A state court has once again rebuffed an effort to throw a wrench in Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards machine, rejecting a lawsuit that accused the MTA of improperly selling its Vanderbilt rail yard by not seeking new bids after reopening the original 2005 deal with the developer this summer.
The suit, filed by panoply of elected officials and opposition groups, claimed that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority broke a state law that was passed in the wake of Atlantic Yards to curb abuses by state authorities through stricter transparency and ethics guidelines.
The plaintiffs pointed to the fact that the MTA renegotiated the deal with Ratner this summer, getting just $20 million up front instead of the $100 million originally promised. At the time, the transit agency did not seek new bids for its eight-acre train yard at the heart of the proposed arena, housing and commercial development.
But state Supreme Court judges did not agree with project opponents, ruling last Wednesday that the renegotiated deal did not warrant restarting the bidding process.
“If every change were to be viewed as a new plan so as to trigger anew each mandated review process, no development plan could ever reach final approval — let alone ultimate completion,” the ruling read. “The MTA had a rational basis for continuing to use the 2005 appraisal rather than ordering a new one in 2009.”
Opponents of the project called the ruling a sham, especially in light of the MTA’s just announced “doomsday cuts” in service thatwould affect everyone who uses public transportation.
“The MTA has no shame,” said Daniel Goldstein, a spokesman for Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, the main Atlantic Yards opposition group. “While giving a sweetheart deal to billionaire developers … its board gives a big lump of coal to school kids, disabled New Yorkers and all transit riders.”
