For the last year, Brooklynites have wondered why reconstruction of the Carlton Avenue has not been completed, and why the bridge is not scheduled to reopen until sometime in the third quarter of 2012, almost two and a half years after Forest City Ratner Companies (FCRC) and the ESDC promised it would be done. Yesterday, they may have heard part of the answer.

Contact: Linda Gross, LCG Communications – (917) 767-1141

On March 3, several BrooklynSpeaks sponsors seeking to reverse the Empire State Development Corporation’s (ESDC) 2009 approval of a plan extending construction of the Atlantic Yards project from ten to twenty-five years, filed affidavits with the court from leading authorities in urban planning and sustainable development. The affidavits by Ronald Shiffman of Pratt Institute, James Goldstein of Tellus Institute, and Majora Carter of the Majora Carter Group were submitted in support of BrooklynSpeaks’ supplemental petition challenging ESDC’s response to a November 2010 court decision ordering the agency to explain its rationale for failing to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) at the time it approved the modified general project plan (MGPP).

The BrooklynSpeaks sponsors are disappointed that board of the Empire State Development Corporation has voted to adopt findings regarding the delayed Atlantic Yards build out that obfuscate the issues raised by the Master Development Agreement ESDC executed with Forest City Ratner, are dismissive of the greater impacts which will now be sustained by the communities surrounding the project, and totally ignore the time value loss on New Yorkers’ substantial investment in Atlantic Yards given the deferment of its public benefits for decades.