"I've been here since 2:00": echoes of Beckett at DEIS hearing

This week AYR will look back at the 8/23/06 hearing on the Atlantic Yards Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), drawing on the official transcript.

There are more than a few places where the dialogue, at least as captured on the transcript, has echoes of absurdist playwright Samuel Beckett, notable for lines like “You must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on.”

Anonymous voices inside the Klitgord Auditorium lamented that people were not let into the building, that they'd been waiting for hours, and that the public would no longer be allowed to speak at a public hearing.

(Photo of Beckett mural in London by Rachel Scott Halls, reproduced under a Creative Commons license.)

Inside and outside

THE HEARING OFFICER: Thank you, Mr. Watkins. The next speaker is Bob Braun. Is Bob Braun here?

A VOICE: He won't be let into the building. Bob Braun is outside.

THE HEARING OFFICER: In that case, the next speaker is Richard Chernoso (phonetic.) Is Richard Chernoso here?

(No response.)

THE HEARING OFFICER: Then the next speaker is Paul Heller.

A VOICE: He also has not been allowed in the building.

A VOICE: These people are not being allowed in the building.

A VOICE: There's a thousand people outside waiting to get in.

Endless waiting

[Later in the hearing]

THE HEARING OFFICER: Rhonda Dweck.

(No response.)

THE HEARING OFFICER: The next group of speakers will be: Margaret McNabb; Anthony Knight; K. Gleeson; Ronald Washington; Henry Weinstein; Blaise Sarne; Kate Galassie; Stephen Ebaz; Lilana Aristizabal; William Stanford Jr.; Gaston Dweck; Judith Wright; Genevieve Christy; Cecil Henry; and Simon Sarway.

A VOICE: I've been here since 2:00.

A VOICE: I've been here since 3:00. What's going on?

VOICES: We haven't spoke yet. You're not going in order.

(Audience participation.)

THE HEARING OFFICER: There are approximately, where I can see, at least 300 people who haven't spoken yet.

I see you are scheduled to speak at the convention on Tuesday, at the Pepsi Center, which sounds like the name of a soda plant. Why is it called that? My guess is that Pepsi probably bought the naming rights. Naming rights are another thing my subcommittee — the Domestic Policy Subcommittee — is looking into.

BEEP PROJECTS REAP BIZ BUCKS

Big companies face strict limits on how much they can donate to politicians - but they can be as generous as they want to the politicians' pet charities.

Borough Presidents Scott Stringer of Manhattan and Marty Markowitz of Brooklyn both operate nonprofits that solicit cash from big companies.

Markowitz, a potential mayoral candidate, runs Best of Brooklyn, which took in $1.2 million in 2007 to fund some of his favorite causes, like sending kids to summer camp and finding teens jobs.

"BPs have no legislative role whatsoever, and The Post should applaud the fact that our office encourages public-private partnerships for the public good," Markowitz said.

Among the charity's donors are the Nets and Forest City Ratner - both owned by developer Bruce Ratner, who is building an arena project in Downtown Brooklyn that has benefited from Markowitz's cheerleading.

Both gave between $5,000 and $20,000, documents filed with the Conflicts of Interest Board show...

Full article.

The same Bruce Ratner has also donated megabucks to Mayor Bloomberg's favorite causes: $200K to the NYC2012 Olympic Bid and "$450,000 and $1 million to a nonprofit closely associated with... Bloomberg."

...The keynote speaker, Speaker of the Assembly Sheldon Silver, presented Ratner, the developer of the controversial Atlantic Yards project, with a beautifully decorated charity box..

Gov. appoints head of Empire State Development

Marisa Lago will become chief executive of the state's development agency, and her appointment is expected to streamline the organization's hierarchy.
Gov. David Paterson today continued the restructuring he had promised for the state’s development agency, naming a single chief executive to run day-to-day operations statewide.

Marisa Lago was introduced at a midtown press conference as president and CEO of the Empire State Development Corp. Upstate and downstate ESDC presidents will report to her, unlike in the Spitzer administration, when the agency was bifurcated with two chairmen reporting to the governor. Mr. Paterson had frowned on that arrangement, saying it diluted authority at the agency and led to confusion about who was in charge.

Ms. Lago, the former head of development for the city of Boston and a veteran of two mayoral administrations here, has spent the last seven years in international finance as global head of compliance for Citi Markets & Banking. She will be based in New York City and work under unpaid ESDC Chairman Robert Wilmers, who described his role today as “largely strategic” rather than operational. Mr. Wilmers, who was appointed by Mr. Paterson in June, runs Buffalo, N.Y.-based M&T Bank.

Dennis Mullen, a Rochester, N.Y., development official and former head of Birds Eye Foods, was also announced today as upstate president of ESDC. A search for his downstate counterpart is continuing as the acting downstate chief, Avi Schick, prepares to leave the agency next month
...

Mr. Wilmers said that when he accepted his post, “my first thought was to find out how much we spend on economic development.” More than two months later, he admitted, “I still don’t know the answer.”

The agency has also been trying to hold businesses accountable for the job creation they promise in exchange for receiving grants and tax breaks from ESDC. Spitzer administration officials complained that the rationale behind the agency’s handouts was often questionable and follow-up was virtually nonexistent.

The lesson of Field of Schemes: political reform needed

...Q. What’s the lesson of the book? Do you have general reform advice--what should cities, states, or the federal government do?

A. It’s easy if you’re the city or the state or the federal government: you stop giving money...
...

What's the book about?

A. I tell people Field of Schemes is not a book about sports, it’s not really a book about stadiums, it’s about the failure of democracy in this country, about how governments, at every level, are more there to serve the interests of people with money than their constituents.

For a while, when people would say, What should be done? my glib answer was: Campaign finance reform. I still think it’s a good answer.

Who's in charge?

A. If Bruce Ratner didn’t have the ear of all these people--again, if he can’t give them money, he can certainly hire their friends as lobbyists. You have to in some way find a way to shift power from people who can spend money to buy it to popular will, which is what it’s supposed to be about.

This writer for Crain’s Detroit, who wrote this piece about all the great things that Comerica Park has done for Detroit. I wrote him an email saying You’re accepting a lot of numbers at face value that are ridiculous.

At one point, he said, Well, people are voting for these deals, so if people think it’s a good thing, why are you complaining about it? and I said, Well, these are referendums where opposition is being outspent 100 to 1, if the opposition comes anywhere near having the same resources they always win.

His answer was, Isn’t that just the market at work? I said, Call me old-fashioned, I don’t think our democracy is about people being able to buy votes.

What does Brooklyn want?

A. That’s the problem. Right now our democracy is about people being able to buy votes. It is not a question about what does Brooklyn want, or what does New York City want, which would be interesting questions. There are people who don’t care about subsidies, the problems of the arena, they don’t care about eminent domain, they really care about getting more affordable housing.

That’s a legitimate reason to support the project. But you’ve never had a public forum debating what do people want. It’s about what does Ratner want.

And it’s a huge problem, that our media isn’t responsive to what the public wants, our elected officials aren’t responsive to what the public wants. I think there are a lot of little pieces that could be done, but I think political reform is as necessary as fighting project to project. You have to do both

Met Council’s Annual Builder’s Luncheon Raises One Million Dollars

August 18, 2008 (New York, NY) –Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty (Met Council) netted more than one million dollars this past week, during its annual Builder’s Luncheon honoring Bruce Ratner, Chairman and CEO of Forest City Ratner Companies.

The nearly 500 guests spanned the real estate, political and communal spectrum. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Congressman Anthony Weiner and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz praised Mr. Ratner for his work in developing New York City. The keynote speaker, Speaker of the Assembly Sheldon Silver, presented Mr. Ratner with a beautifully decorated charity box.

Speaker Silver commented in his address, “Bruce is responsible for much of the development and growth that’s gone on in Brooklyn and in Manhattan. He is a major force in New York City for the good.”
...

Full article

Yards ‘domain’ case has some eminence

BY MIKE MCLAUGHLIN The Brooklyn Paper

Legal experts agree on one thing about the latest lawsuit to block the Atlantic Yards project — the plaintiffs have put together a crafty argument to combat the project.

Law professors are intrigued by the argument, filed on Aug. 1 in state court by soon-to-be-displaced residents, that the state’s use of its eminent domain power to clear land for Bruce Ratner’s mega-project violates a little-known and never-tested provision of the state Constitution that prohibits public subsidies from underwriting any urban renewal project whose occupancy is not restricted “to persons of low income.”

Ratner’s development is slated to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in direct public subsidies and tax breaks despite the fact that it includes thousands of units of market-rate housing.

The plaintiffs claim that the luxury housing would violate Article 18, Section 6 of the state Constitution.

“It’s a very good, well-written complaint. They’ve got a hook,” said James Gardner, a law professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
...

Yards opponents have another glimmer of hope, experts said, namely that the state court is presiding during an ongoing backlash against the 2005 Kelo verdict.

“The New York court is one of the most activist in the country,” Gardner told The Brooklyn Paper.

Full article

Developer Bruce Ratner Is Honored at Gala
By Abraham Riesman Special to the Sun

Developer Bruce Ratner may be facing challenges to his Atlantic Yards project, but he received nothing but support from top New York politicians at a gala in his honor yesterday.

Rep. Anthony Weiner and the speaker of the City Council, Christine Quinn — both likely 2009 mayoral candidates — as well as Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and the President of Brooklyn, Marty Markowitz, all lauded Mr. Ratner at a luncheon held by the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty.

"Bruce Ratner is someone who reminds us all the time that, even in difficult financial times, we need to be a city that continues to grow," Mr. Weiner told an audience of more than 450 on the Upper West Side.
...

... "How this man looks every day in a positive way at all the hate that's been directed to him, I will never know," Mr. Markowitz said of Mr. Ratner yesterday.

Well, if ever there were any doubt, we now know where Anthony Weiner, Chris Quinn and Shelly Silver stand vis-a-vis Bruce Ratner and Atlantic Yards. As for Mr. Markowitz and his "Saint Bruce" routine, he just doesn't get how people might think this project and the rigged process behind it could maybe rub people the wrong way. It ain't personal, Marty — it's a BAD IDEA.

..."This is our property. It’s been in my family 75 years,” said Willets Point business owner Jake Bono. “And basically, the mayor and [Economic Development Corporation] are trying to rape and rob our land from us."

But Bloomberg said eminent domain will be used if necessary.

"We can't have a situation where one building owner sits there and sticks it to the whole city," said Bloomberg...
(Emphasis added)

Bloomberg continued:
In the case of eminent domain, it is--we have to keep changing our cities, and build the infrastructure and have the jobs and the housing, and you can’t just let one person stop all of that. I’m not in favor of, when most people are against something, doing it. But, for example, the Nets development, which is what you’re talking about, Daniel, out in Brooklyn, overwhelmingly favored by people in Brooklyn and throughout the city, and I think that’s an appropriate thing for use of government powers. A handful of people, I’m sorry for them, but they will get fairly compensated, but you can’t just let any one person stop all development, and that’s when eminent domain comes in.
(Emphasis added)

..."There is a place for eminent domain. What the city is trying to do is negotiate a fair deal with everybody there," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said...

"This is America. The America that I know protects property rights of American citizens. New York City is still part of America," Councilman Hirman Monserrat said.

We applaud the efforts and actions of the Councilmembers who've taken a stand against eminent domain abuse, but we're compelled to point out a couple of things.

First, the "dangerous precedent for large-scale development projects citywide" has already been set by Atlantic Yards. In fact, had the Atlantic Yards plot never been hatched by Forest City Ratner, it's likely that the Willets Point plan, however heinous it may be, wouldn't have encountered such significant — and well organized — resistance.

Second, we have to admit we're curious about ACORN's role. Sure, their interest in the affordable housing makes sense, but based on their track record with Atlantic Yards, we have a hard time believing that they give a hoot about the use of eminent domain. Left to ACORN, that would surely be a bargaining chip happily traded for a richer mix of affordable units.

Lastly, we won't belabor the silliness of the city claiming that eminent domain will only be used "as a last resort." It was already put into use long ago as a negotiating bludgeon. We'll focus instead on the $5 million traffic mitigation fund. Shouldn't the mitigation of traffic be a pre-development requirement? The time to fix traffic problems is before they materialize.

Three birds, one stone

Some of most controversial projects being jammed into a session

Public participation was the justification 30 years ago for the city’s land-use approval process known as ULURP.

Development and zoning plans would now have to go through community boards, a borough president, the City Planning Commission and the City Council — all on a rigid timetable lasting a bit more than six months. Critics have since complained that this timetable is more appropriate for a railroad.

Two elected officials pleaded with the Bloomberg administration yesterday to slow down. Tomorrow the City Planning Commission will hold public hearings on three controversial projects: Lower East Side Rezoning, Hunters Point South and Willets Point redevelopment.

“Each of these deserves a stand-alone hearing,” said Queens Councilman Hiram Monserrate, who has vowed to defeat the Willets Point deal unless displaced businesses and workers are “fairly compensated.”

“I can’t see how anyone, in good conscience, could put three major projects on the agenda for the same exact time,” he said. “It speaks volumes to many people who think the plan is already in the works and the community’s input is really not that important. Is this just a dog and pony show?”
...

Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden said the date has already been advertised and a 450-seat theater is available at NYU’s School of Law. Any delay “would be unfair to these constituents,” she said.
...

...Tomorrow’s meeting of the City Planning Commission promises to be a doozy, with a full agenda including public testimony on three major projects:

Lower East Side Rezoning
Massive 111-block rezoning would limit how tall new buildings can be in the East Village and Lower East Side, but opponents claim the plan would push luxury housing into Chinatown and the Bowery.

Hunters Point South
City’s 30-acre housing development in Long Island City is meant for the middle-class. Critics say most of the units will be out of the reach of the average Queens resident.

Willets Point redevelopment
Major development would use eminent domain, if necessary, to turn 61 acres of auto-body shops and scrap yards into a mixed-use neighborhood, with housing, a hotel and convention center, plus office and retail space. Businesses there complain about a lack of fair compensation.

August 13, 2008
CITY PLANNING COMMISSION
PUBLIC HEARING

Hearing Procedures

On Wednesday, August 13, 2008, at 9:00 a.m., at Tishman Auditorium of Vanderbilt Hall, New York University School of Law, 40 Washington Square South, New York, NY 10012 in Manhattan ( view map and subway directions), public hearings will be held by the City Planning Commission on:

1. East Village/Lower East Side Rezoning - land use applications for a change to the zoning map (C 080397 ZMM, C 080397(A) ZMM) and zoning text amendment (N 080398 ZRM, N 080398(A)) and a related Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) (07DCP078M) submitted by the Department of City Planning.
   
   
2. Hunter's Point South - land use applications for a change to the City Map (C 080276 MMQ), a zoning map change (C 080362 ZMQ), a zoning text amendment (N 080363 ZRQ), acquisition of property (C 080364 PQQ), and UDAAP designation, plan and disposition (C 080365 HAQ) and a related DEIS (08DME006Q) submitted by the departments of Housing Preservation and Development and Parks and Recreation and the Economic Development Corporation. THIS HEARING IS NOT LIKELY TO BEGIN BEFORE 12 NOON.*
   
   
3. Willets Point Development Plan - land use applications for a change to the City Map (C 080221 MMQ), a zoning map change (C 080381 ZMQ), a zoning text amendment (N 080382 ZRQ), urban renewal designation and plan (N 080383 HGQ, C 080384 HUQ) and disposition of city property (C 080385 HDQ) and a related DEIS (07DME014Q) submitted by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development and the Economic Development Corporation.  THIS HEARING IS NOT LIKELY TO BEGIN BEFORE 1 PM. *

Walk with NYC planner Amanda Burden as she rezones the lower East Side
NY Daily News. By Jason Sheftell.

..."This wasn't here two weeks ago," Burden says, sneering at a vacant lot. "There was a building. Once you lose a building, you lose character and history. The Bloomberg administration is about growth and preservation. This is why we have to act fast to change the zoning, so developers aren't allowed to come in here and build whatever they chose. I don't mind a building that is in context with the others, meaning the same height with architectural guidelines, but small streets shouldn't have large development."

Readers of The Brooklyn Paper are well aware that Bruce Ratner has broken promises over the years. Here’s Ratner’s ever-changing timetable for the arena.

It’s unconstitutional! Yards foes pull out new ace in the hole
By Gersh Kuntzman

Lawyers for a declining number of holdout residents of the Atlantic Yards footprint may have found the silver bullet in their ongoing battle against state plans to condemn the remaining few properties still not owned by developer Bruce Ratner: the state Constitution.

Though the United States Supreme Court opted last month not to hear the tenants’ and property owners’ challenge to the state’s use of eminent domain power to facilitate the Ratner mega-project, lawyers filed suit last week in New York State Supreme Court citing a clause in the state’s bylaws that bars public money from underwriting any urban renewal project unless “the occupancy of any such project shall be restricted to persons of low income.”

Ratner’s development, which is slated to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in direct public subsidies and tax breaks, includes thousands of units of market-rate housing. That appears to be a violation of Article 18, section 6 of the state Constitution, which was adopted during the Depression.
...

“The language is plain,” [plaintiff’s lawyer Matt Brinckerhoff] said. “That clause was written during the Depression for the clear purpose of clearing slum conditions with state subsidies and that any subsidized slum replacement must create low-income housing and nothing else. That is what the law says. There is no nuance.”
...

Briefs are due in November and arguments in the case are expected in January, 2009. That timeline would throw a monkey wrench into Ratner’s stated goal of beginning construction this fall, though that schedule is already in jeopardy due to the economic downturn (see main story).

FULL article.

Vonage makes deal with Izod Center
Newark Star-Ledger

The internet phone company Vonage Holdings will pay more than $1 million to put its name on the concourse of the Izod Center, the Nets and the sports authority announced yesterday.

The four-year deal makes the Holmdel-based firm a "legacy sponsor," with naming rights to the concourse and signs along Routes 3 and 120, according to the Nets. The team brokered the deal for the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, which operates the Meadowlands Sports Complex.
(Emphasis added.)

So the Nets brokered the deal on behalf of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, and it runs for four years, or through 2012, which is well beyond when the Nets claim they'll be all snuggled in in Brooklyn. Would you pay to have your name on the Concourse of an arena that wouldn't have any tenants during part of the term of your sponsorship? Would you pay to sponsor a Concourse period?

New York City has a variety of projects, both public and private, which when completed will improve the quality of life for all New Yorkers. Whether it's new building construction, road repairs, or park improvements, each effort will make new York a better place to work, live, and visit. here at Columbus Circle a station rehabilitiation is being completed that will improve accessibility and architectural enhancement.

WCBS: "With the state in such dire fiscal straits why are you supporting this costly project, which according to this writer may end up costing the state and New York City about 2 billion in subsidies and tax breaks?"

Governor Paterson: "There is a point that the listener correctly has addressed, that if it starts to become too costly, a lot of these projects that we were for, we might have to change our mind. To this point we don't think that we are there with the Atlantic Yards and continue to try to help them."

It is encouraging to know that the Governor agrees, especially in this economic environment, that megaprojects that become too costly require re-evaluation. But we'd argue that we are there with Atlantic Yards and have been for quite a while. With no evidence at all that Forest City Ratner can build its project, let alone bring its pruported benefits to fruition, the city and state have committed substantial subsidies, breaks and other special support to the project.

Clearly during this dire fiscal crisis—so dire the Governor himself presented a rare broadcast speech about the situation just two weeks ago—the construction of a One Billion Dollar and Counting Arena is a frivolous and risky endeavor which is too costly. The city and state will, if not legally then effectively, be on the hook for the $800 million tax-exempt bond Forest City Ratner has stated it is pursuing.

Then we must look at some of the rest of the accounting:
- $100 million direct cash subsidy from the state.
- $205 million direct cash subsidy from the city.
- A blank check promised by the city for "extraordinary infrastructure costs."
- An estimated $1.4 billion worth of tax-exempt housing bonds from the state.

Though the NY Post's $2 billion in government back financing is debatable, the developer claimed three years ago that the public investment in the project would be $1.1 billion. Either figure is too costly considering neither the city or state have shown that there would be a meaningful financial return for the taxpayers—especially seeing as how Ratner has provided the public and government with no confidence whatsoever that the project can be built.

Ratner's land speculation—speculation on private and public land (the rail yards and city streets)—is too costly.

And while the MTA threatens successive fare hikes, the agency which is largely controlled by the Governor, can make a choice:
Does it close its $100 million deal with Ratner to sell the 8-acre Vanderbilt rail yard to the developer well below the $214.5 MTA appraisal of the property? Or does it pull out of that deal (the deal has not closed yet and no money has been exchanged), divide the yards into multiple parcels and put the parcels through a genuine bidding process which would be likely to bring in something around the appraised value or even higher?
----------------

Norman Oder gives his take on the Governor's response on his Atlantic Yards Report.

...“A neighborhood changes incrementally,” said Scott Levitan, Forest City senior vice president and development director for the project. “It’s filled with people who’ve owned their house, meticulously maintained it, and you wake up one morning and the neighborhood has disintegrated around it. It’s not anyone’s fault. Hopefully, this is the last time we’ll have to demolish a neighborhood in order to save it.”... (Emphasis added.)

From the newspaper that has never seen a Forest City project it didn't like, today The New York Times ran a fairly uncritical story about how the development company and Johns Hopkins Hospital "have joined forces to demolish a neighborhood to save it." [No joke!]

Though the article contained this disclosure, "One of its affiliates, Forest City Ratner, was the development partner for the new Manhattan headquarters of The New York Times Company," it doesn't mention that the Times Company and Forest City Ratner (FCR) now co-own the building.

Also absent from the article is any mention of "eminent domain," a controversial component of the plan to build The Times's headquarters and FCR's Atlantic Yards project. Instead, The Times dances around the topic:

To accumulate land for the site, the city, state and Johns Hopkins in 2003 created East Baltimore Development Inc. to acquire buildings, tear them down, and then sell the land to developers.

[Read: In order to acquire enough land, the government and Johns Hopkins created a public-private corporation empowered with the use of eminent domain to force people to sell their homes and/or businesses.]

...State Constitutional claim

The novel state claim relies on Article 18, section 6 of the New York State Constitution, which provides that no loan or subsidy shall be made to aid any project unless the project contains a plan for the remediation of blight and the “occupancy of any such project shall be restricted to persons of low income as defined by law and preference shall be given to persons who live or shall have lived in such area or areas.”

However, the suit states, the project is not “restricted to persons of low income” and no preference has been given to “persons who live or shall have lived in such area,” the petition claims. Actually, residents of the three adjacent Community Board districts would be given preference in access to the project’s affordable housing.

Article 18 concerns housing; its text:
§6. No loan, or subsidy shall be made by the state to aid any project unless such project is in conformity with a plan or undertaking for the clearance, replanning and reconstruction or rehabilitation of a substandard and unsanitary area or areas and for recreational and other facilities incidental or appurtenant thereto. The legislature may provide additional conditions to the making of such loans or subsidies consistent with the purposes of this article. The occupancy of any such project shall be restricted to persons of low income as defined by law and preference shall be given to persons who live or shall have lived in such area or areas. The defense on this will be interesting. The ESDC may argue that the $100 million, is directed at the arena alone. However, section 6 seems to contemplate that eminent domain used for recreational and other facilities can include housing. Perhaps the ESDC will argue that other sections of the state constitution may offer different guidance.

Any precedent?

I asked plaintiffs' attorney Matthew Brinckerhoff if there were any precedent regarding section 6. He responded that there was no precedent, which (to me) makes the claim dicey, despite what might seem a strong argument on its face:
If your question is whether or not ESDC/UDC has used its powers in the past to condemn land and provide bonds/loans/subsidies and the like to developments that were not restricted to aiding persons of low income, the answer is, of course, yes. So, in a very narrow sense, there is precedent that ESDC/UDC has done this in the past, which to me only means that it has violated this provision of the NY Constitution in the past.

There is no legal precedent that I know of that addresses the issues raised by this particular claim. Article 18 of the Constitution was enacted in 1938 after the constitutional convention of that year (the last one to be enacted by a vote of the people). Section 2 grants the legislature the power to delegate its eminent domain power to local governments and "public corporations." Section 6 restricts loans or subsidies to projects that are (or presumably will be) occuppied by low income persons who live or have lived in the area. Section 10 says that nothing in this Article 18 "shall be deemd to authorize or empower the state, or any city, town willage or public corporation to engage in any private business or enterprise other than the building and operation of low rent dwelling houses for persons of low income as defined by law, or the loaning of money to owners of existing multiple dwellings as herein provided."

I read Article 18, sec. 6 as a substantive restriction that attaches whenever the government seeks to both (1) clear slums or blighted areas and (2) replace slums with housing for persons with low incomes by providing loans or subsidies. If both condition are met, as ESDC alleges they here are when it claims that the purpose of the project is to remedy blight and provide affordable housing, than sec. 6 requires, that the housing be restricted to low-income (which presumably cannot include luxury condos and corporate sky boxes) with preference given to residents who lived in the footprint in the first place.

"It is not a new schedule. I think Bruce was just stating that the schedule in place is in fact very aggressive. We plan to break ground this fall and are working to open in calendar year 2010. While that's the goal, if it is not met then it would end up being calendar year 2011."

Bender's statement is about as trustworthy as Chuck Ratner's clarification last year, when, after slipping and indicating the arena would open in 2010, insisted that he meant 2009.
http://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com/2007/03/fcr-offers-clarification-on-ay.html