Second Atlantic Yards "Community Forum" Added

No Land Grab, which keeps tabs on the Empire State Development Corporation's website, is reporting that a second Community Forum on Atlantic Yards has been added. The new forum is slated for Monday, September 18, 2006, from 4:30 pm–8 pm at the New York City College of Technology (Klitgord Auditorium), 285 Jay Street, Brooklyn. The previously scheduled forum will be held on Tuesday, September 12 at the same location and the same times.

The ESDC website says the session was added "as a result of the significant turnout" at the August 23 Public Hearing "and numerous comments received from the public." About 470 people registered to speak at the "raucous" hearing on Aug. 23, without about 100 actually snagging some mike time. Registered speakers that didn't speak will be given priority for the forums.

It was widely reported that Atlantic Yards supporters brought in busloads of people for the public hearing and dominated the early stages of the meetings.

Does the additional "community forum" mean that ESDC has felt some heat from prominent local and New York State officials that have asked for more time for public comments and analysis of the massive Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the project?

Gowanus Lounge would suggest that they've felt it enough to try to create an appearance of sensitivity to the depth of sentiment in Brooklyn both for and against the project without actually altering the fundamentally top-down, anti-democratic nature of the decision making process. But, yes, it would appear that even the ESDC is anxious to avoid a process that looks more like Moscow circa 1986 than New York City circa 2006. In the end, though, unless the fundamental dynamics of the process are altered to allow genuine community input and a deliberate process that allows for full and honest analysis of the benefits and negative impacts of Atlantic Yards, then the ESDC's review and "vote" will still have a distinctly Soviet smell about it with a touch of Robert Moses mixed in.