Roake's roost at center. (Property Shark)

Daniel Goldstein spent years opposing Bruce Ratner’s outside Atlantic Yards development in his backyard—and on top of his house—until he finally gave in and made an even $3 million on the deal. He has since used that money to buy an $812,000 rowhouse in the South Slope, which was purchased in May, according to property records. (Some deal, a wife and a new house, and all it took was years of strife and threat of eviction.)

Like so many other homeowners in the city, Mr. Golodstein is planning a rooftop and rear-yard addition to his new home. In what might be construed as an ironic twist--the Daily News certainly sees it that way—Mr. Goldstein’s new neighbors do not appreciate his home-improvement project.

It’s NIMBY versus NIMBY.

Next-door neighbor Kathryn Roake, 59, says Goldstein's 18-foot, three-story addition to the back of his building will block the light to her beloved fruit and vegetable garden.

"I was so horrified," said Roake, who has lived in her 15th St. home for 21 years. "It's going to block all the sunlight to my garden and the back of my house.

"That was the whole reason why we bought , was I wanted a garden," said Roake, who grows rhubarb, blackberries, and currants, and keeps bees. "It's going to wreck the garden."

The News was unable to get a comment from Mr. Goldstein, but we were, and the story The Observer was told was quite different. (Granted, we were unable to reach Ms. Roake.)

Sleep no more. (Atlantic Yards Report)

He told us that he reached out to the neighbors first, but they did not respond and instead, apparently, went to the tab. Mr. Goldstein has plenty of experience with adjudicating matters in the press, and while he would rather deal with these issues directly, they are out there, so what choice does he have. He also wondered at how the dimensions of his expansion could be known when they are not even complete, and whatever they are, they will be code compliant:

Our plans aren't finalized, but when they are they'll be submitted to DOB as required when doing a renovation and extension. Once our plans are approved our construction will be safe, well within zoning and within the law, and we'll be certain to protect our neighbors' property and our own.

He also pointed us to Norman Oder’s response to the News article, where the incomparable Atlantic Yards watchdog showed how there are no similarities between what Mr. Goldstein is attempting and what Mr. Ratner has done:

Atlantic Yards is just a few orders of magnitude larger than Goldstein's 3-story extension. It required a state override of zoning, eminent domain, and significant subsidies and tax breaks. And a study of the environmental impacts indicated that it would, in fact, block the sun in certain locations. But the headline and caption embrace the strained parallel.

Indeed, these sorts of additions happen all the time, from Uptown to the Village to Brownstone Brooklyn. The storyline was simply too juicy this time out. As Mr. Oder cleverly puts it, “the Daily News elevated a garden-variety dispute into a tabloid story.”

Perhaps it is all part of a plot by Bruce Ratner to get revenge? “No, they are not opposing me because of my views about AY,” Mr. Goldstein told us. “I'm quite sure they have no interest in the Nets.”

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

In an email sent Wednesday night to reporters, Ms. Lewis unleashed a vitriolic diatribe against Mr. Goldstein, the public face of opposition group Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, painting him as an obstructionist who masked self-interest with local activism.

"Finally, he got what he really wanted," she wrote. "A Deal. Not for the community he claimed to love so much, but for the only beneficiary of his community of one, himself, Double Dealing Danny Goldstein."

The harsh words illustrate the tensions that still run strong more than three years after the project was approved. ACORN, led by Ms. Lewis, ended up partnering with developer Forest City Ratner and signing onto a Community Benefits Agreement that pledged more than 2,000 units of below-market-rate housing for the project. Her group's decision proved controversial, and the opponents such as Mr. Goldstein then portrayed her as a turncoat who sold out to developer Forest City Ratner. Forest City indeed became an ally of ACORN's after the deal, later giving the group financial assistance. And like other signatories to the CBA, there is good reason to think ACORN, or perhaps a successor organization, would receive financial gain from overseeing the below-market-rate housing.

Ms. Lewis has long countered that it was because of her negotiations that the amount of affordable housing pledged was so large and unprecedented. (Whether or not it ultimately all gets built, without additional subsidy, is another question to be answered in coming years.) 

Here is Ms. Lewis' email in full:

Finally, the itch that was Daniel Goldstein has been scratched and scratched out.   After almost seven years of flawed strategies, smear campaigns, stupid tactics, disingenuous rhetoric and total disregard for people who have lived in the downtown Brooklyn community for years before he even thought about coming here; finally he got what he really wanted.  A Deal.  Not for the community he claimed to love so much, but for the only beneficiary of his community of one, himself, Double Dealing Danny Goldstein.  How utterly despicable for him to be in the newspaper  today whining that he did not have enough time to move, and had nowhere to go because he was being stiffed by the State and Forest City Ratner, when low and behold, all the time, he was negotiating, not for the community , but for himself.  Well good riddance and don't let the door hit ya'.  Low and moderate income people have had to wait years for housing while he obstructed the Atlantic Yards Project that could have been well over half done by now.  He never had to worry about housing so he did'nt care how long other people had to wait.  Behold, the Gentrifier.  He has slandered and denigrated not only me but my organization and my members relentlessly.  What benefit has he delivered to the community?  None except for his own pocket.   Well, the housing at Atlantic Yards will be built, and the day after he moves out, which I hope will be sooner rather than later, the building that he squatted in these past years should be razed to ground immediately, and salt poured into the soil, so that never again can the likes of one of the biggest shakedown artists in Brooklyn return.  We will still be here, we will still be fighting for the all the people that Danny spurned and used for his own enrichment.  We hope that now everyone in Brooklyn and New York can see him for what he really is and can see what his actions cost Brooklyn.  I hope whatever he settled for was worth the pain and misery he caused to so many people who just wanted a decent place to live in Brooklyn and who just wanted a decent job and a place for their family.  Now that the flim flam man is gone, they can finally see it on the horizon.

Mr. Goldstein, for his part, dismissed the email.

"I can't waste my breath on this vile, hateful nonsense," he said in an email. "All I will say is that Atlantic Yards has served and will serve to harm most those Bertha claims to represent. And it is really a shame that supposed housing advocate does not care one bit about the abuse of eminent domain."

Separately, Mr. Goldstein wrote a long letter of his own, posted on the Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn Web site, in which he offered some reflections on his long opposition and gave some more summary of his deal with Forest City Ratner.

He, clearly, had a different take than Ms. Lewis:

A legacy of this fight will be that we have proven that all that we have found wrong with it has been shown to be legal in the view of the courts and most legislators. The abusive laws, which favor the most powerful and entrenched interests, must be changed.

Finally, please remember that DDDB, this community and the fight against Atlantic Yards was never about a single person or a single apartment-or even about a single borough. It has been, and still is, about one of the biggest failures of government and democracy in this City's history, and its impact on the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in the great borough of Brooklyn. Our fight has-and this is one of the victories-given hope, inspiration and encouragement to innumerable people that a community united can fight principled fights worth fighting, regardless of the outcome. These are fights that have to be fought if we are to find a way to become a working democracy, which treats individuals and communities fairly, rather than disenfranchising and disempowering them.

ebrown@observer.com

The acquisitions are for much of the 22-acre site, as the state's development agency, the Empire State Development Corporation, is seeking to take title to the private property in the footprint and the city streets that currently run through it (they are slated to be shut down to create "superblocks," making way for the housing and arena).

The filing is a major step in the acquisition process, and now that the lawsuits challenging the use of eminent domain have been dismissed, the state needs a judge to grant it the title to the properties in the footprint. (The state would then turn over the properties to the developer, Forest City Ratner, which is reimbursing the state for the property it acquires, though it is also receiving significant subsidies for acquisitions and other purposes.)

There are a handful of holdouts left in the footprint who are refusing to leave, including Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn spokesman Daniel Goldstein, who told me Wednesday afternoon he would continue to fight (i.e., litigate).

"There's going to be numerous challenges to that filing," he said.

Should the court decisions keep going the state's way--and, at this point, there's little reason to think the acquisitions would be stopped--it seems it would be at least a couple of months before Mr. Goldstein and others would be forced out of their properties (Mr. Goldstein owns a condo in the footprint). The court date listed on the filing is Jan. 29, and then the judge would need to issue a decision on the issue. Then there is an eviction process that would presumably follow. Atlantic Yards Petition

"It's really a corruption of our notion of democracy," said Perkins, a Democratic state senator who represents Harlem. He was speaking Saturday at a Pentecostal church on 125^th Street. The room was one-third filled by people who are concerned about the issue and active in fighting its application around the city: at the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, in Willets Point in Queens and just down the road in Manhattanville, where Columbia wants to build a new campus.

Perkins was prompted to action two weeks ago, when an appellate court ruled that the Empire State Development Corporation acted improperly by declaring parts of Manhattanville blighted ahead of condemnation for Columbia's campus. Columbia first asked ESDC to look into eminent domain in 2004.

Perkins on Saturday reiterated his call that ESDC not appeal this decision, and called for a moratorium on the use of eminent domain for private development until a commission can be formed and recommend revisions to the eminent domain procedure law.

"This is a very, very important movement," Perkins said, announcing a formal hearing in Harlem on January 5. "We're going to be going around the state to develop a case for reform."

He said the current law is a "corruption of our democracy." He's also said it's like "a gun to the community's head."

The cause is related to Perkins' last legislative accomplishment: stricter oversight of public authorities (many of which have and use eminent domain powers). He said there was no partner in the Assembly, but Richard Brodsky has in the past called for an eminent domain commission and other reforms. None have passed.

The event featured a panel who spoke about various fronts in eminent domain--attorney Norman Siegel, Daniel Goldstein of DDDB, Amy Lavine of Albany Law School--who spoke about their hopes for the Columbia case and about stopping the sale of bonds for the Atlantic Yards.

Later, at a separate event down the road, I and a few other reporters asked David Paterson about Perkins' call for him not to appeal the court decision, which he dismissed.

"We thought that the process was in compliance with land use principles and did not violate eminent domain," Paterson said. "When I was a state senator in 2005 and I saw the original plan, I was virulently opposed to it, but we though that ESDC and Columbia University had adjusted that plan to be in compliance with the law. This whole idea of telling people not to appeal is, if ESDC had won the appellate division, the other side would have gone to the Court of Appeals, people told me not to appeal the lieutenant governor appointment after the Court of Appeals, remember, ruled against it unanimously and if I had listened to them, we would not have a lieutenant governor right now, would we?"

After several no-shows to the auditorium's podium, a 16-year-old African-American woman approached, announcing herself as an Erasmus High School student and proclaiming, “I am Brooklyn,” which sparked applause. Not long after, a middle-aged man, white, dressed in a suit less confrontational than the traditional black, read out to the audience the differences between a good development and a bad one, concluding, with his background in urban planning, that Atlantic Yards fit in the latter category.

Wednesday evening's rally in favor of the project was like that: a bit haphazard—and sliced between largely African-American proponents and white opponents. 

The Observer approached a shaggy-haired, blue-eyed man fitted in a yellow “Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn” T-shirt who moments before was reprimanded for taking a picture. Currently a California resident, he was reluctant to talk, saying other members of his huddled group were more qualified representatives (the group of opponents totalled under a dozen, the proponents over 100).

Scott M.X. Turner, his grayish hair coiffed into a Mohawk and his middle name an extension of his mother’s sense of humor, was more forthcoming: “I’ve lived here for 20 years. … I was [living in the neighborhood] until we were priced out. … I know why everybody asks that question, I’ve been asked that a lot, because it seems you have a right to talk about it, you have a right not to talk about it depending on how long you’ve been in Brooklyn, depending on where you live in Brooklyn; somehow that matters. It doesn’t matter. If you live anywhere in the city … you’re going to be affected by it because of all the city money that’s going to it.”

Daniel Goldstein, a prominent opponent of Atlantic Yards, felt the question of living in Brooklyn or New York was irrelevant, though his participation in opposing the construction was personal. “My home would be taken to build this arena." (Indeed, Mr. Goldstein's condo falls in the development's footprint.)

“I don’t think there’s a divide," Mr. Goldstein said in response to a question about a community divide. "I think there are people who are partners with Forest City Ratner, paid partners … I  think there are plenty of people who support the project who are unaffiliated, unfortunately. … Who in the world wants to stop jobs? What Ratner’s doing, he’s not creating jobs, he’s not building a thing and they shout out, 'Build it now?'… He doesn’t even know what he wants to do."

As he finished, the crowds began filing out of the building, the vast majority moving out to the left, while a few minutes later, Mr. Goldstein and a handful of opponents veered off to the right.

Relatively unfazed, he did what he’s done now many a time before: He got in touch with his attorney, and drafted a press release in which he vowed an appeal and cast doubt on the developer Forest City Ratner’s claims that a groundbreaking was near.

“I felt disappointed, but it’s like there’s dual realities—you have the court saying go ahead with eminent domain,” he said. “At the same time, there’s a building suspension of disbelief that they’re going to do what they said.”

Disbelief or not, the clock is ticking. Forest City Ratner has until the end of the year to get financing for the arena, the key part of Atlantic Yards, at which point the cost of doing so will rise substantially for the firm, headed by Bruce Ratner. The firm is professing new confidence, saying it will be able to secure financing and get shovels in the ground. But there are still many balls in the air, including negotiations with the city and M.T.A., and the uncertainties warrant keeping the Champagne in storage for quite some time to come.

It’s now been two years and five months since a key state board approved the $4 billion project, which envisioned a new Frank Gehry–designed basketball arena for the Nets and 6,400 apartments near downtown Brooklyn. The delay comes as the developer has contended with a stream of lawsuits from Mr. Goldstein and other critics, opponents, landowners and tenants that has lingered into one of the worst recessions ever.

Expectations have been scaled back in the process: Forest City is now talking specifics about just one residential building, down from the 15 ultimately planned, and the arena. But what is most remarkable in all of this is the undying stamina of Mr. Ratner, who, along with his firm, has endured ever mounting losses as the delays continue.

The tough financial realities of this recession have scared off even some of the most quixotic developers in the city, forcing them to tuck their grand plans for new projects away, eating whatever costs they put into the early stages of development. By contrast, Mr. Ratner has refused to give up on Atlantic Yards, continuing to pour cash in. In the past year, Forest City has successfully extended a key loan, worked to redesign its arena, pushed various governmental agencies for revisions to agreements and all the while kept on contract an army of consultants and lobbyists.

This is an extraordinarily expensive task. Between the lawyers, the Nets, property purchases, lobbyists, architects, demolitions, and early infrastructure work, Forest City and its partners have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this project in the past five years. That tremendous investment has been spent on a physically complicated project for which the developer hasn’t yet begun building or even clinched a deal to buy much of the land from the M.T.A. 

This is due in large part to the Nets, which, still in New Jersey at the Meadowlands-based Izod Center, showed a pre-tax loss of about $78 million last year, according to SEC filings. Of that, Forest City, which co-owns the team, was responsible for more than $40 million. The ever-pending move to Brooklyn and the recession have taken a toll on the fan base: The team ranks 25th of 30 in the NBA for average attendance, at 15,147 per game, on average, according to NBA figures.

And this constant injection of money is expected to continue so long as the team is in Izod without a definitive future. While Forest City owns 23 percent of team, last year it assumed 54 percent of the losses.

WHETHER OR NOT this continued devotion to, and investment in, Atlantic Yards is a sound decision, time will tell. Perhaps Forest City is dissuaded from wavering by what would seem to be high exit costs. The Nets would presumably be sold at a loss—Forbes recently valued the team at $295 million, down from the $300 million Forest City and investors paid for them in 2004—and the developer would have to undo the preliminary work it has done at the site to the M.T.A.’s rail yards.

The beginning of the end of the losses, Forest City now seems to think, will come this fall. The lawsuits to this point had been an obstacle to obtaining financing, but now, regardless of whether the affected property owners and tenants further appeal their eminent domain case to the state’s highest court, the developer says it plans to seek financing.

“We are proceeding with the financing,” said Joe DePlasco, a Forest City spokesman. “We believe that we can finance this deal even if there is an appeal.”

The arena would be financed by tax-free bonds, the market for which is far more robust than the broader credit market.

Mr. Ratner has pledged a groundbreaking by October. The financing would need to be secured by Dec. 31, an I.R.S.-set deadline, after which it would be far more difficult to get full tax-free financing, which is substantially less expensive than typical loans.

But while financing an arena would seem to be easier now than it was while the eminent domain case was still pending in state court, there is cause for at least a bit of skepticism about Forest City’s confidence. After all, it’s not as though the firm is booming financially. The stock of the developer’s parent company is a tenth its 2007 value, and Forest City has at least temporarily halted vertical construction midway up a planned 76-story residential tower downtown, an extraordinary step, even in a recession.

The landowners and tenants fighting the project are likely to take at least four or five months to wend their way through the final appeals process of their eminent domain lawsuit, something that would presumably add some uncertainty for would-be investors.  

The Nets’ projections for their arena surely are worse than they were a year ago, as demand for expensive sports tickets is down substantially, as anyone who has seen the sea of empty seats behind home plate at Yankee Stadium can attest.

Further, there are numerous loose ends on the governmental side of things that could threaten the project. The developer is negotiating with the M.T.A. to close on a deal for the development rights on much of the site, for which Forest City agreed to pay $100 million and invest more than $300 million into a rail yard and other improvements. Forest City has asked to change that agreement, though the M.T.A. has resisted thus far, according to multiple people familiar with the discussions. Forest City is negotiating with the Bloomberg administration, too, to change a deal that involves a total of $200 million in subsidies, according to those sources.

From the Empire State Development Corporation, the state agency that oversees the project, Forest City is in discussions to receive an action that would approve modifications to the General Project Plan. An ESDC spokesman said “no final decision has been made” about modifying the plan.

Finally, a subsidiary of the ESDC would need to approve the tax-free bonds for the arena, and investors would need to purchase those bonds by Dec. 31. A similar approval sparked considerable controversy earlier this year for the Yankees.

IN ALL THIS, there is a window for the other major actor in this story to step in through litigation. Like Mr. Ratner, the affected property owners, tenants and opponents—Mr. Goldstein among them—have had tremendous endurance in this battle, willing to fight the developer with constant lawsuits.

“We’re going to do everything possible and reasonable to stop this project, if that’s not obvious,” Mr. Goldstein said. The group of which he is spokesman, Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, has raised a total of about $1 million since it began collecting money for the effort, he said.

But as for future lawsuits, the legal options for further delaying Atlantic Yards are more limited. Injunctions are not frequently granted to challenges on public approvals, and Forest City is free to attempt to get financing.

“They can seek to appeal, but it is unlikely it will be granted,” Mr. DePlasco, the Forest City spokesman, said. “We are proceeding based on the victory we won.”

ebrown@observer.com

The first plaintiff listed on the appeal is Daniel Goldstein, a leader of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn. Last June, I met with Mr. Goldstein in his condo at 636 Pacific Street, which sits in the planned footprint of the $4 billion Atlantic Yards project. Except for myself, his fiancee (now wife Shabnam Merchant), and Mr. Goldstein, the building was otherwise empty.

- Max Abelson