TimesRatnerReport

Anyone who's attended a public meeting on the Atlantic Yards plan knows that the chief "grassroots" support group for Forest City Ratner is BUILD, aka Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development. The relationship is cozy; for example, BUILD supplied numerous people to attend recent board meetings/hearings of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority; Ratner provided breakfast. (I saw it once; it was no secret.) BUILD and FCR staffers work together; FCR suggested BUILD to present the "pro Atlantic Yards" side on the recent Brian Lehrer show on CUNY TV.

So Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez, with BUILD's IRS filings in hand, could finally expose the group as "Snake in the grassroots," as his 9/29/05 column was headlined. He wrote:
A nonprofit group that spearheaded neighborhood support for the huge $3.5 billion Atlantic Yards housing and commercial development in Brooklyn, reported to the IRS in January that virtually all its $5 million budget for 2005 and 2006 was coming from Forest City Ratner, the project's developer.
In early 2004, Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development Inc. (BUILD), a newly-formed organization, became one of the first neighborhood groups to publicly back the Ratner plan, which includes a proposed new arena for the Nets.
Since then, BUILD's leaders have lobbied fiercely for the project at scores of community meetings, and they played a key role in hammering out a much-touted "community benefits agreement" with Ratner that was announced by eight Brooklyn organizations in June.
As part of that agreement, BUILD will run a program to recruit and train neighborhood residents for jobs in the Atlantic Yards project. BUILD's leaders, who have never run a job training program before, have repeatedly denied receiving any financial backing from Ratner.
"We've developed on our own," Marie Louis, BUILD's chief operating officer, told me last week, calling her group a "grass-roots organization."
...
Both Louis and Joe DePlasco, spokesman for Forest City Ratner, denied yesterday that the developer is currently giving any money to BUILD.
"We are providing them free office space," DePlasco said, and both he and Louis confirmed that the developer will soon begin to fund the job training program that BUILD will run. But they denied any specific dollar amount - such as $5million - has been discussed.
"I can't dispute what's on that form," Louis said. "When we turned that in earlier this year, we were calculating what we needed to implement those [job training] initiatives."
Meanwhile, none of the group's officers is drawing a salary, she added.
But local City Councilwoman Letitia James wasn't satisfied with that explanation.
BUILD's IRS forms "raise questions of conflict of interest," said James, who has been a critic of the Ratner project from the start. "This suggests BUILD's leaders were not negotiating on behalf of the community but for their own self-enrichment."


Even if BUILD has received no money yet, as its officers and Ratner state, it's clear that the Community Benefits Agreement BUILD signed with Ratner--which is supposed to be negotiated by 1) groups with a track record and 2) adversaries--has been further undermined. Remember, Good Jobs NY offered definitive 5/26/05 testimony criticizing this CBA.

Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn's comprehensive web page on BUILD assembles numerous quotes from BUILD officers denying connection to Ratner and also offering fulsome praise of the company. Much of this--and some more context about the dubious Community Benefits Agreement--was in Chapter 4 of my report on the New York Times's coverage of Atlantic Yards. But, I guess, it took an actual smoking gun--er, IRS form--for the press to take notice.

Newsday ran an Associated Press story headlined "Brooklyn arena opponents call community group a front." The article noted that:
BUILD said in an August filing with the Internal Revenue Service that it would receive $5 million from the developer's Forest City Ratner Companies. BUILD chief operating officer Marie Louis said Thursday that the group had received no money from Ratner and did not expect to receive any. Cheryl Duncan, a spokeswoman for BUILD, said the group had projected receiving the money from Ratner but no longer expected to. She said Ratner is providing office space to the group.
Louis has spoken in support of the project at public meetings, saying it would help ease poverty and unemployment in neighboring areas. A Ratner spokesman said the developer supported BUILD and other worthy local organizations but had not purchased the group's support.
"It is the right thing to do and FCRC encourages others to do the same," spokesman Joe De Plasco said.

Worthy local organizations? BUILD was formed solely to negotiate a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA), while real CBAs require organizations with some track record. [Addendum: while there's evidence that BUILD did very little before the Forest City Ratner plan was announced, founder Darnell Canada told the Brooklyn Downtown Star that "BUILD was created back in August 2003 to address the unemployment situation in the Ingersoll, Whitman, and Farragut housing developments."] James Caldwell, BUILD's founder, is noted for saying things like "I would be for this project if it only provided 10 jobs." Note that the IRS filing says Caldwell receives a $125,000 salary from BUILD, which, according to the document (which BUILD officials now deny) is funded almost exclusively by Forest City Ratner.

The NY Sun, in a 9/30/05 article headlined Critics Say Ratner Is Bankrolling Supporters, wrote:
"We had a budget, what we proposed the programs would cost,” [BUILD lawyer] Mr. [Sharai] Erima said. Based on other community benefit agreements, he said he thought the developer generally provided the money for community programs.
Mr. Erima, who appeared to be angered by yesterday’s press conference, where he interrupted Mr. Goldstein more than once, said the salaries of BUILD’s officers were projected for 2005 and 2006 and had not yet been paid. The IRS statement showed three salaries of more than $100,000.
A spokesman for Forest City Ratner, Joseph DePlasco, said in a statement that the developer gives funding to nonprofits that provide community benefits, including BUILD, but that no dollar amounts had yet been determined, as BUILD’s IRS document suggested.

[DePlasco later revised his account, saying he was out of the loop.]

In this case, the term "community benefits" is specific--a reference to a negotiated agreement--rather than a general one. The issue is whether a developer should promise benefits--or a negotiating partner should expect one--while a formal Community Benefits Agreement is being negotiated.

The New York Observer's blog The Real Estate adds some more denials and details:
BUILD’s lawyer, Sharia [actually Sharai] Erima, said that the IRS form asks new organizations to project budgets two years in advance, and to list anyone who contributes more than 2 percent of that budget. Out of an excess of caution, he says he listed Forest City as the likely donor.
...
The community benefits agreement states, “The Developers and BUILD will seek and secure adequate public and/or private funding for this initiative.” (PDF p. 7) Yet the IRS application lists no one else other than Forest City Ratner as a potential contributor. Does that mean that BUILD’s “best guess estimate” estimates that this job training program won't inspire a lot of contributors?
Again, Erima said he was being cautious in filling out the form. He said he met with the IRS and went over the application and the agency approved it.
...
Caldwell is listed on the application as receiving a salary of $125,000. But he said that amount was what he expected to receive and that nobody was getting paid now.
...As for the public relations firm that is representing them, Caldwell said he didn’t know who was paying them.
“The Terrie Williams Agency just called us up one day and said they would be doing our p.r.,” he said.

He doesn't know who's paying for his p.r.? At public meetings, Caldwell regularly confers with Ratner officials. Given that those who pay for the p.r. generally shape the message, wouldn't an organization given the gift of p.r. want to know who's behind it?

BUILD is known for invoking God. A "Connect to CBA [Community Benefits Agreement] Opportunities" document, handed out at the Forest City Ratner booth at the 9/25/05 Atlantic Antic street fair, contained this quote on the cover page of the 11-page document: God used us, the Coalition and FCRC, to achieve this so that the possibilities could be here for you. Now we must all keep and expand the faith and apply it to the task of manifesting the vision.

Used? Who's using whom here? Several news outlets have elucidated some of the story. (WNYC and local TV stations also covered the press conference.) The Times was conspicuously absent. If someone were to read only the Times, the only mention of BUILD came in a 6/9/05 story headlined Unlike Stadium on West Side, an Arena in Brooklyn Is Still a Go that said the developer also courted groups like Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development,an employment advocacy group formed by James E.Caldwell, the president of the 77th Precinct Community Council, with promises of community involvement in the planning and a sizable share of the jobs.

More recently, in a 7/15/05 article headlined Arena Project For Brooklyn Wins Approval From M.T.A., the Times reported praise of the Community Benefits Agreement without any acknowledgement that experts on such CBAs think this one is suspect.

Yet the Times, at least in today's newspaper, ignored the revelations about BUILD that many other media outlets deemed worthy of coverage. In July, as my report points out, the Times ran six stories in eight days about a doctored campaign flier issued by Democratic mayoral candidate C. Virginia Fields. Was that Fields story is any more worthy than examining whether the biggest supporter of the biggest development in the history of Brooklyn has a major credibility gap?

In coverage of the Atlantic Yards project, the New York Times has twice recently reported that the railyard sold by the MTA would be moved to the west, rather than east, which doesn't make sense--that would theoretically put it in the middle of Brooklyn's busiest intersection (Flatbush and Atlantic avenues). On September 7, the article stated: The agency would also get a new, upgraded train yard on land to the west of the existing 8.3-acre yard, which is at the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues.

On September 15, the article said: Mr. Ratner, whose company is the development partner for the new Midtown headquarters of The New York Times Company, will be building a new and larger railyard to the west at an estimated cost of $182 million, Mr. Pally said... (It's not clear whether Pally actually used the term "west" or whether he simply mentioned a new railyard. There are some parentheticals packed into that paraphrased sentence--I'm certain Pally didn't mention the Ratner-Times connection.)

However, the official scoping document from the Empire State Development Corporation, ATLANTIC YARDS ARENA AND REDEVELOPMENT PROJECT DRAFT SCOPE OF ANALYSIS FOR AN ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT, makes the layout clear: A reconfigured and upgraded yard... would be built below street grade on the eastern end of the existing Rail Yards footprint...

One of the selling points for the Atlantic Yards has been the promise of publicly-accessible open space, such as the six acres promised in this May 2004 flier from developer Forest City Ratner, plus open space on top of the arena.

But don't hold your breath. Even if the project proceeds on schedule, it would be built in two phases, according to the ATLANTIC YARDS ARENA AND REDEVELOPMENT PROJECT DRAFT SCOPE OF ANALYSIS FOR AN ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT. The phase completed in 2009 would include 2,400 residential units, a hotel, 628,000 square feet of office space, the arena, and "1+ acres" of privately accessible open space on top of the arena. The document states: This rooftop open space would be accessible to users of the buildings constructed as part of the proposed project.

However, this was supposed to be public space. When announcing the plan in December 2003, Forest City Ratner promised: The roof of the Arena offers an exciting opportunity to create new public space, with 52,000 square feet in four lushly landscaped areas for passive recreation and a promenade along the outside edge of the roof with outstanding panoramic vistas facing Manhattan.

The New York Times reported on 12/12/2003, in an article headlined "A Grand Plan in Brooklyn For the Nets' Arena Complex," that the arena would be topped by a park: Under the proposal, the tracks for the train storage yard would be moved to the east, allowing the developer to build the $435 million, 19,000-seat arena for basketball, topped by a park with a running track that could be converted to an ice rink in the winter.

Architecture critic Herbert Muschamp (Courtside Seats to an Urban Garden, 12/12/03) wrote: Here, the stage will be activated by a running track around the perimeter of the arena's roof. In winter, the track becomes a skating rink. Other areas of the roof will be set aside for passive recreation.

As for the "7+ acres" of publicly-accessible open space? That would come by 2016. Does that mean it's going to be a park? Not clear. If the publicly-accessible open space at Forest City Ratner's MetroTech development is any clue, there will be a host of rules regarding usage of the space. See p. 77 (or p. 102 of the pdf) of my report. The rules (against littering, loitering, etc.) may not be that unreasonable, but they're enforced by the developer, not a public agency.

So, after being an unabashed booster of the Atlantic Yards project, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, now that the plan is proceeding, has voiced some misgivings. Why didn't he do so before the Atlantic railyard was sold a few weeks ago by the MTA? He knew the scale of the plan since May, if not sooner. Maybe it was pressure from rivals in the Borough President's race, notably Gloria Mattera of the Green Party, who criticized him at a candidates' debate September 19. It's not that Marty, the Democratic nominee, won't be reelected; maybe he's just worried about the margin.

A 9/22/05 Brooklyn Papers article headlined MAKE IT SMALLER
Marty downsizes his support for Ratner reported:
Borough President Marty Markowitz has urged that developer Bruce Ratner downsize his Atlantic Yards mega-development, a project vigorously supported by Markowitz since 2003.
“We do have to scale down this project,” Markowtiz said during a debate Monday among Markowitz and three challengers seeking his job in the November election.
“There is no question, in terms of the project, in terms of the housing, and in terms of the buildings, it is time for all of us to join together to work cooperatively and downscale the project and to make it more reflective of the needs and aspirations of those of the environment it’s in.”
His comments came after two of Markowitz’s rivals voiced their opposition to the way in which Ratner’s bid to erect skyscrapers, high-rise housing and a sports arena was being handled.
...However, Markowtiz declined to elaborate on his statement when asked to do so by The Brooklyn Papers immediately after the debate.
“Here’s what I’m saying: I’m calling on the developer, now that the Atlantic Yards have been sold, now it’s the time to review and downscale this project,” said Markowitz in a vestibule behind the church.
...He declined to say whether that applied to the number of buildings, number of apartments or to the height and density of the skyscrapers and high-rises Ratner has proposed.
Said [Fort Greene Association chair Philip] Kellogg, “I don’t think anybody should be allowed to throw out a comment like that at this stage in the game and have it go unchallenged. Without specifics it has the potential to be window dressing.”

A 9/22/05 Brooklyn Downtown Star article titled Standing Up Against Marty also reported that Markowitz called for the proposal to be smaller:
"We do need to scale down the project," he said. Additional concerns about environmental effects, affordable housing and traffic, he said, "All of those are absolutely meritorious concerns...The first thing I ask of any developer is to guarantee a certain percentage of affordable housing." But he did not say what that percentage was, and whether it was still the 40 percent he demanded during much of the Greenpoint/ Williamsburg rezoning hearings.

The Empire State Development Corporation's ATLANTIC YARDS ARENA AND REDEVELOPMENT PROJECT DRAFT SCOPE OF ANALYSIS FOR AN ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT notes that they are considering a "Lower Density Alternative." Remember, this was originally a $2.5 billion project with 4,500 residential units and about 2 million square feet of office space. Now it's a $3.5 billion project with 7,300 residential units and 628,000 square feet of office space. We really need a breakdown of total square footage in both the original and the current plan--the current plan layout is in the ESDC document--to figure out whether a "Lower Density Alternative" would be at the scale of the original plan, or less, or more.

Here's a gem from the 9/14/05 Metropolitan Transportation Authority board meeting that made it into some press coverage, but not the New York Times report. When challenged as to why the MTA would accept Forest City Ratner's $100 million bid for the railyard at issue, while the 8.3-acre property had been appraised at $214.5 million, MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow dismissed the appraiser the agency hired as "some guy."

As the Bergen Record reported 9/15/05 in MTA accepts Ratner bid for Brooklyn rights:
Kalikow dismissed his own agency's two-month-old appraisal, saying that $214.5 million "is just some guy's idea of what it's worth."
"That was his opinion, and it wasn't borne out by the marketplace," he added.
[Forest City Ratner's Jim] Stuckey said the MTA appraisal was unrealistic because it was based on a level of zoning "that doesn't exist on the land today." He also said that the construction of a platform, a storage facility, site cleanup and other improvements at the site would be worth $345 million - making the Ratner bid worth far more than the MTA had sought.

The exchange also made WNYC's 9/14/05 MTA Approves Brooklyn Railyards Sale to Ratner report.

Of course, the marketplace also was represented by Extell's $150 million bid, which also included plans to improve the site. There's been dispute about the legitimacy of that bid, but the MTA chose to negotiate solely with Ratner.

Atlantic Yards, according to a project description by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) on 9/16/05 (and yet unreported in the press), would involve the following:
--16 towers + an arena (previously Forest City Ratner's Brooklyn Standard had promised, at least in its text, 17 towers--see p. 3)
--7,300 residential units (covering 7.2 million gross square feet), including 2,800 market-rate condominiums along with the 4,500 rentals
--less than one-third the office space.

That means that Forest City Ratner has chosen a version of its Alternate Plan, which allows it to maximize market-rate units. (Remember, half of the rentals are "affordable," but only 900 units are aimed at people earning less than Brooklyn's $35,000 median income. This is a housing project for the rich.)

So forget the 50/50 affordable housing plan announced in May. This is 31% "affordable housing" and, in actuality, only 12.3% of the units would be affordable to people earning less than Brooklyn's median income.

Curiously, Mayor Bloomberg issued a 9/14/05 press release claiming there would be only 4,500 units. The press release also claimed there would be 8,500 permanent jobs.

Let's do the math. There would only be 628,000 square feet of commercial office space. [An earlier version of this post incorrectly said 975,000 square feet and thus estimated more jobs.] If you use Ratner's formula of one job for every 200 square feet, that means space for 3,140 jobs. If you calculate one job for every 250 square feet--a standard formula according to Ratner's consultant Andrew Zimbalist and the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC)--that means space for 2,512 jobs. Of course, given Ratner's track record, there's no assurance the jobs would be new rather than moved from Manhattan, and NYCEDC, unlike Ratner, would subtract some 7% of the jobs in calculating a vacancy rate.

For 2 million square feet of office space, Forest City Ratner promised 10,000 office jobs. For the same amount of space, NYCEDC estimated 7,100 jobs--71% of Ratner's total. Take 71% of the new Ratner total, 3,140 jobs--and you get 2,229 jobs. (This is 2,512 jobs minus the vacancy rate.) Given that NYCEDC estimated that only 30 percent of the jobs would be new, 30 percent of 2,229 jobs would be 669 new office jobs.

Add a few hundred more jobs if you count the arena, retail outlets, and the planned hotel. And add 1,500 construction jobs a year (or 1,200, if you choose the mayor's numbers) for ten years. Still, the "jobs" component of Ratner's "Jobs, Housing, and Hoops" slogan has certainly shrunk.

So there's this real estate blog called Curbed, which has an offshoot called The Gutter, subtitled "Ill-mannered commentary on the architectural arts." Indeed.
I forwarded them my report, pointing them to the chapter on the Times's architectural critics, which generated this 9/19/05 post:
Herbert and Nicolai: Shills for Frank and Bruce?
We like ourselves a self-righteous public space advocate as much as the next guy. But we really like ourselves a self-righteous public space advocate who puts together a 162 page screed about the New York Times' conflict of interest vis-a-vis its business partner Bruce Ratner and his plans for Frank Gehry's basketball Bilbao in Brooklyn, then includes a full chapter on the misdeeds in this regard perpetrated by Times architecture critics past and present. Dig in starting at page 136 for such gems as "Muschamp should have mentioned his previous role in the Times Tower process in his paean to the initial Frank Gehry arena-cum-skyscrapers plan for Atlantic Yards," and "Ouroussoff treated the lack of specificity as a sign of artistic creativity rather than a lack of responsibility to the public." Wonks rule!

Self-righteous public space advocate? Clearly, they didn't read the report, otherwise they would've called me a "self-righteous press critic."

Screed? Ah, a screed would have been easy, just like a snarky comment in a snarky blog. If it's wonky to try to figure out things like how many jobs this project really promises, or the flaws in Ratner's economic projections, then I'll be a wonk.

On 9/15/05, FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting)linked to my Times Report in its Media Views blog, which has this disclaimer: This page features some of the more interesting media criticism and media news we've seen on the Web lately-- as well as some recent reporting that we thought merited comment. We don't endorse every opinion expressed or vouch for the facts presented, except by ourselves.

Earlier, on 9/5/05, the New York-centric web site Gotham Gazette, published by the Citizens Union Foundation, also linked to my report on its Recent Reports page.

In a 9/15/05 article initially headlined "Huge Arena Project in Brooklyn Takes a Major Step Forward," but in final editions headlined Arena Project For Brooklyn Wins Approval From M.T.A., the Times reported that, as expected, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority agreed to sell the development rights to its Atlantic railyard in Brooklyn to the developer Bruce C. Ratner for $100 million, a major step forward for his plan to build a basketball arena and a huge residential and commercial development on 22 acres.

But the curious thing was how the Times finally added some crucial context, as well as some perplexing contrasts with the 9/7/05 report, Offer Is Doubled by Developer to Build Arena in Brooklyn. Notably, this new article pointed out something missing in the earlier one: Ratner's offer was $114.5 million less than the MTA's own appraisal.

Also, for the first time to my knowledge, the Times reported the overall public cost: The project will also receive tax breaks, low-interest financing and other benefits that would bring the total public investment to an estimated $1 billion. Now, Forest City Ratner VP Jim Stuckey, in City Council testimony last May, estimated $1.1 billion in public costs over 30 years, and the Independent Budget Office recently suggested that the company's cost estimates were low. So the Times figure seems low, but still, shouldn't the public have been informed about that billion-dollar figure long before now?

Also, the earlier report called Atlantic Yards a development "of 6,000 apartments," while the new article declaratively said "7,300 apartments." As far as I know, neither is correct; one plan would have 6,000 apartments, and the other 7,300 units, but Ratner hasn't announced a choice. Still, the plan with more residential units is more likely, since residences are easier to fill than office space.

And the Times acknowledged without offering full context the tradeoff between market-rate housing and office jobs: In the last two years, the project has evolved, with office space declining and apartments increasing. Forest City Ratner said that half of 4,500 rental apartments would be reserved for low- to middle-income residents. The remaining 2,800 would be condominiums.

Translation: 69% of the dwelling units would be market-rate, while only 2,250 units (half the rentals) would be affordable, with only 900 (12.3% of total) designated for people earning under Brooklyn's median income of $35,000.

The earlier report said the project would be on a 21-acre site; the newer one noted 22 acres, which is what Ratner has announced. I try to use the formulation "at least 22 acres," since a city document declared the development site 24 acres.

The new Times article noted that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Gov. George E. Pataki... contend that the project would provide thousands of jobs, badly needed housing and a home for a professional basketball team, college games and other sports.

Well, that's not just a contention, those are facts that can actually be determined. How many jobs would the project actually provide? The company once promised 10,000 office jobs, but if they build 7,300 apartments, there might be space for only 2,144 office jobs. The projected "15,000 construction jobs" refers to job-years: 1,500 jobs a year over 10 years. And the badly needed housing? Most--perhaps 69%--would be market rate, and most of the "affordable housing" would benefit the middle class, with an average income of $75,000.

Is this the best way to add housing and jobs? Shouldn't that have been under discussion months ago?

The new article mentioned the CBA without context: The developer has also signed a "community benefits agreement" pledging that many jobs will go to local residents and to businesses owned by minorities and women. "This project develops Brooklyn," said Anthony Pugliese, an organizer for the New York City District Council of Carpenters who spoke at the hearing. "It will create the jobs that help people grow."

However, as Good Jobs NY has definitively testified, this CBA isn't legitimate: As a sponsored project of Good Jobs First, which provided support for the CBAs negotiated in California and continues to act as a clearinghouse for information on CBAs, we feel it is important to draw the Council’s attention to several major differences between CBAs as they have been used in other parts of the country and the series of negotiations that FCRC is calling a CBA. Perhaps the most striking is that elsewhere CBAs are negotiated by one broad coalition of groups that would otherwise oppose a project, a coalition that includes labor and community organizations representing a variety of interests. The coalition hammers out its points of unity in advance and then each member holds out on settling on its particular issue until the issues of the other members are addressed. This way, the bargaining power of each group is used for the benefit of the coalition as a whole. In the BAY case, several groups, all of which have publicly supported the project already, have each engaged in what seem to be separate negotiations on particular issues.

A 9/13/05 WNYC radio report, Developer Has Mixed Record in Brooklyn, points out that Forest City Ratner (FCR) did not produce new jobs for Brooklynites at MetroTech and has been forced to find government tenants for vacant retail space at the Atlantic Center mall. On the other hand, analysts say that MetroTech did retain jobs in the city and that the Atlantic Terminal mall is better than its neighbor, the Atlantic Center mall. (Well, the report left out the subsidized office tower at Atlantic Terminal.)

The final paragraph of the radio report, however, summed things up too vaguely regarding the proposed Atlantic Yards project: Forest City has promised to build thousands of units of affordable housing. It says it will give preference to people from surrounding communities for the jobs created by the housing, offices and Basketball arena. And it put those promises in writing.

First, as my report points out, the definition of "affordable housing" means that it mostly helps the middle class. Also, Forest City Ratner may control construction and arena jobs, but it does not control the office jobs--the lion's share of the jobs in the project.

City Council Member Charles Barron cross-examined FCR's Jim Stuckey on this issue at the 5/26/05 City Council hearing:
STUCKEY: Well, we’re not even sure who those companies will be yet, Council member. I can’t tell you who the employees will be.
BARRON: Those jobs won’t be controlled by you?
STUCKEY: Those jobs are controlled by the companies that --
BARRON: That’s right. So, those, they could hire whoever they want basically.
STUCKEY: Typically that’s what happens with businesses in our country.

The Times put a 9/14/05 article headlined Giants Make Another Offer for Stadium at Meadowlands on the front of the Metro section. There's an interesting contrast between this article and the large majority of the early (2003-04) coverage of Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards project. Most of those article, also authored by Charles Bagli (real estate reporter) and Richard Sandomir (sports business), appeared in the Sports section. And Atlantic Yards, in contrast with the Giants stadium, was and remains mostly an office/residential real estate project, not a sports deal. So the Times finally, belatedly, wises up.

A day before a Metropolitan Transportation Authority meeting in which the agency was expected to sell its Brooklyn railyard to developer Forest City Ratner, City Council Member David Yassky and Assembly Member Jim Brennan urged the agency to stall the bid. They called Ratner's Atlantic Yards proposal much too dense: The public interest is satisfied by a site that is less-dense, but still offers affordable housing and a significant investment in Downtown Brooklyn,” Brennan said.
“The price of the property should be set as part of a planning process that allows only sensible development at the site,” Yassky said. “Brooklyn would then be guaranteed much-needed housing and jobs without congestion and wildly out of scale buildings.”

Here they lost me a bit: Brennan and Yassky argued that the MTA is relying merely on developers to pay for all development costs at Atlantic Yards, when it should be depending on City, State and Federal money as well.

I didn't see their letter--all I could find was a press release--but this is confusing. Perhaps they mean that the MTA is relying on developers to pay for building a platform at the site and moving the railyard east. But the MTA calls the property Vanderbilt Yard. "Atlantic Yards" is Ratner's name for a development that would be nearly three times the size of the railyard. And the entire project would require $200 million in direct subsidies in the next few years and cost the public more than $1 billion over 30 years for public services and infrastructure. So that's not exactly relying on developers.

As for the scale issue, I'm not sure that Yassky and Brennan understand an essential aspect of Ratner's plan. In order to provide a certain amount of "affordable" housing, the developer has to build bigger, including enough market-rate housing to ensure the desired amount of profit. That's the message of the "economically necessary" clause on p, 2 of the Housing Memorandum of Understanding: If the projected number of residential units should increase for any reason the Developer determines to be economically necessary...

In a 9/10/05 article headlined Ratner doubles down, the Brooklyn Papers provided some crucial context that the Times article of 9/7/07 left out: that, as the Papers' article was subtitled, "Higher bid still far short of MTA site’s value." To quote the article:
Citing unnamed sources, identified only as “two executives involved in the talks,” the New York Times on Wednesday reported that a special meeting might be held as soon as this Tuesday, Sept. 13, to approve the deal because developer Bruce Ratner had upped his company’s bid from $50 million to $100 million.
An appraisal of the property for the MTA put its value at $214 million.
The MTA put out a request for proposals, or RFP, for the site on May 26. Although Ratner’s bid was the lower of the two bids submitted by the July 6 deadline, the MTA board on July 27 chose to negotiate exclusively with Ratner.
The competing bid, by Extell Development Company, was for $150 million for the three parcels, and offered to pay to build platforms above them.

The MTA has a board meeting scheduled for Wednesday, September 14, apparently to approve the Ratner bid. Let's see whether the coverage of that meeting mentions the appraised value and the competing bid.

Neil deMause, on his Field of Schemes site, wonders "Net loss or Net gain?" pointing out that Forest City Ratner's $100 million bid for the MTA railyard is less than the $150 million offered by rival Extell and far less than the lands appraised value of $214.5 million.

DeMause also deconstructs the Independent Budget Office (IBO) report, which predicted the arena would be economically successful. He notes: First of all, the IBO's conclusions result primarily from assumptions of how many current Nets fans would accompany the team from Jersey to Brooklyn, bringing their sales tax dollars with them - assumptions that, according to the IBO report, were provided by Ratner himself... Tweak the assumptions to have only 30% of Nets attendance represent new spending instead of 50%, and the arena would be a net loss.

Finally, while the IBO deducts the $224 million in direct cash subsidies (plus sales- and property-tax deductions) that the arena would get from the city and state, the actual public subsidy would be significantly greater - more like $451 million according to my estimates, though that could go down a bit once Ratner's increased bid is taken into account. Needless to say, tacking on an extra $227 million in costs would turn a $107 million windfall into a whole mess of red ink - so don't enter that "slam dunk" in your scorecard just yet.

Weighing in a week late (the Times report came out near their deadline), the Brooklyn Papers points out, in a 9/10 article headlined Report rips NY Times on Ratner, that, well, no one from the dailies covered the report.

My response, in a letter to the editor:
As the author of the report dissecting New York Times coverage of Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards proposal (Report rips NY Times on Ratner, 9/10/05), I'm disappointed but not surprised that daily newspapers in New York didn't cover the report's release. However, they are hardly the only audience for the report. I expect Times Public Editor Byron Calame to take a close look at it and report publicly on the issues raised. I also hope that others in the journalism world, including academics, will examine it.

For example, the Times ignored two polls (one its own!) that said that New Yorkers overwhelmingly opposed a taxpayer-subsidized arena. The Times has not explained how job estimates have been slashed, nor that the promised "15,000 construction jobs" means 1,500 jobs a year over 10 years. The Times has not reported any criticism of the Community Benefits Agreement, though an expert on such agreements says this one lacks legitimacy. And the Times has, at some critical junctures, failed to acknowledge its parent company's business ties to Ratner--in one case, the newspaper ignored an admonition from the Public Editor to do so. There are many more such examples.

The 9/9/05 Times profile of Public Advocate candidate Norman Siegel, An Outsider Wants to Take His Watchdog Role Inside, fails to mention Siegel's role in the Atlantic Yards debate, in which he has challenged incumbent Betsy Gotbaum on her incoherent position. Given that it was not written by the reporter who covered the two debates, it's plausible that the reporter profiling Siegel, who likely perused recent clips before meeting Siegel, didn't even know about the Atlantic Yards issue. That is, if the reporter only looked at Times clips; a more comprehensive search would turn up, for example, a Village Voice article and blog entry about the controversy.

Well, headline writing isn't always easy, compressing complex thoughts into shorthand. The Brooklyn Downtown Star, reporting on my report, headlined the 9/8/05 article Journalist Calls the Times Biased. But I very carefully avoided that charge.

Of course, lower down in the story, the newspaper quoted a press release that itself quotes from my report: The Times's inconsistent coverage of Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards development doesn't mean that reporters and editors at the Times have been told to go easy on Forest City Ratner. However, given the two companies' corporate relationship, the newspaper should report on FCR exactingly, taking care to dispel any suspicion of conflict of interest. The Times has failed to do so.

So, to reiterate, I didn't call the Times biased. My report says that coverage has been "inadequate, misleading, and mostly uncritical." Those are strong enough charges in themselves and, unlike charges of bias, can be backed up with evidence.

Well, the Independent Budget Office (IBO) didn't say it that directly, but that's the message, and one the press hasn't yet picked up. Forest City Ratner's consultant, sports economist Andrew Zimbalist, predicts the combined costs for sanitation and education services for the entire project over 30 years would be $321.4 million in present value terms. Zimbalist, incredibly, doesn't assume additional costs for public safety, writing: Based on conversations with former budget officials, FCRC concludes that the increment in fire and police budgets would be negligible. Note that Zimbalist doesn't even put that conclusion in his own words--does he believe it? His reports are linked from here.

The IBO report, Atlantic Yards: A Net Fiscal Benefit for the City?, estimates that the cost of delivering new education, sanitation, and police services over 30 years would be $530 million in present value terms, or $208.6 million more than Zimbalist does. The IBO notes that its higher predictions are based on an estimated 6,000 housing units, not the 5,850 number Zimbalist uses. However, Forest City Ratner might build 7,300 units under its "Alternative" plan. That suggests even higher costs. [Update: Indeed, this number was chosen.]

The IBO, surprisingly, leans toward Zimbalist in one area, saying that the additional costs for providing fire protection "would be relatively low," though the agency didn't use the term "negligible." However, the IBO disagrees with Zimbalist on costs for police service, saying, rather definitively, that "costs to the city for policing the new Nets arena could be significant." Well, yes.

The 9/7/07 Times piece I already wrote about, Offer Is Doubled by Developer to Build Arena in Brooklyn, also discussed the Independent Budget Office's (IBO) report on the arena. The Times article said: Also yesterday, the New York City Independent Budget Office released a report stating that the arena would generate a modest but positive fiscal impact for the state and the city. After a significant public investment, which includes a $200 million subsidy, tax-exempt financing and numerous tax breaks, the arena would create an estimated fiscal surplus of $107 million over 30 years, or $28.5 million for the city alone, the budget office estimated.
Supporters and opponents of the project immediately seized on the report to buttress their arguments....
"As we have said all along," said James P. Stuckey, the company vice president overseeing the project, "Atlantic Yards is about more than basketball. It's about affordable housing and jobs and creating a development that complements the borough and the surrounding communities."

Ah, but the Times let Stuckey get away with talking about more than the arena, and the IBO report,
Atlantic Yards: A Net Fiscal Benefit for the City?, despite its title, isn't really about the proposed 22-acre development. It's just about the arena. As the IBO states: Given the minimal special benefits flowing to the rest of the project and the methodological limitations in estimating the fiscal impacts of mixed-use developments, IBO has not done an analysis of the housing and commerical portion of the plan.

Methodological limitations? That suggests, well, that the IBO thinks that Andrew Zimbalist's fiscal analyses, commissioned by Forest City Ratner and relied on by city and state boosters of the project, are purely speculative. So Stuckey's comments about housing and jobs are just verbiage--they're not supported by the report.

Also, the IBO takes Forest City Ratner's word that its $50 million cash bid is worth $329.4 million, because the developer will make other improvements, but the IBO says nothing about improvements promised by rival bidder Extell beyond its $150 million cash bid.

In the Times, the IBO's [Ronnie] Lowenstein said she acknowledged the limitations of doing a strict economic impact analysis for the arena alone. She said it was hard to estimate the increased number of jobs and spending for the entire project, although she believes the proposed housing would have a positive effect. Yes, but how much? See the above post, for some skepticism the Times left out.

A 9/7/05 Times editorial, Our Choice for Public Advocate, endorsing Betsy Gotbaum for Public Advocate, closes by praising the incumbent Gotbaum: And she railed against spending hundreds of millions of taxpayers' dollars for a stadium on the West Side of Manhattan.

Conspicuously absent is any mention of Gotbaum's indefensible record on Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan (which also would require hundreds of millions of taxpayers' dollars): in a nutshell (as she even told me when I ran into her on the campaign trail), she's for the project, unless there's eminent domain; then she's against it. But Bruce Ratner told her there wouldn't be any eminent domain, so she trusts him--even though several landowners within the proposed project footprint have vocally indicated their intentions not to sell, and that the Memorandum of Understanding between Ratner and the state includes eminent domain.

Then again, the Times coverage of the two Public Advocate debates, in which candidate Norman Siegel (who represents Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, among other clients) challenged Gotbaum vigorously on her Atlantic Yards stance, conspicuously failed to mention that Atlantic Yards issue. So maybe Times editorialists were unaware. I mentioned that debate coverage in my "High Rises & Low Standards" report (see link at left), issued September 1.

In the 9/2/05 Village Voice, Wayne Barrett dissected Gotbaum's failures in Save This Office : When [Norman] Siegel compared her "wonderful, wonderful" praise of the gigantic Atlantic Yards development planned in Brooklyn with her condemnation of the use of eminent domain for private projects, she insisted in the debates that she'd been told by developer Bruce Ratner that he was "not going to use it." In fact, a Ratner-tied group filed an amicus brief before the U.S. Supreme Court in the recent eminent domain case, the memo of understanding for the project explicitly authorizes "acquisitions by eminent domain," and it is the threat of such compelled sales that often makes its use unnecessary. While the project itself has compelling pluses and minuses, Gotbaum's rose-colored contradictions suggest a disquieting ignorance of well-reported fact as well as the history of publicly aided development.

Indeed. But I would like to hear more about the compelling pluses Barrett is talking about. Sure, we need housing and jobs, and a basketball team might be nice, but does he--does anyone--really know the cost? I do know that Ratner's projections, which city and state officials have relied on, are highly questionable. This project has proceeded without a full analysis of the costs in terms of subsidies, infrastructure, traffic, etc.

So Forest City Ratner has doubled its bid for the MTA's Vanderbilt Yard from $50 million to $100 million, reports The New York Times in its July 7 issue. And that means the MTA would get an extra $50 million to spend on the transportation system and that the MTA board might hold a special meeting as soon as Tuesday to approve the deal.

Whoa. Maybe another $50 million is better than nothing, but the railyard was appraised at $214.5 million, a fact not in this story but one the Times has reported before. Shouldn't Ratner be paying full freight? After all, Forest City Ratner VP told the City Council Economic Development Committee on May 4, 2004 that “[F]or the land, the public land, the MTA land, is that, what we have agreed to is that we will lease or buy that land at the fair market value has done by whatever independent process that they normally use." (See www.dddb.net/times/ED050404_Transcript.pdf, p. 164; note that the transcript is imperfect, but you get the gist.)

Also, has Ratner cut the number of towers, or is the Times getting it wrong? This article states: Much to the dismay of some residents and critics of the project, two of the 15 towers planned for the 21-acre site would rise above the Williamsburgh Savings Bank, currently the tallest building in Brooklyn, and dwarf much of the surrounding neighborhood.

First, the site would be 22 acres, as described in Forest City Ratner's own June/July issue of the Brooklyn Standard. Second, on July 7, the Times reported there would be 17 buildings (including the arena), though the Brooklyn Standard says 17 towers. [Update: the ESDC project description released September 16 says 16 towers + arena.] Third, it's not that there would be two towers taller than the bank, it's that there would be 16 tall towers, several over 40 stories tall. I wish I could be more specific, but Ratner hasn't released the plans.

Also, the Times describes a development of 6,000 apartments. The article should have said "at least 6,000 apartments." Under the "Alternative Plan," which is a good bet to be chosen, Ratner would cut office space (which is harder to fill) and build 7,300 apartments.

The Times wrote that Ratner estimated that the value of his original bid was worth $329 million because he would build a larger, more modern railyard. Transportation agency officials said they were unsure whether the [rival] Extell bid included the cost of building a new railyard.

Well, Extell bid $150 million and, according to the 8/1/05 New York Observer: Extell's bid also represents much more than the $150 million in cash...[Extell's Barnett] predicts that he can move and cover the rail yards for $150 million...

Geographic alert: the Times still can't get some basic facts right. The article says: The agency would also get a new, upgraded train yard on land to the west of the existing 8.3-acre yard, which is at the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues. The new train yard would be east, not west, of the existing yard. Also, the yard is not between two intersecting streets, Flatbush and Atlantic avenues, it's between Flatbush Avenue and Pacific Street; its western border approaches, but does not reach, Flatbush Avenue.

In a 9/5/05 post titled "Coincidence?", The New York Observer noted the Times's coverage of The Brooklyn Standard two days after my report was issued. The Observer also quotes my criticism of the initial Observer coverage (my, this is getting 'meta'): "To follow up on your blog post, I'm disappointed that you interpreted my reaction to the 'Instant Skyline' headline/article as a 'Brownstone Brooklyn' reaction to things instant. Rather, I reacted as a journalist and Brooklynite to bad journalism." He says the Times’ July 5 headline ("Instant Skyline Added to Brooklyn Arena Plan") portrayed the skyline to be a recently added element of the plan when in fact high-rise office and residential towers were part of developer Forest City Ratner’s plan from the beginning.

Well, I appreciate the opportunity to be heard, but I still have to take issue with that second sentence. Is it just me who sees the July 5, 2005 headline as deceptive? This stuff can be checked--there's a skyline at the Ratner web site (www.bball.net) with the December 2003 press release.

This is beginning to remind me of the dispute about scientific facts. Would a reporter write of a scientist that "he says the world is round" rather than acknowledge it's an established consensus?

I was so caught up in analyzing the Times's 9/3/05 analysis of The Brooklyn Standard that I neglected to point out that the article, like so many others, got some fundamental facts wrong.

The article cited a proposed $3.5 billion arena project for downtown Brooklyn. It's not "downtown Brooklyn"! As my report (www.dddb.net/times) shows (see item 11.4), even a map the Times has printed shows the site to be in Prospect Heights, across from Fort Greene, bordered by Park Slope.

Also, the term "arena project" may be a shorthand, but the project has had numerous towers (now, at least 17, according to Ratner's Brooklyn Standard) since it was announced in December 2003. [Update: the project description from the ESDC, released in mid-September, says 16 towers + arena.] It's always been a real estate deal. So it can't be a dispute between the "arena's supporters and opponents;" the arena is only about one-tenth the square footage of the entire project. By focusing on the arena as the definition of the project, the Times falls into Ratner's rhetorical trap or, as the Ratner site (www.bball.net) says, "Bring Basketball to Brooklyn." The arena is a lure to get politicians and others on board for the massive development project. The Times shouldn't be playing along.

The story of the group Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development's (BUILD) move into a Forest City Ratner-owned building on Pacific Street did make it into my report, "High Rises and Low Standards," but now The Brooklyn Papers has added a few important details: (BUILD), a community-based group formed specifically to elicit local jobs from Ratner’s project, has been granted rent-free space right next door to the only property owner on the block who has refused to sell to Ratner, Daniel Goldstein, a condo owner whose group Develop-Don’t Destroy Brooklyn has been the most vocal opponent of the project.
[BUILD's Marie] Louis said the free use of the facilities were part of what BUILD had negotiated in a so-called community benefits agreement (CBA) with the developer.
Meanwhile, Goldstein said he fears the move is an intimidation tactic by the developer.
“If Ratner’s trying to do something that he thinks would unify this neighborhood, and this community, by placing the group that strongly supports him next to the leaders of the opposition, what exactly is going on? Is he trying to instigate trouble?” wondered Goldstein.

The Brooklyn Papers again did the responsible thing--unlike some media outlets, including the New York Times--and got some perspective on what makes a legitimate CBA: Greg LeRoy is executive director of Good Jobs First, a non-profit policy group in Washington, D.C. that has advocated for community benefits agreements and supported the development of CBAs in Los Angeles development projects. He said negotiations for CBAs tend to be conducted with the agreement that no party involved will receive favors from another negotiating party.
“As a general statement of principals, anytime you have negotiations in which there are competing self-interests, and one side grants a favor to the other, or grants a favor to the member of another set of parties, that’s a red flag,” said LeRoy. “This is because the question of, ‘Is there a quid pro quo?’ inevitably arises. “Obviously, being as impartial and objective in the negotiations is something people strive for,” he said and wondered if the other individuals and organizations involved in the CBA negotiations were notified of BUILD’s reward."

Oh, and here's the kicker: the Brooklyn Papers asked, but Neither Forest City Ratner nor Cheryl Duncan Public Relations, the firm hired by Ratner to represent the CBA, would release contact or background information about the organizations that comprise the signatories to the document.

So much for transparency in this process. Yet again, a local newspaper has laid out a story for the dailies, including the New York Times, to follow.

Well, better late than never. The New York Times, on 9/3/05, finally noticed Forest City Ratner's promotional sheet The Brooklyn Standard, which, as my report points out, was published in mid-June. (See item 7.2 of report, p. 67.)

Still, the Times took a refreshingly skeptical tone, starting with the headline: "O.K., the Whole Paper Is Basically an Ad." Also, rather impressively, the Times give the story a very prominent place, with two photographs, on the front of the Metro section. In fact, this was, as far as I can recall, the most prominent placement in the Times of an article critical of Forest City Ratner's tactics in the Atlantic Yards project.

So, was this prominence a response to the September 1 release of the "High Rises and Low Standards" report criticizing Times coverage of Ratner's Atlantic Yards? We can only speculate. The story was obviously already in the works, and the placement of a story depends on multiple factors, including other stories competing for space and the photographs/illustrations available to accompany the story. Still, as noted below, the article missed some important points and, remember, it was two-and-a-half-months late!

Included in the Times article:
To counter the impression that it is trying to fool anyone, The Standard avoids calling itself a newspaper, instead proclaiming itself "a Forest City Ratner Publication."
Efforts at transparency end there. The Standard is printed on newsprint, folded like a tabloid, laid out to look like a newspaper and distributed alongside real newspapers. Hawkers hand it out by subway stations, and its masthead is full of people with newspaper-sounding jobs like executive editor and photographer.
Articles by writers of obvious bias are consigned to pages marked Editorial and Op-Ed. In that space, an article in the first issue was signed by Bruce Ratner, namesake of the development company behind the arena project, known as Atlantic Yards. Another article was about him. In it, the Rev. Herbert Daughtry described a talk Mr. Ratner gave to schoolchildren and said Mr. Ratner was "relaxed, smiling and seated on a child's chair, in his customary humble, winsome manner."
The first issue also published letters to the editor from politicians who have endorsed the arena project, including Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Marty Markowitz, the borough president. Both men enlivened their prose with exclamation points. Mr. Markowitz used three.

Still, the Times could have been even more skeptical. As I wrote in a letter to the Times:

"This welcome, if belated, skeptical look at Forest City Ratner's promotional sheet, The Brooklyn Standard, could have been even more skeptical. For example, State Senator Martin Malave-Dilan, who wrote a 'letter to the editor' to the Standard, told The Brooklyn Rail that he wouldn't have written such a letter had he known that the Standard, which appeared in mid-June, wasn't a real newspaper.

Also, the tabloid includes some enormously misleading financial information: 'Expected to generate $6.1 billion over the next 30 years for the city and state...' The Standard doesn't print the source of that figure, but it most likely comes from FCR’s consultant, Andrew Zimbalist, whose tax revenue estimates are based on many questionable assumptions. Moreover, the editors of the Standard did not choose to inform readers of the enormous public costs the project would incur--well over $1 billion, according to Forest City Ratner itself.

Also, it's incomplete for the Times to describe 'the dispute between the arena's supporters and opponents' as 'amount[ing] in some ways to a clash between low-rise brownstones and large-scale public works.' I and many critics of the Forest City Ratner proposal don't oppose large-scale public works. We do question developers who provide misleading information and government officials who abdicate their responsibility to look carefully at this project, which--given that most of it is luxury housing--could hardly be described as 'public works.'"

The New York Observer came to the September 1, 2005 press confererence/demonstration held to release the report on Times coverage, but the writer decided to pursue snarkiness over substance. (Click on "Circulation War," 9/1/05.)

First, the writer decided to ignore the substance of the report but instead focused on some of the protestors: The 20 or so protesters milling about outside the New York Times building this afternoon were largely white, middle-aged and frumpily dressed. Just like Times readers, maybe just like Times writers and editors, except they were so steamed about how their morning read had been covering the Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn, they were just about ready to ... call a customer service rep and cancel their subscriptions!"I never looked at the Post until this whole thing," said Susan Butler, a Fort Greene resident of 22 years. "Or the Daily News."

Then he decided to get snippy because the whole report--as opposed to the executive summary--wasn't available in print during the time he was there. (It was available a bit later.) He wrote: The occasion for the gathering was the trumpeting of a 173-page treatise declaring that the paper of record had been papering over Forest City Ratner Companies’ Atlantic Yards proposal. It wasn't a "release" because the report didn't arrive in time to be distributed to the few reporters on hand. (It is up on the Web, though.)

Then he decided to characterize the contents simply as charges, rather than acknowledge that they were fully checkable. (Why not do a random check?): The report makes all sorts of charges, among them that the paper downplayed opposition to the project, and that it failed to examine the public subsidies, which reputable sources have put as high as $1 billion or higher.

Then, the writer completely missed the point: But what really ticked off Norman Oder, a journalist and tour guide, enough to contact the anti-Ratner group, Develop--Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, and to volunteer to write this master’s-degree-in-journalism-criticism thesis, was a July 5 article headlined "Instant Skyline Added to Brooklyn Plan."Brownstone Brooklyn people don’t like anything instant--coffee, mashed potatoes, hot chocolate, chicken noodle soup--and they like least of all instant 600-foot towers. The non-instant version is bad enough to the Brooklyn sensibility.

The July 5, 2005 article was infuriating not because of my resistance to things "instant," but because, in December 2003, Forest City Ratner had announced an instant skyline, including the tallest building in Brooklyn. The later announcement was just an increase in height and bulk. The Times missed the point. So did the Observer, which is disappointing, given that the point is fairly obvious--at the press conference, we had visual aids: mockups of the skyline as proposed in 12/03 and 7/05.

The Observer continued, again missing the point: Oder wouldn’t go so far as to say that the paper’s coverage was biased, though he did not fail to point out Times ombudsman Byron Calame's wrist-slap; in a column, he complained that the paper failed to mention their relationship with the developer in a Q & A they published with the company's CEO Bruce Ratner.

My point, in conversation with the reporter, and in the report, is not just that Calame had criticized the paper, but that, after the criticism, the Times still refused to print a letter or correction disclosing the relationship.

Then the Observer punted: Does any of that matter, if the paper covers the issue fairly? No, not really. Whether they have, dear reader, is for you to judge if you care to pull on your Wellingtons and wade through it all. Times spokesman Toby Usnik e-mailed The Real Estate when we asked him about the report. "Please note that the Times newsroom operates wholly independently of the Corporate operations of the Times Company," he wrote. "The Company's development project with Forest City Ratner Companies is not remotely a consideration in the newsroom's editing decisions. The newsroom discloses the Company's relationship with FCRC in its pages when it is relevant, just as it would disclose any other such relationship -- for example, a review of a novel written by a Times reporter. "We report fully and fairly on any newsworthy project, ours or others’," he further wrote.

Of course a Times corporate spokesman would say this; that's his job. But there are too many episodes detailed in the report for the Times, in the long run, to get away with corporate boilerplate. Times editors, including the Public Editor, must respond.
--Why didn't the Times respond to Calame's criticism and post a disclosure?
--Why didn't Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp, in his 12/03 valentine to Frank Gehry's design, disclose the Times's business relationship to Forest City Ratner, and his own participation in a group, including Ratner executives, that chose the architect for the Times Tower Ratner is building?
--Why did the Times ignore two polls, one its own (!) that showed that most New Yorkers oppose a taxpayer-funded basketball arena in Brooklyn?
--Why did the Times City Weekly section of 6/19/05, devoted to "The New Brooklyns," mention the arena only twice, but say nothing about the much larger development project around it? And why did the editorial in that section decry subsidies for stadiums in Queens and the Bronx, but say nothing about subsidies for the arena in Brooklyn? (Remember, this was an issue devoted to Brooklyn.)

[This incorporates the original "About Me" text on the TimesRatnerReport blog home page, plus multiple changes made at various times since 2005. It's posted with a September 1, 2005 date, so it could be at the beginning of this blog.]

Contact: AtlanticYardsReport(at)hotmail.com.

My background

I've been a journalist for more than 25 years--as a daily reporter, and later as a freelancer for publications from The American Lawyer to Columbia Journalism Review to the Village Voice. I still freelance. From 1996 through early October 2010, I worked at the trade magazine Library Journal, unrelated to this project.

I decided to leave Library Journal to work on a book about Atlantic Yards.

Before I began Atlantic Yards coverage, I won a Silver Gavel Award (while at the Charleston Gazette, WV) from the American Bar Association and a year-long fellowship for journalists at Yale Law School, where I earned an MSL (Master of Studies in Law).

Praise from observers

Atlantic Yards awards are described further below, but my work has been praised by Chris Smith in New York Magazine ("a skeptic in the tradition of I.F. Stone"), David Smith of the Affordable Housing Institute ("Give this man a Pulitzer"), journalist Tim Sohn ("one of the finest pieces of local journalism on the internet"), Malcolm Gladwell in Grantland ("brilliantly obsessive coverage"), and Matt Chaban in The New York Observer ("incomparable Atlantic Yards watchdog"). In April 2009, AYR was cited in a debate between Paul Starr and Steven Johnson about the future of news.

How the blog started

This blog grew out of the report I wrote, issued 9/1/05, critiquing the New York Times’s coverage of Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project.

I approached Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) about my proposed report because I knew they and others would both be interested in the topic and in publicizing it. While DDDB and other neighborhood/activist groups endorsed the report, the responsibility for it is mine. (Had I known that it was more than a one-shot--that I would wind up writing a long-running blog including reportage, analysis, and commentary--I might have kept more of a distance.)

In the aftermath of the report, I began a blog, the TimesRatnerReport, on 9/1/05. I intended it to briefly track coverage of my report. I began to offer analysis of both the Atlantic Yards project and the media coverage of it, then began to include more original reporting.

On 3/1/06, I changed the name to Atlantic Yards Report. The overdue name change reflected my broader approach to the topic.

I do this as a volunteer; I don’t get paid, unless I do freelance work. I don't accept ads on the blog.

Freelance work on Atlantic Yards

In July 2006, I began writing for the weekly Brooklyn Downtown Star; my last piece was in 2008. The pay was quite modest.

In June 2008, I wrote Atlantic Yards: This Generation's Penn Station? for Places Journal.

The Spring 2010 issue of the Urban Lawyer, a law journal devoted to urban issues, contains an article I co-authored, Urban Redevelopment Policy, Judicial Deference to Unaccountable Agencies, and Reality in Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards Project.

On 6/22/10, I published an op-ed in the New York Times Sports section headlined A Russian Billionaire, the Nets and Sweetheart Deals.

On 9/30/10, I published an op-ed in the New York Observer headlined KPMG's Fuzzy Math on Atlantic Yards.

On 1/21/11, I wrote a New York Times "Complaint Box" essay headlined Powerless in Brooklyn.

On 3/18/11, I wrote an Columbia Journalism Review online essay headlined A Sports Myth Grows in Brooklyn.

On 6/3/11, I wrote a Dissent review of the film Battle for Brooklyn, headlined The Epic Battle Over Atlantic Yards.

On 8/1/11, I wrote an article for Urban Omnibus on Atlantic Yards Watch: Tracking Daily Impacts.

Speaking engagements/tours

I am available to speak at classes, conferences, and other forums. I have given several walking tours to visiting groups of journalists, urban planners, and architects--and to student groups.

On 2/24/07, I spoke at the Grassroots Media Conference on "objectivity, neutrality, and integrity" in covering Atlantic Yards.

On 10/9/07, I participated on the Municipal Art Society's panel on New Media, New Politics? Jane Jacobs and an Activist Press.

I was a guest on the TV show Brian Lehrer Live in May 2006, October 2007, and June 2009.

On 10/3/09, I spoke at the Dreamland Pavilion Conference in Brooklyn, on “Atlantic Yards: Brooklyn’s Most Controversial Development through the Lens of Public Relations and News Coverage."

On 8/12/11, I lectured on "Why Atlantic Yards Makes Me Angry (and makes me a better journalist)" at the Galapagos Art Space's "Get Smart" series. (Here's a review: "Oder is funny when he's angry.")

A "watchdog" blog

I call this a "watchdog" blog because it's devoted to a close look at Atlantic Yards and associated issues. I'm concerned about accountability.

From where I lived in Park Slope from 1992 through mid-2011, it’s about a seven-minute walk to the project footprint; that sensitized me to issues like scale and traffic. I moved in 2011 within Brooklyn and am now 12 to 15 minutes by subway from the project site. I don’t own property in Brooklyn.

Regarding Atlantic Yards, I’m a reporter and a critic--a critic of the project, the press coverage, and also the governmental process for evaluating and approving the project.

I don’t have a blueprint for the result, but I’m not neutral. I am often skeptical of the claims made by the developer and the supporters of the project, such as the expected economic benefits or the fairness of the process. I believe the press should serve as more of a watchdog.

Such skepticism aligns me closer to project opponents than to project supporters or Forest City Ratner. But those opponents do not control my blog and I don’t necessarily share their views or analysis. Most of the material I cite is in the public domain, so my choices and my analysis—about what to include and how to frame it—are often checkable.

I testified critically about this project in July and September 2005 before the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and also in October 2005 before the Empire State Development Corporation. In each of those cases, I cited my research, reminding listeners of Forest City Ratner's record in Brooklyn, describing the contents of my report, and criticizing the claims in Forest City Ratner's Brooklyn Standard publication.

I've subsequently testified briefly at lagging, late moments in two Empire State Development Corporation public hearings, calling attention to pending Freedom of Information Law requests that I had filed but which had not resulted in delivery of documents.

Those activities go beyond what reporters typically do; they could be considered the equivalent of a newspaper column. This blog melds reportage with analysis and commentary. Such multiple formats may be found in one publication but usually not from one journalist.

Such is the world of the niche or stand alone journalist, who, according to Chris Nolan, "succeeds in getting stories told in an honest and forthright manner without benefit of working for a larger news outlet."

Fairness, not objectivity

My goal here is fairness, not some “he said, she said” version of objectivity. As former New York Times Public Editor Daniel Okrent wrote (It's Good to Be Objective. It's Even Better to Be Right., 11/14/04), "Fairness requires the consideration of all sides of an issue; it doesn't require the uncritical reporting of any. Yet even the best reporters will sometimes display a disappointing reluctance to set things straight."

I also take a cue from a "Journalism Manifesto" by former Wall Street Journal writer G. Paschal Zachary, who wrote: "Let subjects have their say, but tell readers why one side is fudging, lying or worse... The critical measure of a journalist's stature is whether they got the story right, not whether they were fair and balanced... Declare your agenda. All journalists have one. Be honest about yours...Fair and Accurate. Stop talking about journalists’ ‘objectivity’ and instead promote the concept of journalistic 'integrity.'"

Journalists make choices, based on their knowledge, the time they have available, and the space allotted, among other constraints. In my report and blog, I’ve pointed out numerous examples of the “uncritical reporting” Okrent might cite.

My claim to authority

Do I simply have a "slant," as one reporter suggested to me, or is my perspective and analysis rooted in any authority? My record, I submit, suggests the latter.

NYU Journalism Professor Jay Rosen observes:

Your authority starts with, “I’m there, you’re not, let me tell you about it.” If “anyone” can produce media and share it with the world, what makes the pro journalist special, or worth listening to? Not the press card, not the by-line, not the fact of employment by a major media company. None of that. The most reliable source of authority for a professional journalist will continue to be what James W. Carey called “the idea of a report.” That’s when you can truthfully say to the users, “I’m there, you’re not, let me tell you about it.” Or, “I was at the demonstration, you weren’t, let me tell you how the cops behaved.” Or, altering my formula slightly, “I interviewed the workers who were on that oil drilling platform when it exploded, you didn’t, let me tell you what they said.” Or, “I reviewed those documents, you didn’t, let me tell you what I found.” Your authority begins when you do the work. If an amateur or a blogger does the work, the same authority is earned. Seeing people as a public means granting that without rancor.

On objectivity, neutrality, and integrity

Also worth noting: my comments in February 2007, part of On objectivity, neutrality, and integrity in covering AY:

I have been highly critical of the project, and I’m not neutral. That means I don’t think that balancing a quote from the developer and the opponents necessarily makes for honest journalism. That’s pseudo-objectivity.
I am often skeptical of the claims made by the developer and the supporters of the project. So that aligns me closer to project opponents, and that’s why I’m here today. But they don’t control my blog—I mean, today’s coverage, I wrote a nuanced piece on the judge’s decision and DDDB issued a press release—different content, different goals.
Still, it doesn’t make sense to try to find a mythical middle if you don’t do any digging. I mean, I don’t have to ask [DDDB's] Candace [Carponter] here if the project’s too big. Frank Gehry thinks the project’s too big.
I don’t have to find an activist to say that the approval process for this project isn’t democratic. The Regional Plan Association, mainstream group—they say the process is lousy.
So my criticism—or what seems to be opposition--emerges from my journalistic examination of the project, not the other way around.

On editing and responsiveness

This is a blog. Many but by no means all of my writings emerge unedited; for more complex or controversial topics, I sometimes send pieces to friends for a read. I frequently correct minor errors--typos or missing words--after readers catch those mistakes; I consider such changes the equivalent of a newspaper tweaking a story between its first and final editions.

Sometimes more significant changes are required, because I have made errors or new information has surfaced. In many cases, I aim to add inserts that indicate that changes were made after the initial posting. I have made changes in response to occasional requests for corrections or clarifications. I welcome feedback as well as notification of typos.

Awards and notice

On 6/7/07, I was honored with the Park Slope Civic Council's (PSCC) Lovgren Volunteer Award. I've been a member of the PSCC for several years, and annually volunteer for the Park Slope House Tour, but haven't participated in any of their policymaking. (Here's coverage of the PSCC.)

See 2/7/07 interview and 10/12/10 profile in New York Observer and online, coverage here and here in the New York Daily News's I-Team blog, coverage of the AY blogosphere in the Times, and 2007 Brooklyn Blogfest coverage (also see Times coverage).

In May 2008, the New York Observer named me #77 (!?) on its quite arbitrary list of the most powerful people in New York real estate. I have not been on subsequent lists.

In February 2010, I was honored with a Crystal Eagle Award from the Owners' Counsel of America, an organization of attorneys who represent those facing eminent domain. As I wrote, I had qualms about being described, at least according to some OCA members, as a "champion of property rights."

I responded that I was a "champion of good government."

I was nominated for the award by New York attorney Michael Rikon, who represents some property owners in the Atlantic Yards footprint regarding condemnation awards (rather than larger challenges to the project). Here's coverage of Rikon.

In August 2011, Brooklyn-based The L Magazine named Atlantic Yards Report "Best Local Blog" in its Best of Brooklyn awards.

Comments policy

Comments policy: Comments are moderated. My preference is that 1) commenters address the issues raised in my articles and 2) commenters identify themselves.