If I were Bruce Ratner....

Thanks for the backup, Jack. It's nice to know I'm not fighting this battle alone.

Pacific, I'll have to take your word for it that you won't pull a 180 once Ratner's out of the picture, but I reserve the right to remain skeptical. Also....

there is a 31 story public housing building, Atlantic Terminal, across the street from Vanderbilt Yards.

Good point. All the more reason that Ratner's plan is not so bad. In fact, if we're talking about an eyesore, I don't mean to sound insensitive but I'd welcome luxury condos in my neighborhood over the public housing you mentioned, which does nothing positive for the area. I know it's not p/c, but still.

Extell doesn't use 1.6 billion in taxpayer money.

Oh please, don't start with the $1.6B silliness again. Yes, I've read the rationale for that number, and it goes something like this: I make $100K a year, and the government takes 40% in taxes. Therefore, I am receiving a $60K a year government subsidy.... I don't think so.

The community, opposed or supportive, will have a voice if the Extell plan somehow goes through, and that will be called ULURP. FCR's plan provides no venue at all for that kind of input.

ULURP...a/k/a the ability for the group to out-muscle the individual, for the community to cut the houses down a few more stories, bleed a few more bucks out of Extell, make them conform and cowtow, until they abandon ship. And why would they abandon ship? B/c the elements of their plan that are the most profitable happen to be the ones that are the most distasteful to so many. Until we get over the bias that corporate profit is inherently bad for a community (when in fact the reverse is often true), I don't see any hope for progress.

I'm starting to run out of gas and I think this thread has nearly exhausted itself. Obviously I'm not going to convince you to support the Ratner plan and you're not going to convince me that the plan is bad. But here's my last gasp.

I'm not sure where you got the $1.1B figure. From what I can see the city and state together have pledged $100MM each. That's $200MM. On top of that are "tax breaks". A tax break allows someone to keep his own money. A subsidy takes money from some and gives it to others. A tax break is NOT a subsidy, not by a long shot. Unless the untaxed dollars I take home are a govt subsidy as well.

Second of all, I don't get the arbitrary line between 31 stories and 40, or 60. 31 stories is pretty high, and utterly out of context with brownstone Brooklyn, as is 28 stories. Did you throw a dart at a graph that told you mystically that at 32 stories a project becomes offensive? Also, on the DDDB website, they call for housing 8-12 stories high. Not sure how that reconciles itself with Extell.

Finally, I will reluctantly take your invitation to open up a whole new can of worms, the corporate profit issue. I know in Prospect Heights lingo, "corporate" is synonomous with "Satan", but you asked for it. I seem to recall much media discontent over the recent downgrading of the credit rating of GM and Ford, much lamenting of the decline of the U.S. manufacturing industry, and despair after the dot.com bubble burst. I distinctly remember the city fretting after Goldman Sachs withdrew its plans to build a tower in lower Manhattan. In other words, corporate weakness and bankruptcy are BAD for the economy. On the other hand, the strength of Google, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, and the rest of the cabal of capitalist pigs that are out to suck us dry has led to America's technological and financial dominance, millions of high-paying jobs.....anyway, you get the point.

Yes, I realize I have just sentenced myself to eternal damnation on this forum by actually supporting The Evil Ones! But the fact is that Bklyn as a whole will benefit if its businesses do well--and by businesses I am including everything from corner bodegas to multinationals, because there is no fundamental difference between the two, just a difference in size. Both a Mom & Pop shop and a company like FCRC are motivated by profit, and this does not make them evil or bad for the community.

All right, I've said my peace. I'll see you at the next protest rally.

escap: high five

All right, Pacific, you dragged another post out of me, I can't help it.

I read through the minutes you linked, and the $1.1B # includes costs related to funding for education and other public services. This is most definitely not a public subsidy to FCRC, unless you think it should be obligated to pay for our schools now. Stuckey then goes on to state that the city will gain $6.1B in new revenue, netting the city $5B. You may disagree with his numbers, but then don't quote him as a source to back up your argument.

Also, who said anything about corporatism? That's an ideology. If you look up "corporation" in wikipedia, you get a much blander definition.

Please allow me to dust off one of 6 year old threads that started it all.

As discussed above, many people were leery of a publicly subsidized stadium for a private developer, but some could rationalize it because it came with the promise that FCR would develop something that people have been complaining about forever:

We need more affordable housing

that is well run, and self-sustaining.

In a classic quote today, MaryAnne Gilmartin, executive vice president at Forest City Ratner, said that the developer really did intend to make one-third of the residential units at the Downtown Brooklyn location affordable, “But it turns out not to be so easy.”

Um, right, that's why we gave you (FCR) lots of money to build an arena; you convinced gullible people that you could do something that many of us have been trying to do for DECADES. Those of us who understand how difficult the task is knew you couldn't do it, but we had no power to stop the process.

If this were a better world, we'd have the power to make you (FCR) allocate some of the profits you will receive from operating that arena and put it toward fulfilling the terms of the CBA.

But, alas, I fear you will outsmart us. If we get close to getting said power, you will move those profits into other corporate entities.

...as a result, I am profoundly jealous. You see, when I try to convince the public that I (and my peers) are able to solve some complex problem, they rarely give me money without measurable, enforceable outcomes attached. I never have the luxury of saying that I will get around to doing the hard parts later.

To make a long story short: Sometimes when a contract is signed, one party ends up having to do more than what they feel is fair. I'd like Ratner to be the one who walks away feeling that way, not the public.