Downtown Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards redevelopment got a huge and wel come shot in the arm yesterday – courtesy of a favorable decision from the highest court in the land.
The US Supreme Court declined to hear the latest in a series of legal challenges to developer Bruce Ratner’s mega-project – which would pour some $4 billion in housing and commercial investment into 22 acres of dilapidated Brooklyn real estate.
All told, the development would produce some 6,400 new units of mixed-income housing, a brand-new basketball arena for the soon-to-be Brooklyn Nets – and commercial space galore.
Not that anything this promising ever happens in New York without a fight.
Atlantic Yards, to be sure, has never been a perfect project. For starters, Ratner has relied heavily on special subsidies and tax breaks.
And, of course, the state is threatening to use its eminent-domain authority (a power we’ve argued should never be used lightly) to acquire some of the land – sparking the court case in question.
Still, at the end of the day, the city can’t afford to leave neglected, run-down or under-built areas languishing.
To the contrary: New York needs to grow – continually. Yet Atlantic Yards is a prime example of just how hard it can be for Gotham to do that.
Consider that the eminent-domain case is only the most recent in a long line of legal hurdles for Ratner & Co. (many, far less substantive) that have already pushed construction back years and threatened to scare away investors.
(Yes, this is New York: If you don’t like something . . . just sue somebody.)
As it is, the plaintiffs plan to take their arguments to New York’s courts.
And Ratner, in any case, can’t break ground on the Nets’ arena until the state’s chief development agency goes before a judge to defend its environmental-impact study of the project.
Again, the city needs this development – not just for the housing, the jobs and the civic pride that comes with a brand new New York sports team, but also for new taxable property that the project would provide.
And even more so, given the city’s budget squeeze.
So the court’s ruling is a step forward.
The sooner Ratner & Co. gets this project done, the better for Brooklyn – and all New York.