An article in Tuesday’s New York Times asserts that the Atlantic Yards will be a major political issue in borough elections. This from the New York Times:

It will be months, if not years, before a single brick of the
Atlantic Yards project is laid near Downtown Brooklyn. But as the fall
election season draws near, the unbuilt, unapproved,
multibillion-dollar development is shaping up as a major political
issue in this corner of the borough.

"This is a litmus
test for brownstone Brooklyn," said City Councilwoman Letitia James,
whose district includes most of the Atlantic Yards site and who is
perhaps the elected official most outspokenly opposed to the project.
"But the issue is nonetheless important for all Brooklynites, whether
or not you’re a brownstoner, someone who lives in public housing, or
you live in a condo."

Over the last two and a half years, the
project’s gravity has warped the political space nearby, as if a black
hole had settled at the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues. It has
bolstered some candidacies and bedeviled others here, where mostly
white, affluent neighborhoods like Park Slope shade into the more
diverse yet rapidly gentrifying confines of Fort Greene and Prospect
Heights.