Atlantic Yards Public Opinion - Opposition Critiques

Opposition Critiques

The Development has been opposed by a variety of well established community groups in the area and by Letitia James, the New York City Council member for the district. Critics point to the lack of transparency of the project, the lack of democratic review of the process, mixed successes of Ratner's previous projects, the threat of eminent domain to remove residents for a commercial interest. 68 residential or business properties would be seized and razed under the project. Additionally, the shadows the project will impose on Fort Greene, the light pollution from the advertising that will cover the arena, the costs for terrorist insurance (the Atlantic subway station has already been an attempted terrorist target, and the Ratner proposal calls for the highest population density in North America), the incompatibility of the density and design with the existing neighborhoods, and the negative effects of increased traffic congestion on asthma rates and the Brooklyn economy. The Ratner proposal would create the highest density census tract in the United States, and it would possibly represent the highest population density in North America or Europe.

Popular liberal blog Left Behinds compared Gehry's Miss Williamsburg design to "some giant grey Transformer clomping its foot down on Park Slope. And imagine when in a few years all those pristine white beams get coated in soot from the neverending traffic jams that are projected as a direct result of this development (have you ever tried to drive through Flatbush or Atlantic during rush hour or on a weekend?). It'll be a Transformer's giant grey dirty foot. ... A well-designed development would be built on actually unused land (such as the Yards themselves) not on top of people's homes nearby. It would take into account the neighborhood character of Brooklyn as well as the technical limitations of traffic and sewage."

On February 14, 2006, New York State Supreme Court Justice Carol Edmead ruled in favor of the dismissal of attorney David Paget as the Empire State Development Corporation’s (ESDC) outside counsel. Paget, who has been advising the ESDC in its environmental review of the Altantic Yards project, had previously also worked for FCR companies until October 2005. Justice Edmead concluded that the appointment of Paget to the ESDC represented a conflict of interest, calling it "a severe, crippling appearance of impropriety." Furthermore, Justice Edmead gave the ESDC 45 days to find a new attorney to meet the standard of "objective public interest." On May 30, 2006, the Appellate Division, First Department, reversed Justice Edmead's the decision. "The motion court misapprehended material facts and misapplied the applicable law in granting the petition to the extent of disqualifying Paget and his law firm from representing ESDC," Justice Milton Williams wrote for a unanimous panel.