overdevelopment, sports playpens for billionaires and excessive, cancerous growth is considered “progress” we know we’re being lied to.
Bloomberg’s’ Overdevelopment Failures
When Bloomberg overturned term limits, dissenting Brooklyn Councilmember Letitia James said:
“I believe that this is really all about a legacy—about Moynihan Station, about Willets Point, about the West Side, about Ground Zero, and yes, about Atlantic Yards; and about the displacement of low, moderate and working families in New York City. Let me end by decrying, let the people decide.”
It’s a legacy he can’t be proud of. His first term laser beam focus on the Jets Stadium was lost time and money and wrongheaded from the start. The big rezonings he pushed in Harlem, Williamsburg/Greenpoint, and Downtown Brooklyn are failures, providing luxury condo ghost towns, and very little affordable housing or job creation.
And the fight against Atlantic Yards, with victory in reach for the community, may very well be Bloomberg’s Waterloo.
