On Wednesday, Albany will host the start of a closing chapter in the saga of Atlantic Yards, the mammoth $4.9 billion housing, office and sports arena development proposed to rise near downtown Brooklyn.
Six years since the project was first publicly announced, opponents of the plan are slated to argue their case against eminent Read More
ALBANY—Jordi Reyes-Montblanc, the former chairman of Community Board 9, died yesterday. He was 65.
Pat Jones, the current chairwoman of the board, announced the death in an e-mail to board members and others in the neighborhood.
Reyes-Montblanc fled Cuba for the United States to escape communism, and was a staunch advocate of property Read More
Now that Columbia will officially be seizing land through eminent domain, Eliot Brown wonders what "market rate" is going to look like for the remaining landowners.
It’s been something of an eminent domain-filled day so far, with three events focusing on the state and city’s ability to acquire private land, particularly for economic development: First a hearing, then a press conference, and a scheduled court appearance.
Why all the fuss?
A number of the larger private development projects in the Read More
Queens Crap scored a copy of the letter Council members opposed to the Willets Point redevelopment plan sent to City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden yesterday afternoon. The missive says, in part:
We write to share with you our absolute opposition to the current Willets Point Development Plan. The project that comes before the Read More
The state’s main development agency, the Empire State Development Corporation, kicked off the public process for eminent domain for Columbia University’s 17-acre West Harlem expansion today, starting a final chapter in the approvals for the contentious $7 billion initiative.
In announcing the process, ESDC President Avi Schick unveiled two unexpected nuggets of news surrounding the Read More
Just when news started to slow for the summer on the development front, New York’s Empire State Development Corporation dropped this bombshell in the agenda for its monthly meeting [PDF]: Columbia University "Land Use Improvement Project and Civic Project Findings."
Translation: the state will unveil the blight study, the first step in the Read More
Earlier this month, in the brief few-day period when only one governor was embroiled in a sex scandal, Brooklyn Assemblyman Vito Lopez introduced a bill to use eminent domain to take pharmaceutical giant Pfizer’s approximately 15-acre manufacturing plant site in East Williamsburg and turn it into affordable housing (he’s talked about this Read More
As Pfizer seeks to sell its 15-acre plant site in Williamsburg to a private developer, Assemblyman Vito Lopez, the chairman of the Assembly’s housing committee, is pressing the pharma giant on affordable housing.
Mr. Lopez, also the chairman of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, has been circulating a draft bill to acquire the Read More
Opponents of Atlantic Yards knew from the beginning that getting their eminent domain case to the Supreme Court was going to take a lot of motions and counter-motions, appearances and appeals. This morning, they struggled to get even the first toehold for their case by arguing in federal appeals court that they should Read More
