DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

The Atlantic Yards Mega-project and the Re-making of Prospect Heights

 

The Atlantic Yards project forms part of a grand vision for New York presented by the Mayor’s Office as PlaNYC2030. The project did not originate with the mayor's office, but rather with developer Bruce Ratner's Forest City Ratner Companies (FCRC), and was included in the mayor's plan, which represents the first comprehensive attempt a city planning for New York since the the 1970s  (Fainstein 769).

 

The Atlantic Yards project has ignited controversy in the community, with opponents claiming inappropriate use of the doctrine of eminent domain to remove residents from property and accusations that the community group which took responsibility for negotiating with FCRC to create a Community Benefits Agreement, or CBA, did not sufficiently represent the broader community and was, in effect, bribed by the developer.

 

A CBA is an enforceable contract negotiated by a developer and a coalition of neighborhood groups, designed to empower a community to shape a project affecting it  by pressing for benefits that meet the community's needs (Markey 2).

Markey further notes (6):

 

"The Atlantic Yards CBA provides for numerous potential benefits that would not otherwise be provided to the community from a typical development. However, the  process in which the coalition was formed and operated lacked the necessary  transparency to create an inclusive group and to give the public assurances that their  concerns about the development and the needs of the community were being addressed by the coalition."

 

Caught up in the fight over the project are not just the concerns of the relatively few displaced residents, but the needs and the concerns of longtime residents and the first wave of neighborhood gentrifiers.  These concerns tended to fall generally along racial and socio-economic lines.

 

"The surrounding neighborhoods remained predominantly black, and indeed some of the gentrifiers were members of the black bourgeoisie, but the well-to-do white population had been gradually increasing. Although opposition to the development was led mostly by middle-class whites within a broad-based grouping called Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB), the  coalition was not uniformly white, and it counted the area’s African-American councilwoman among its number" (Fainstein 772).

 

DDDB particularly opposed the use of "taxpayer subsidies for a private arena," and the use of eminent domain for a private development (Klonick 5).  

 

Fig. 8.  Map of the proposed Atlantic Yards mega-project (since re-branded as "Pacific Park Brooklyn"), which includes the  mixed-use Barclay Center (at left) and multiple residential towers.
Source: PacifcParkBrooklyn.com.

 

 

The group's concern over the abuse of eminent domain was well-founded.  Just 17 months after the project was announced, New York's Empire State Development Company (the legal entity overseeing development projects within the state) declared the areas covered by the project "blighted," even though a number of the properties in question had been recently renovated, the firm that produced the blight study had been previously employed by FCRC, and the criteria used was vague (Klonick 7).

 

Beyond the question of what constitutes "blight," there is a larger question about whether using "urban renewal" as a reason to take private property is a valid excuse when the area in question is already under renewal:

 

"The arena project would begin at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues and spill into the Prospect Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. The community has protested the proposal to develop the area adjacent to the actual rail yards. This area includes neighborhoods that have been developing on their own as part of Brooklyn's transformation in recent years into a desirable, trendy, residential area with beautiful brownstones and chic restaurants and cafes" (D'Orazio 1150).

 

In 2005, Fahmy wrote, "Our new neighbourhood was (and still is) more affordable than  others in Brooklyn because some buyers are scared off by the pending Dollars 2.5bn  project that includes the 19,000-seat stadium as well as 17 residential and commercial  towers. Residents of the one- family brownstones nearby worry about the congestion and  sports bars the development will bring, and African-American homeowners on my street have draped posters in their windows in protest.  But my husband and I are betting on [project master architect Frank] Gehry to keep things civilised." (13).

 

The project was not without its supporters.  Many in the surrounding community pointed to the approximately 1,500 construction jobs it would create, along with between 1,500 and 6,000 permanent jobs and 2,250 units of affordable housing available not just to low-income residents, but to middle-income residents as well (Fainstein 771).

 

As of early 2015, it appears that despite vigorous and well-organized opposition, FCRC and its partners have won the battle over the Atlantic Yards project, with the opening in September 2012 and construction on the first of the residential buildings having begun.

 

Even I, a strident opponent of the project—and particularly the arena—have admitted defeat and adapted to the new reality for Prospect Heights.  I've signed up to receive updates on the middle-income affordable housing units, and plan to apply when the first building opens in 2016.

 

Atlantic Yards, which many of my neighbors likened to Jane Jacobs battles with Robert Moses, has, in fact, forced Jacobs ideal of a neighborhood made up of old and new, modern and classic onto a neighborhood many would not like to see change quite so drastically.  One small comfort is that a portion of Prospect Heights was designated a historic district by the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission in 2009 (Betts), preserving some portion of the classic character of the neighborhood I love.

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.