Since its founding in 2004, the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council has advocated for a greater role for the community in the Atlantic Yards project. We have fought to hold the developer and the State accountable for the commitments each has made to the public. Those commitments include not only promised benefits like affordable housing and open space, but also measures to be implemented to reduce impacts from construction on the project’s neighbors.

Today, PHNDC and other sponsors of the BrooklynSpeaks initiative announced an agreement with the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) and developer Forest City Ratner Companies (FCRC) that will result in several important changes to the Atlantic Yards project.

In 2009, the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council and several other civic and community-based organizations filed suit against the New York State Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) and Forest City Ratner Companies for their decision to allow the completion of the Atlantic Yards project to be delayed from 10 to 25 years. A State Supreme Court ruled in July 2011 that ESDC’s failure to study the effects of the 15-year delay on surrounding communities violated State environmental law.

Now, four and a half years after its illegal approval of the delayed project schedule, ESDC has issued a draft environmental report that claims an additional 15 years of construction won’t be a big deal for our community. The community asked that the State consider bringing in other developers to speed up the project. Can’t be done, it said.

But local residents haven’t forgotten the disruptions they suffered during construction of the Barclays Center arena—disruptions that were supposed to be relieved through environmental commitments by Forest City that ESDC failed to enforce. And we all know that neighbors in danger of being displaced through rising rents can’t wait 25 years for Atlantic Yards to make good on its commitment to provide 2,250 affordable apartments.

ESDC will hold a public hearing on Wednesday April 30, 2014 from 5:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at Long Island University, 75 DeKalb Avenue, Room HS107.Atlantic Yards is the only large State project where decisions are made by a board of political appointees with no local members. It’s time to use this opportunity to tell Governor Cuomo how you feel about giving Forest City Ratner the exclusive right to hold 22 acres of our community hostage for 25 years with no accountability to the public. Join us!Make your voice heard for accountability, transparency and community input in this massive development!

When the Prospect Heights Street Tree Task Force heard that Forest City Ratner Companies would cut twenty trees from the northern sidewalk of Pacific Street between Sixth Avenue and Carlton Avenue to make room for construction in the Vanderbilt rail yard, its members joined a chorus of other community members and elected officials in protest.