Mr. Ratner is indeed scrambling to pull all the pieces together, rounding up more cash and sped-up subsidies, and trying to get his bonds rated so they can be marketed and then, he hopes, bought by investors. Whether or not the timid bond market will take them is the big question for the project.
This most recent lawsuit essentially claims that the project changed so much between the initial approval, late 2006, and the new approval in September that the state’s development agency should have done a new environmental review document, among other issues.
Further, the M.T.A., in its separate approval, effectively acknowledged a 25-year likely timeline for the project, far more than was in the Modified General Project Plan approved in September (which said the whole 22-acre mixed-use project could be done in 10 years). With a longer construction period, the state should have done a separate environmental review of the impacts that would have, the lawsuit charges.
The new General Project Plan also does not discuss a need for housing subsidies in order for the below-market rate housing to be built, the lawsuit says.
ebrown@observer.com
More from Eliot Brown on Atlantic Yards:
Atlantic Yards at New York’s High Court
State Consultant: Ratner’s Assumptions at Atlantic Yards ‘Moderately Aggressive’
When Bruce Met Mikhail: The Backstory on the Nets-Atlantic Yards Deal
