Even before Gerges decision, footprint renters were leaving; for some, it was life; for others, it was blight

Atlantic Yards Report

Even before Supreme Court Justice Abraham Gerges issued his ruling last week approving condemnation for the Atlantic Yards project, several renters who had previously pursued litigation related to the project had moved out of the AY footprint--some quite recently.

For some, changing family circumstances were a driving force.

For others, the impact of living near a construction zone--blight, essentially--made their continued presence ever more difficult.

For some, it was a bit of both.

And it left several with significant bitterness and frustration, sentiments they could express, given that the settlements preclude further litigation but do not impose gag orders.

...
Dan Saks

Dan Saks, a musician and resident of 473 Dean, left on December 31 and remains in Prospect Heights. "I left because the girlfriend that I had moved into the apt. with and I got married while living there and we were beginning to think seriously about starting a family," he reported. "Given my first hand experience with how little FCR cares about the people living in the neighborhood we decided it would be an unsuitable place to become pregnant."

Now that he's gone, Saks readily takes credit for The Footprint Gazette, which he wrote (mostly) to chronicle the difficulty of living in a construction zone. (He also posted videos on YouTube, with soundtrack, and Letitia James Remixed.)

The last post, dated 1/13/09, is headlined FCR is a crap landlord. The post at right is First they came for Dean St.

"Years of intermittent unannounced utility shut-offs, deafening construction noise just feet from our front window and extreme amounts of dust led us to feel that this was an environment too hostile and toxic to consider raising a family in," he said.

Saks and his girlfriend tried to sublet the apartment, thinking they might return once the project--which for a while was reported to be in doubt--collapsed. "Despite about a dozen phone calls and two certified letters formally requesting they grant us the right to sublease (as per our lease) for said reasons, we never got a single response," he said.

"Feeling like we had no alternatives we accepted their offer and left, fearing that we'd either be evicted with nothing or forced to postpone family planning on account of pro basketball," he reported.

Ultimately, Saks said, that offer was a fraction of FCR's original offer years back, "which we accepted the day it was offered. They reneged within a couple of days, before we had a chance to sign any papers."

There were no strings attached to the settlement, he said. "You can't put a price on me not being able to talk trash about this company for years to come."

"We didn't think the project would drag on so long and that they would make life so miserable while we were still living there," he reflected. "I should add that I work from home many days as a recording musician and lost countless hours of work waiting for drilling to cease. Life is too short to put up with cracked walls and jackhammers day in and day out for years on end no matter how much I want to keep these thugs from adding another crap building to the neighborhood."

"I gave it my best, and all I can say now is that I hope my posts at the Footprint Gazette and any quotes you pull from this email can forever live on the Internet as my evidence that the Nets play ball in a cursed house and that Barclays Stadium marks the tomb of a neighborhood dismantled by businessman, dismissed by politicians and displaced by bulldozers."
...

David Sheets

Sheets, a resident of 479 Dean Street, was a plaintiff in the two Atlantic Yards eminent domain cases. After signing an agreement on January 28, the day before the hearing on condemnation before Justice Abraham Gerges, he moved out at the end of February.

(Photo from November 2009 press conference by Tracy Collins)

He said that deterioration at the house he rented, owned by Forest City Ratner, had led to two fires and water damage, and frequently required him to take time off without pay to await maintenance.

"My house caught on fire again the night before last," he said last month. "The weekend before that, I went for three days and nights without heat or hot water. The place is falling down around me."

Speaking before the judge's ruling, he said, "It doesn’t matter what Gerges rules, I can’t stay there."

He said the offer he got was "take it or leave it." He said he agreed to remove his name from pending litigation and to desist from future litigation. "However, I reserve every one of my rights that, if this is not executed as agreed to, I have every right to take action to see it is."

Recouping losses

Sheets moved to Flatbush, near the south end of the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, a quick shot on the Q train to Prospect Heights. He looked in Prospect Heights but said he couldn't afford it. He has a one-bedroom on the eighth floor: "I don’t want to take an elevator to my front door."

He said the settlement was almost exactly as previously offered. "This is no windfall," he said. "This is reimbursing me for tens of thousands of dollars in expenses that I’ve shelled out of pockets as a result of their actions and inactions. I’m not making anything. It’s simply doing my best to recoup my losses and get on with my life."

In 2008, when some in the footprint "went for weeks, even months" without utilities and trash pickup, suffering from rats and vermin, Sheets' housemate quit paying rent. "He knew I had no chance of getting a subtenant," Sheets said. "In order for me to remain a plaintiff and remain a tenant, I shelled out about $11,000. These people have no clue how expensive this is to the people they inflict this on."

Sheets has cut back on his visits to Freddy’s, the neighborhood bar where he once worked--and which employed his Prospect Heights housemate. "I’m not angry with them, but there’s been a tremendous amount of press about saving a bar," he said. "There’s an enormous distinction between this [Atlantic Yards] battle and saving Freddy’s. This is about corruption and graft on a breathtaking level."

"I’ve lived there longer than the house I grew up in. It’s a very difficult thing for me to move. It’s a very difficult thing to see how it is compared to five years ago."

While "it was a great house with a great garden," the garden dug up twice for underground testing, and maintenance went downhill, garbage pickup was long suspended, and the apartment suffered a break-in.

"This has not been a spectator sport for us," Sheets said last month. "Now, 30 feet away from my head, there’s [demolition of] an eight-story building, beginning shortly after 7:15 in the morning." (His former residence is the row house near center.)

"I cannot continue to be involved in this," he said. "I cannot continue to function living in that place… I’m spending all of my time keeping a room over my head... Half of my clothing is ruined, I have water damage."

“You’ve been blighted,” I offered.

"I’m painfully aware of that," Sheets replied. "You could camp out, more comfortably... They have ruined my home, have ruined my block, have ruined my neighborhood, have ruined my life."

He allowed that his grievances might sound minor compared to people living in horrific conditions in other parts of the world, "yet, at the same time, I live in the mightiest city in the wealthiest nation on earth. Why are we living like this?"

"What did we do? We just lived there. I just wanted to be left alone. Why do I have to prove to anyone that it shouldn't be happening?"

Paterson's Town Hall -- Some Other Moments of Truth, Or As Close As We Can Get
Tom Robbins. The Village Voice

[Gov. Pateson] took some small flak from council member Tish James about both Atlantic Yards and his proposed soda "fat tax" proposal which she said was "regressive." The governor, seated cross-legged in a wooden chair on a platform, said that the decision on the Yards happened on someone else's watch and that he is now just going along with an appeals court decision on it, one that "surprised him."...
(Emphasis added)

Wednesday, March 10
Wed. 3/10, 8:30pm SHARP.
Locally-made docs at Freddy's
Freddy’s Bar & Backroom, 485 Dean St. @ 6th Ave, 2/3 to Bergen, any train to Atlantic Pacific. freddysbackroom.com

Total program totals under 90 minutes

Join us Wednesday March 10th for three homemade docs from Brooklyn filmmakers:

Michael Galinsky will be on hand with interview footage and clips from a rough cut of their investigation into the politics of the massive Atlantic Yards/ Barclays Center development, Battle of Brooklyn.

Filmmaker Adam Chadwick and producer Bill Loerch will be on hand to introduce a rough cut of their in-progress doc Fit To Print, about the decline of the newspaper industry in America

Lastly, a screening of A Hole in a Fence (2007, 46min) about a peculiar abandoned lot in Red Hook, BK.

The Nets Are Actually in Great Shape, If You’re Okay With Seizing Private Property on Behalf of a Billionaire
New York Magazine. Daily Intelligencer

...let's never forget this: Private property in a thriving neighborhood is being seized and destroyed in a 21st-century democracy so Bruce Ratner and the richest man in Russia can build a basketball stadium and luxury apartments. That the Nets' roster is in fine shape is great news, we guess, if you missed rooting for East Germany.

...THE MTA HAS A DECISION TO MAKE — IT HAS TO DECIDE WHETHER IT IS APPROPRIATE IN THIS CRISIS TO FUND FLASHY "COSMETIC" MEGA-PROJECTS IN PLACES LIKE LOWER MANHATTAN WHILE STARVING THE SYSTEM AS A WHOLE, OR WHETHER IT MAKES MORE SENSE TO STRATEGICALLY AND TEMPORARILY REDIRECT FUNDS TO PRESERVE JOBS, SAFETY, AND RELIABILITY IN THE SYSTEM.

Yes, he actually said that, forgetting, we guess, his cheerleading for the public funding of a flashy, money-losing mega-project in Prospect Heights.

...At an MTA hearing in June, Markowitz's representative, Carlo Scissura, assured the board, "As we all know, the Borough President would never support anything that is not in the interests of all of Brooklyn and all Brooklynites."

• The 8.5 acre Vanderbilt Railyards, in Prospect Heights, were appraised by the MTA at $214.5 million. ($214 million is precisely the amount of money the MTA says it would cost to run the schoolkids MetroCard program for one year.)


• In 2005, after a politically fixed bidding process, the MTA awarded the Railyards to Ratner for $100 million, even though he was outbid by Extell Development Company's $150 million.


• In September 2009 the MTA Board reached a new agreement with Ratner where he pays only $20 million up front and $80 million over 22 years (if ever).

Despite eerie parallels, more outrage over Queens video casino deal than Vanderbilt Yard bids; however, FCR, not AEG, had an 18-month head start

What's the difference between the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's (MTA) questionable procedure for disposing of the Vanderbilt Yard--the key public property inthe Atlantic Yards project--and the state's recent selection of Aqueduct Entertainment Group (AEG) to run a video casino at Aqueduct Raceway?

Well, there are several similar red flags, and the Vanderbilt Yard deal is clearly more of an outlier regarding one fundamental issue.

But the press and politicians are far more exercised about AEG.

AEG background

A month ago, news broke concerning the selection (bid documents) of AEG, hich has ties to influential Queens Rev. (and former Congressman) Floyd Flake. Circumstantial evidence pointed to a sweetheart deal tied to Gov. David Paterson's desire to gain Flake's support for his reelection bid.

The role of consultant Darryl Greene, who pleaded guilty in 1999 to a misdemeanor count of mail fraud, also drew criticism.

The press piled on, and an investigation is under way. By contrast, the Vanderbilt Yard deal in 2005 drew much less outrage--criticism in news stories, but no similar editorial assault.

And, as the graphic below suggests, had the press and/or elected officials been exercised, the public might have been concerned.

Indeed, press scrutiny of the AEG deal continues. Greene withdrew, but the Daily News reported Wednesday that he's on the board of a nonprofit still involved in the AEG project. On Tuesday, the Daily News reported suits faced by rapper Jay-Z's partner in an investment company that has a piece of the deal.

Points of comparison

(Right-click on the graphic below to open up a larger version)

Details on the Vanderbilt Yard deal

Remember: there were only two bidders and, while Extell Development Co. bid $150 million cash and Forest City Ratner bid $50 million cash, the MTA chose only to negotiate with FCR, which raised the stake to $100 million.

The MTA's argument, then and in court (where it survived gentle judicial scrutiny, after the deal was revised), was that the other elements of the deal were worth much more.

Perhaps, but Extell was never allowed to revise its bid.

Four years after Forest City Ratner won the bid, it last year was allowed to renegotiate more favorable terms in 2009, putting only $20 million down, paying the rest at a generous 6.5% interest rate, and agreeing to build a smaller yard that would save some $100 million.

Why FCR's deal was more of an outlier

But the key point of comparison, I believe, comes before the two bids, not after. Whatever the irregularities regarding the bids for the Aqueduct video casino, all the bidders began from the same starting line.

In the deal for the Vanderbilt Yard, Forest City Ratner was anointed this key piece of public property 18 months before a Request for Proposals (RFP) was issued.

Seth Pinsky, President of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, said last week that RFPs were the way to go: "Similarly, many of our larger developments will involve models where the city and or state are putting in significant seed money to bring infrastructure, then we plan on RFPing the development parcel to the private sector because we believe the private sector does that kind of development best."

That didn't happen with the Vanderbilt Yard--nor the Atlantic Yards project as a whole.

BrooklynSpeaks Atlantic Yards Presentation March 2010
via Scribd (AYReport)

BrooklynSpeaks Atlantic Yards Presentation March 2010

link

Freddy's in Brooklyn is a happening place that has been named one of the city's best bars by the Village Voice, Esquire, and The New York Times.

Unfortunately, Freddy's—and the surrounding neighborhood—is smack-dab in the footprint of the Atlantic Yards project, a multi-million-dollar, 22-acre development that is intended to create "an urban utopia" in the language of developer Bruce Ratner, and a new, publicly subsidized home to Ratner's Nets, who currently play NBA basketball (if you can call it that) in New Jersey.

But don't mistake Atlantic Yards as one more instance of the market-driven transformations for which New York is rightly famous. It's actually the latest case of eminent domain abuse, where private property is seized by the state on dubious grounds and then immediately handed over to private interests for private gain.

In this case, the Empire State Development Corporation has designated the thriving area as blighted to facilitate the taking of privately owned houses and businesses without having to pay full market value. Ratner, whose partners in the venture include rapper Jay Z and the Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, stands to pocket hundreds of millions of dollars on the deal, all thanks to the brute force of the state...

Continue reading

"Today's court ruling marks the transition from the obstruction to the construction phase," Forest City Ratner executive vice president Bruce Bender said Monday.

...State officials said the occupants would be evicted in the next few months [State officials would be wrong]- but Ratner plans to hold a ground-breaking ceremony March 11. [More on this in the coming days, but lets just say you should get your signage, noisemakers and effigies ready.]

...

"It feels like I live in a state run by crooks," said Daniel Goldstein, set to get the boot from his Pacific St. condo.

"Our state government ... has bent over backwards to give Bruce Ratner whatever he wants, including my home, and the homes of other citizens."

Patrons at Freddy's bar have threatened to chain themselves to the storefront to battle the eviction.

"There's chains on the bar and a lot of people will be buying handcuffs," said Freddy's regular and opposition organizer Steve de Seve.

"People aren't just going to put up with this ruling."

Deadly silence? Officials have had one e-mail exchange over Yards security
By Stephen Brown.

Is it possible that state officials have had just a single e-mail exchange regarding securing the outside of the Barclays Center arena in the heart of Brooklyn?

It seems unlikely — given 9-11, given the seven years since the project’s unveiling, given the so-called War on Terror, and given that this year, the Long Island Rail Road admitted that it ringed its new terminal across the street with an oversized anti-terror perimeter because it is necessary “in this day and age.”

Yet the Empire State Development Corporation claims that its officials have had just one e-mail exchange over security outside the proposed 18,000-seat arena.

The Brooklyn Paper received the e-mails — with all nine lines of text fully redacted — in response to a “Freedom of Information Law” request seeking “any and all internal documents pertaining to exterior security designs at the Barclays Center.”
...

The request for information stemmed from the controversy over the bollards at the new Long Island Rail Road terminal at Flatbush Avenue and Hanson Place, which would serve the sports fans attending Brooklyn Nets games at the Barclays Center, should it ever be built.

The tomb-like bollards — which exceed NYPD counter-terrorism standards, and have been decried as ugly — raised the question of whether similar measures would be taken at the Barclays Center.
...

Brooklyn authenticity, Atlantic Yards, and those "Brownstone" and "Loft" suites now being marketed for the Barclays Center

The term "authenticity" is being bandied about a lot these days, thanks to sociologist Sharon Zukin's new book Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places, subject of a major article in Sunday's New York Times and a forum at CUNY's Gotham Center for New York History. (Also see this interview with Zukin.)

And the concept has been used, rather aggressively, both to justify a new basketball arena in Brooklyn and to market arena suites named Loft and Brownstone, both references to Brooklyn features erased for the project.

What's authenticity?

But what exactly is authenticity? Zukin writes:

Claiming authenticity becomes prevalent at a time when identities are unstable and people are judged by their performance rather than by their history or innate character. Under these conditions authenticity differentiates a person, a product, or a group from its competitors; it confers an aura of moral superiority, a strategic advantage that each can use to its own benefit. In reality, few groups can be authentic in the contradictory ways that we use the term: on the one hand, being primal, historically first or true to a traditional vision, and on the other hand, being unique, historically new, innovative, and creative. In modern times, though it may not be necessary for a group to be authentic; it may be enough to claim to see authenticity in order to control its advantages.

If authenticity has a schizoid quality, it can also be deliberately made up of bits and pieces of cultural references...

At the panel

At a panel Monday night, Hunter College planning professor (and AY critic) Tom Angotti stated, "Every year we're reminded there's a project being proposed that will bring the Brooklyn Dodgers back. This is as if we missed the Brooklyn Dodgers."

"I really don't care if they ever come back," he said. "I would rather see our children have spaces to play baseball... as those parks that are built are increasingly crowded... while the city is being marketed for global athletic events."
...

Enter the suites

According to a 2/23/10 press release regarding suites:

With construction ongoing at the Barclays Center site in Brooklyn, Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment (BSE), an affiliate of Nets Sports and Entertainment, LLC, is introducing Barclays Center suites to prospective buyers as 'Your Home Away from Home.'

BSE will initiate its public suite sale in March when prospective suite buyers can visit the multi-media interactive Barclays Center Showroom, located on the 38th floor of The New York Times Building in Manhattan.

...The Barclays Center, to be located at Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues, will be designed with 104 suites, including 68 Loft Suites... In addition to the Loft Suites, the arena will include 15 Brownstone Suites (16 seats each)

Loft? Brownstone? Both brownstones and lofts have already been demolished--and more would be demolished--for the arena.

Note the phrasing: "construction ongoing at the Barclays Center site." Not "construction of the arena." They haven't had a groundbreaking yet.
...

Full article.

With construction ongoing at the Barclays Center site in Brooklyn, Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment (BSE), an affiliate of Nets Sports and Entertainment, LLC, is introducing Barclays Center suites to prospective buyers as 'Your Home Away from Home.'

BSE will initiate its public suite sale in March when prospective suite buyers can visit the multi-media interactive Barclays Center Showroom, located on the 38th floor of The New York Times Building in Manhattan.

In addition to the Loft Suites, the arena will include 15 Brownstone Suites (16 seats each) -- 14 of which are sold -- six Studio Suites, and four Party Suites. The arena will also include 11 Backstage Suites, which will offer exclusive access to a Champagne bar.

For more information on how to own a "Home" at the Barclays Center, please call 646-616-9500.

New York ACORN relaunches (in same office) as New York Communities for Change; Stringer, de Blasio, other elected officials to appear at fundraisers

New York ACORN, Forest City Ratner's key partner in the Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement (for the ever-tenuous promise of subsidy-monopolizing affordable housing) has been renamed New York Communities for Change.

Why? State affiliates of national ACORN, which has been tinged by internal scandal and bad press, have apparently decided to relaunch and decentralize.

In the case of the New York affiliate, at least, the office remains at the same location. It shares an address with the Working Families Party and its many convoluted affiliates--a parallel, to some extent, with the many overlapping entities connected to national ACORN.

Scheduled in the coming weeks are fundraisers featuring local elected officials, including Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, and City Council Member Brad Lander. Organizers are rallying support by pointing to what they see as ACORN's undeserved bad press.

The bad press--and the free rides

I agree that the "sting" perpetrated by some right-wing pranksters posing as a prostitute and pimp generated excessive and misleading coverage, given that news outlets--as documented by Brad Friedman in his The Brad Blog--took at face value video that suggested that "pimp" James O'Keefe appeared in ACORN offices wearing outlandish getup.

(Greg Brock, the Times Senior Editor/Standards, gave Friedman an even less convincing response than he's shown to me.)

Still, it's notable that ACORN has gotten very little bad press concerning two far more legitimate issues: the cover-up of an embezzlement by its founder's brother and the $1.5 million loan/gift bailout of the national organization by developer Forest City Ratner.

As the Washington Post reported 9/20/09:

The liberal political organizing group ACORN faced internal chaos and allegations of financial mismanagement and fraud long before two young conservatives embarrassed the group with undercover videos made at field offices in Washington and across the country.

Internal ACORN documents show an organization in turmoil as last year's presidential election approached, with a board torn over how to handle embezzlement by the founder's brother and growing concern that donor money and pension funds had been plundered in the insider scheme.

(Here's the 6/19/08 memo, thanks to Matthew Vadum of the conservative Capital Research Center, from attorney Elizabeth Kingsley, who warned of "an organizational culture that resembes a family business more than an accountable organization. Here's Vadum's coverage.)...

How 'eminent domain' makes blight
New York Post
By Nicole Gelinas

New York may be on the road to reining in its longtime abuse of emi nent domain. Could our politicians actually abandon their long-held belief that it's their responsibility to replace people and businesses in managing the economy?

State Sen. Bill Perkins (D-Harlem) this month introduced a bill to end the worst eminent-domain excesses by, among other things, defining the "blight" that can justify the forced sale of private property. If state leaders were to embrace the bill (admittedly a longshot) and pass it into law quickly enough, it could even stop the Atlantic Yards project -- a prime case of abuse.

Brooklyn's Prospect Heights, industrial and forlorn for much of the late 20th century, was better by 2003. Government was doing its job: Crime was down, and the short commute to Manhattan was attracting new residents.

The private sector was doing its job: Developers had bought 1920s-era factories and warehouses and converted them into condos for buyers like Daniel Goldstein, who paid $590,000 for a place in an old dry-goods warehouse.

The old MTA railyards nearby didn't stop this gentrification -- which should be no surprise. After all, other developers have built new multimillion-dollar condos right on the West Side Highway.

Newcomers to the neighborhood joined regulars at Freddy's historic bar. Small businesses employed laborers in low-rise factories.

But Prospect Heights interested another investor: developer Bruce Ratner, who drew up plans for a mega-project to replace the entire area.

He successfully appealed to the central-planning instincts of New York's political class. Then-Gov. George Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz agreed to use the state's power to benefit Ratner. The state would use eminent domain to forcibly buy up private property where he wanted to build, then transfer it to him -- and also let him buy the railyards at below-market price and kick in hundreds of millions in subsidies.

In return, Ratner would create the "economic benefits" favored by the planning classes, like low-income apartments to be doled out by ACORN (which also got $1.5 million from him) and minority jobs building a basketball arena.

The state could seize private property to benefit another private investor because for seven decades, courts have let it seize and demolish "blighted" housing -- which the state defines as "substandard" and "unsanitary." All the state Urban Development Corp. needed was a fining that forcing the sale of the gentrifying private property would be blight removal -- and its consultants soon found what they were paid to find.

In the 1930s, as Daniel Goldstein's attorney, Matthew Brinckerhoff, points out, "substandard" and "unsanitary" meant "children dying from rampant fires and pestilence" in tuberculosis-ridden firetraps. In 2006, the consultants found "substandard" conditions in the likes of isolated graffiti and cracked sidewalks -- plus "underutilization," meaning that property owners weren't generating the exact benefits the government desired.

"Underutilization" is a relatively new excuse for invoking eminent domain -- and it may not hold up. Other consultants cited it in West Harlem, where the city wants to take land from private owners and hand it to Columbia University. A court recently struck that down, finding that the government's studies were "bereft of facts."

The blight designation was, the judge ruled, "mere sophistry. . . Virtually every neighborhood in the five boroughs will yield similar . . . disrepair." The arbitrary process also violated due process, as "one is compelled to guess what subjective factors will be employed."

But that's a tenuous win. The Harlem case is on appeal with the state's highest court, which recently decided against property owners besieged by the
...

Continue reading

...Remember, the team was originally supposed to move in 2006; when the project was approved in 2006, the year became 2009. Nets CEO Brett Yormark moved the goalposts so often than in January 2009 I posted a remix of his statements.

As of last September, Bruce Ratner predicted the move would come in the "11-12 season."
...

The New Jersey Nets have reached a long-anticipated deal to move to Newark's Prudential Center for the next two years , as the team plans for the Barclays Arena to open two years from now at the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker confirmed the deal following a special session of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority this morning and furious negotiations to finalize talks with the Prudential Center officials.

"It's extraordinarily exciting," Booker told The Real Deal in a telephone interview. "Not only will it bring economic opportunity, energy excitement to our downtown, for the Nets they are going to receive one of the most exciting fan bases they've had in years and years." Sources said the lease with the Prudential Center includes an option to automatically renew for another two years.

"To me, zoning is substantive and relies on infrastructure. There was a certain lifestyle, traffic, population and density in mind when they were created," said [Bob] Sanna.

[Philip] Pfeffer [the synagogue's attorney] says it is ironic that Mr. Sanna has become a public advocate against the issue of variances. He notes that Sanna is employed with Forest City Ratner Corporation – a large development company in New York.

"Robert Sanna makes his living through development projects that require major variance relief," said Pfeffer. "In his own neighborhood they [variances] are suggested and he says they are inappropriate. This shows his true colors."
...

"My company is engaged in economic development that brings jobs and affordable housing into areas that really need it," said Sanna. "That is quite different from a rabbi who wants a very fancy shul."

"All the projects my company does are 'as of right' projects that don't need zoning variances," said Sanna.

None of his company's projects are "as of right." None, as in zero. Unless by "as of right" he means the right to any zoning they want and the right to steal other people's properties.

From the scope for a Draft Environmental Impact Statement for AY:

It is anticipated that ESDC, in consultation with the City of New York (City), will: override the New York City Zoning Resolution with respect to use, bulk, (including height, setback, and floor area), signage, parking, and other requirements; the Atlantic Terminal Urban Renewal Plan as it relates to Site 5 and 6A; and the City Map to discontinue and acquire City streets.

State Senator Seeks to Reform Use of Eminent Domain
WNYC. By Matthew Schuerman

State Sen. Bill Perkins is trying to restrict the state's powers to take private property. The Upper Manhattan Democrat says the current law allows government to take advantage of small property owners.

Current law says blight is anything that's "substandard," "insanitary," or "deteriorating." But that leaves a lot of room for interpretation. In West Harlem, where Columbia University has plans to expand, a state agency said buildings with loose awnings and unpainted brick walls qualified as blighted.

Perkins, who represents the area, wants to raise the bar. His legislation says a building must be abandoned or unfit for habitation or meet other criteria before being considered "blighted." He'd also require even civic projects -- such as the planned basketball arena at Atlantic Yards -- be located in blighted areas rather than supplant healthy neighborhoods.

Business groups have long opposed restrictions on eminent domain, saying it's been essential to build roads and bridges and redevelop areas like Times Square. Perkins's bill has a sponsor in the Assembly but no other co-signers so far.

Video by Donald O'Finn.

They're gonna tear down Freddy's, they're gonna tear down Hank's Saloon.
Like crickets under the rocks, we're all gonna hop to Bennigans' Backroom.

Not if we have anything to do with it...

MP3 for purchase on Amazon.