Dueling Atlantic Yards Community Board Meeting Roundup

1.

The ones who stand to gain, people who want affordable housing are for it. The ones who don't want their unobstructed sky reduced cry. Big surprise.

2.

Interesting. The support was strongest in the working-class black neighborhoods and weakest in the rich white neighborhoods.

And opponents claim that their ranks are a diverse lot?

3.

Go Ratner!

4.

Daniel Goldberg and the NIMBYs hate black people.

5.

Dear Fellow Certified Brooklynites,

Sorry we couldn’t make it to the meetings as we are busy moving into one of our other homes in the Hollywood Hills. Rest assured that we were there in spirit as we can’t imagine the handful of days we spend in Brooklyn being ruined by ghastly shadows cast by scary tall buildings. The Brooklyn we remember back in 2005 was shadow free and it should stay that way.

Toodles...

6.

Please note that the phrase "support was strongest," at the CB 6 meeting neglects to mention that there were still 30 speakers AGAINST Ratnerville, vs. 21 in favor, of whom 6 were FCR employees -- obviously these guys knew that the other two meetings were pretty much lost causes, bacause they only had three people at each of the others (and only 2 non-Ratner supporters at each of them).

7.

Give it up Babs - face it - 2,200 units of affordable housing - so what if Ratner makes $10 Billion. DDDB is an elitist organization that only claims to have the little guy's best interest in mind. If they really had the poor in mind they would take their exorbitant buyout offers and stay out of the way so at least 7,000 or so of the tens of thousands of people on the city's housing waiting lists could find a nice home.
DDDB is preventing affordable housing (whether it's their intent or not it doesn't matter to people who need a place to sleep).

8.

Please explain exactly to whom this housing is suposed to be affordable? Only 12% of the housing would be for people making less than $31,000 a year (the median income in Brooklyn is $32,000 per year). That's a total of 900 apartments -- I hardly think 7000 people will fit into them. And the cost of these? Subsidies that total approximately $1.6 billion. The city would be better off using that money to build more affordable units (maybe even on this site), in a better, more human-scale, configuration, and telling Ratner to take his instant banlieu back to Cleveland.

9.

Kanye West, above, are you an anti-semite?

y'all are out of your minds. the only supporters at the 3 board meetings were CBA signers (paid) and Ratner's paid staff/consultants and a handful of others .Even at the CB8 meeting the African American supporters were mainly of that crew AND the non-affiliated African Americans who spoke, spoke against the project. I guess that makes them rich and white!

y'all need a tutorial. Bruce Ratner is no friend of the African American community, rich or poor, or in between. Bruce Ratner is friends with his greed and the excitement of speculating on other people's lives.

its okay, reality is a tough thing to swallow.

10.

I am black and Bruce Ratner is my friend. Most of these NIMBY's are white and racists. They don't want us to live in their gentrifying neighborhoods. We need this affordable housing even if is 12%. I don't care.

11.

You're psyched about eminent domain? Great, let's start with your house. It IS clear that we can have affordable housing without razing an entire neighborhood, right?

12.

FYI: NIMBY generally refers to things that *have* to go somewhere--drug treatment centers, etc. An arena doesn't have to go anywhere. And, there is a big difference between not in my backyard and not in my LIVING room. Why my house, people? Give 'em yours if you want it so bad.