1 vs 99: Eminent Domain Abuse tackled in film, Battle for Brooklyn

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1 vs 99: Eminent Domain Abuse tackled in film, Battle for Brooklyn

Posted on October 23, 2011 by geobear7| Leave a comment

By ReasonTV

Co-directors Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley discuss eminent domain abuse and political perceptions of their film, Battle for Brooklyn. They insist their film is not a polemic, but rather an all-too-common story of a single person fighting an injustice against figures whose power and influence drawf his own.

Battle for Brooklyn, a documentary about one man’s fight to stop a private developer from using eminent domain to take his home, recently opened in select theaters in New York City after a successful film-festival run.

In 2003, billionaire real estate developer and New Jersey Nets owner Bruce Ratner decided to move the team to Brooklyn, with the intention of building an arena, an affordable housing project, and bringing desperately needed jobs to the borough of Brooklyn.

Ratner’s friend and fellow billionaire, Michael Bloomberg, enthusiastically put the weight of top-down government planning behind the project. That included using the city government’s extensive powers of eminent domain, despite the fact eminent domain is supposed to be used only in cases where development is for public uses such as schools and roads. And despite the fact that the construction of what became known as the “Atlantic Yards” project would displace many thriving businesses and homes.

Graphic designer Daniel Goldstein fought for nearly seven years to keep his home out of the hands of Ratner’s company, Forest City Ratner. Goldstein’s quixotic struggle is the centerpiece of the film. Here’s the trailer:

Related:

Story of Occupy Wall Street protestors runs parallel to ‘Battle for Brooklyn’ documentary
By Michael O’Keeffe. NY Daily News

The pundits who continue to say they don’t understand what the protesters behind Occupy Wall Street want should look at “Battle for Brooklyn,” the award-winning documentary about the Atlantic Yards that was released this summer.

The film was released before the Wall Street protests began, but the story it tells is a strong summary of the crony capitalism that sparked the OWS movement.

Public assets, according to the film, were given away to the wealthy and connected. Eminent domain was used, and abused, to benefit corporate interests. Fawning elected officials — Bloomberg, Schumer, Markowitz, take your pick — parroted the developer’s dubious claims of jobs and affordable housing. Millions of dollars in subsidies were provided for a project that bypassed local review. Competing proposals, which may have been more beneficial to taxpayers and the surrounding community, were ignored or dismissed… Continue reading

http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2011/10/23/1-vs-99-eminent-domain-abuse-tackled-in-film-battle-for-brooklyn/

Lawful Land Grab Sparks A 'Battle For Brooklyn'

by Mark Jenkins

 

Tracy Collins/Rumur

Stomp The Yards: Graphic designer Daniel Goldstein turned neighborhood rabble-rouser to take on Brooklyn's proposed Atlantic Yards project, which would have demolished his condo to make room for 16 skyscrapers and a new basketball arena.

Battle for Brooklyn

• Directors: Michael Galinsky, Suki Hawley
• Genre: Documentary
• Running Time: 93 minutes

This film has not been rated by the MPAA

With: Daniel Goldstein

(Recommended)

June 16, 2011

When Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards project was announced some seven years ago, its boosters — who included Mayor Michael Bloomberg, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer and Borough President Marty Markowitz — touted the scheme's extraordinary potential. But there was nothing unusual about the developer-politician alliance recounted by Battle for Brooklyn. The way this deal went down exemplifies how urban redevelopment is done all over the United States.

Atlantic Yards was conceived by an Ohio development firm, Forest City Ratner, but relied heavily on New York state and city subsidies. The project would encompass 16 skyscrapers and a new arena for the New Jersey Nets; much of it would be built on rail yards owned by the state's Metropolitan Transportation Authority. But the plan also involved acquiring several blocks of private property and — where the owners wouldn't sell — getting the state to use eminent domain: the power to seize private property for the public good.

Why did the developers need so much land? Well, perhaps because everything's bigger in New York. But it's worth noting that Atlantic Yards' designated designer was Frank Gehry, American architecture's prince of wasted space.

Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley, who co-directed this incisive documentary, have a thing for cranks, die-hards and malcontents. (Their previous movies include Horns and Halos, which charted the wobbly final days of failed Dubya biographer James Hatfield.) So the filmmakers emphasize Daniel Goldstein, a graphic designer who adamantly refused to sell his condo to Forest City Ratner.

Goldstein's reluctance to leave his home turned into a crusade, and his doggedness may alienate some viewers. (It alienated his live-in fiancee, who split during the struggle.) But the activist and his allies raised some significant objections, which is why their cause attracted the support of both the community-organizing left and the private property-revering right.

Goldstein joined New York City Councilmember Letitia James and others — including Shabnam Merchant, who ultimately became Goldstein's romantic partner — to found "Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn." Like many critics of large urban-redevelopment projects, the opponents rejected the planned complex as too big. But they also argued that competitive bidding for the rail yards might yield a better project. And they opposed using eminent domain as a means of transferring real estate from one private owner to another.

 

Tracy Collins/Rumur

New York's eminent-domain laws allow the state to seize private property for the public good — but members of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn aren't sure the Yards project is a net positive.

The challengers won the backing not only of working class-identified local actors Steve Buscemi, Rosie Perez and John Turturro, but also of conservative columnist George F. Will. Aside from hip-hop mogul Jay Z and wife Beyonce, the developer-government bloc didn't attract much celebrity support. But then, it didn't need it. The money men could always buy friendly voices, even funding a local "astroturf" group to promote the project.

Then the 2008 financial crisis intervened, and Atlantic Yards no longer looked viable. (One of the first encumbrances thrown overboard: Frank Gehry.) Did that stop the project? Battle for Brooklyn ends before that question is definitively answered, but the pattern with such redevelopment projects is that officials don't acknowledge many flaws until it's too late.

Galinsky and Hawley live near the project, and their sympathies are clearly with the protesters. But they give the proposed complex's developers their say, dutifully following Bruce Ratner as he tours the neighborhood that he must — as a requirement before invoking eminent domain — get reclassified as "blighted."

The Empire State's eminent domain laws are unusually loose, but most of the rest of this story is pertinent far beyond New York. Change a few names and add the next credit bubble, and a Brooklyn-style Battle could be headed to a neighborhood near you. (Recommended)

http://www.npr.org/2011/06/17/137151722/lawful-land-grab-sparks-a-battle-for-brooklyn

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