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tel/fax:
718.362.4784
Please note our new postal address when sending
contributions to the legal fund:
121 5th Avenue, PMB #150
Brooklyn, New York 11217
About DDDB
Our coalition consists of 21 community organizations and
there are 51 community organizations formally
aligned in opposition to the Ratner plan.
DDDB is a volunteer-run organization. We have over 5,000
subscribers to our email newsletter, and 7,000 petition
signers. Over 800 volunteers have registered with DDDB
to form our various teams, task-forces and committees
and we have over 150 block captains. We have a 20 person
volunteer legal team of local lawyers supplementing our
retained attorneys.
We are funded entirely by individual donations from the community at large
and through various fundraising events we and supporters have organized.
We have the financial support of well over 3,500 individual
donors.
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Atlantic Yards Critic Appointed to City Planning
On the same day that former Brooklyn-appointed City Planning Commissioner Dolly
Williams was fined for violating the city's conflict of interest laws, Borough
Prez Markowitz has appointed outgoing Community Board 2 chairwoman Shirley McRae
as the new Brooklyn representative on the City Planning Commission.
It's nice for Brooklyn to have a representative on the Planning Commission again
who can be independent of Mr. Markowitz and the interests of the real estate industry.
From the Brooklyn
Paper:
Former
Commissioner Fined for Atlantic Yards Connection
Borough President Markowitz has named Community Board 2 chair Shirley McRae
to be the new Brooklyn representative to the city Planning Commission, The Brooklyn
Paper has learned.
...
McRae has been the longtime head of Community Board 2, which covers Clinton
Hill, Fort Greene, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO.
McRae will be replacing Dolly Williams, whose part-ownership in the New Jersey
Nets and business relationship with developer Bruce Ratner became a major embarrassment
for Borough Hall when Williams — Brooklyn’s sole representative
on the Planning Commission — was forced her to recuse herself from discussions
about Atlantic Yards, the borough’s largest development project ever.
Chairwoman McRae and her Community Board 2 members were very critical of the Atlantic
Yard project's Environmental Impact Statement and its findings, as well as the
process that bypassed the city's Uniform Land Use Review Procedure and thus her
Board, and the project's abuse of eminent domain.
To be specific, Community
Board 2's response to the Empire State Development Corporation's Draft Environmental
Impact Statement, included the following recommendations:- Improve the sewage and Combined Sewage Overflow service/architecture to cover the
projected increase in the number of residents and workers.
- Provide adequate day-care slots for the increased number of residents and employees.
- Provide adequate tree plantings for a project of this size to mitigate the adverse impact
of project-associated air-borne pollutants.
- Utilize Big Belly Compactors (or similar technology) to reduce the amount and number of
collections of project-generated solid waste.
- Downsizing the height and bulk of the buildings in the development and implementing
design guidelines which address the impact of shadows directly should occur
- The decline in the overall open space ratio for combined active and passive space which
will occur with the arrival of close to 20,000 residents and workers (depending on the
use of Variation 1 or Variation 2) must be mitigated.
- The project sponsors and the lead government agency must accept the obligation to
improve the existing open space conditions for the public good.
- The sponsor plans no open space or recreation improvements until Phase II, so that “the
open space ratio in the non-residential (quarter-mile) study area would be substantially
lower than DCP recommendations…” Since the sponsor intends to use some of the
open space for surface parking lots that will be operated for profit, CB2 recommends that
the sponsor also provide interim open space and recreation that can be used between
now and 2016.
- Publicly accessible open space should be open to the public during the same hours as a
park operated by the city park.
- Pedestrian walkways and bicycle paths that go through the project must be accessible
24 hours daily.
- The density of the residential area should be no greater than Battery Park City at full
build-out, which is 152 apartments per acre.
- Miss Brooklyn nor any building in the site should be any higher than 400 feet.
- No use of eminent domain as part of this project.
- No streets should be closed. (Can build over the streets if necessary).
- Sufficient limited affordable parking should be available for the people residing in the
development.
- A residential parking permit program should be created and enforced in the
neighborhoods effected.
Posted: 11.27.07
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