Governance reform

Sometimes, it can be hard to tell what is really going on at Atlantic Yards. A new video asks about public benefits, accountability, oversight, and the legal challenge to the project's environmental review. Does it have a happy ending? We'll have to wait to find out...

Yesterday, Forest City Ratner Companies CEO Bruce Ratner acknowledged that Atlantic Yards won’t be built in ten years. Speaking to reporters at a presentation of the design for the “interim” plaza replacing the planned “Urban Room” in the project, Mr. Ratner said of the ten-year construction schedule promised and consistently confirmed by his company since the original unveiling of Atlantic Yards in 2003, “It was never supposed to be the time we were supposed to build them in.” Instead, he said, “It's really market-dependent as to when it will really be completed.”

BrooklynSpeaks, a coalition of civic associations, advocacy groups, and affordable housing organizations concerned about development at the Atlantic Yards site, today announced that over 1,000 New Yorkers have signed a petition calling for legislation mandating public oversight of the project.