Daniel Goldstein lives literally at the center of the debate over the Atlantic Yards project in Downtown Brooklyn. His condo sits inside a 31-unit building that would be demolished to make room for a New Jersey Nets arena. That arena’s a relatively small part of the current $4.2 billion, 16-tower mixed-use project planned by developer Bruce Ratner and backed by officials like Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Brooklyn borough President Marty Markowitz.
All the other owners in Goldstein’s Pacific Street building took buyout offers from Ratner. But Goldstein stayed in the now empty, stripped-bare building with a faulty elevator, awaiting a legal showdown and working full-time for Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, a group opposed to the Atlantic Yards project in its current form. That form would make it easily one of the biggest single developments in New York history.
In a recent podcast with The Real Deal, Goldstein talked about why his group is opposed to Atlantic Yards — but not necessarily opposed to development in Downtown Brooklyn — and why he’s still thinking about Extell Development’s offer for the area last year. The podcast can be heard in full here.
THE REAL DEAL: How much are they offering you for your condo?
DANIEL GOLDSTEIN: Well, I was made an offer nearly two years ago of $850 per square foot. Today, my apartment in a normal situation is probably worth between $700 and $800 per square foot. What went along with those buyouts were a page and a half of gag orders. If you were scared about your financial situation and living in the limbo of potential eminent domain use by the state and wanted to sell to get out of that situation, you had to give up your First Amendment free speech rights, which are detailed in that gag order. On that alone, I would never sell.
TRD: Why are you worried about eminent domain abuse?
DG: Well, there’s a long history to eminent domain — in the Constitution, it says that government can take private property for a public use with just compensation. Over the past 50 years or so, public use has come to mean public benefit — something as simple as increased tax revenue for a municipality, and, if that’s the definition, it means that any bigger building or bigger business is going to bring in more tax revenue.
But the abuse here is based on last year’s Supreme Court Kelo v. New London decision. It was made very clear by the majority [of the court], which ruled in favor of the city of New London against the property owners. When there is a favored developer and no legislative planning process, that would appear to be a violation of the Constitution.
TRD: And you believe that is the case here?
DG: Not only do we believe it, but we feel this is the poster child of that decision.
TRD: What about the affordable housing and the jobs that Atlantic Yards will create?
DG: It’s very simple: The need for affordable housing, whatever that may be, and job creation should not be a stalking horse for a massive, extremely dense project. We can create affordable housing and jobs in a way that does not utterly devastate the infrastructure of surrounding communities. We did it — we found a developer who outbid Forest City Ratner.
TRD: Are you talking about Extell Development Corporation?
DG: Yes. Extell bid a higher amount for the 8.5-acre rail yard versus Ratner’s bid for the rail yard, plus 14 acres. We met with Extell and showed them guidelines for developing those rail yards, [guidelines] that had been developed by the community. What Extell showed was they can create the same percentage of affordable housing, 30 percent. So, you can build here without building in the devastating and cost-ineffective way that Forest City Ratner is proposing.
TRD: Do you think the plans for the New Jersey Nets area tipped the government in the project’s favor?
DG: I think Ratner used the interest and excitement people have for sports, both politicians and citizens, as a Trojan horse for a real estate deal.
The arena is about 10 percent of the square footage of the project — it’s an 8.8-million-square-foot project. They basically saw the arena was the way of getting the bigger real estate deal. Forest City Ratner would not be interested in this if it was just an arena. Most cities and states consistently support building sports arenas like this with public money and stressing public infrastructure, and they never bring the stated economic outcome that’s always stated beforehand. Usually, these stadiums and arenas become a real weight on municipality treasuries.
TRD: When you see people like Mayor Bloomberg and Brooklyn Borough President Markowitz come out in favor of Atlantic Yards, what do you think?
DG: Well, we have issues with both, but at the end, this is the responsibility of the government. A developer will do whatever he can do to maximize profits and build.
So, the way that building and profit-making is done is up to government, especially when you are talking about public land — the rail yards, public streets, and private property being taken. Government should have a say and not just give away the store and let the developer do whatever he wants.
In this case, this is not a re-zoning — this is a zoning override where the state says basically, “Mr. Ratner, what kind of zoning to you want?” And then they’ll just give it to him. It’s an extreme failure of government and, in particular, an abdication of responsibility by the City of New York and the Bloomberg administration and the City Council.