How big is too big?

To me, a project this large could never foster a sense of community even though it is proposed as one complex? So, the question is how big is too big?
State Approves Major Complex For Brooklyn

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Published: December 21, 2006
A state oversight board voted yesterday to approve the Atlantic Yards project near Downtown Brooklyn, removing the last regulatory hurdle for one of the biggest real estate projects in the city's history.
The vote by the Public Authorities Control Board capped three years of battles between opponents and supporters of the $4 billion project. The version approved yesterday -- eight million square feet over 22 acres along Atlantic Avenue -- includes a huge residential housing complex with about 6,400 market-rate and subsidized apartments, a basketball arena for the Nets, and a smattering of office space, with a design punctuated by elaborate towers that dwarf nearby residential neighborhoods.
The approval of Atlantic Yards, which would be built by Forest City Ratner Companies, came after several other ambitious development projects in New York City -- like a West Side football stadium and the Moynihan Station, both in Manhattan -- were rejected or stalled by community opposition and political rivalry. Atlantic Yards still faces two lawsuits, with more probably on the way, but Forest City officials say they are confident that they will prevail in court.
Yesterday's vote followed days of intense negotiation between officials at the Empire State Development Corporation, which is overseeing the project, and aides to Sheldon Silver, the speaker of the State Assembly, who has one of three votes on the control board. Gov. George E. Pataki and Joseph L. Bruno, the State Senate leader, control the other two votes on the board, which must vote unanimously for a project to be approved.
In recent days, Mr. Silver expressed concerns about the financing of Atlantic Yards. But on Tuesday, the development corporation provided his staff with a detailed accounting of about $554 million in infrastructure costs, of which $200 million will be paid for by the city and state, and a full analysis of the project's expected tax revenues, which the development corporation recently revised downward by about one-third.
As yesterday's vote approached, Forest City also offered new concessions to sweeten the deal. At least 200 of the market-rate condominiums will be subsidized and made affordable to first-time homeowners, and Forest City agreed to spend $3 million to improve parks near the development.
The developer also agreed to shrink considerably the complex's highest tower -- the 620-foot building called Miss Brooklyn by the project's architect, Frank Gehry -- so that it will be shorter than the nearby Williamsburgh Savings Bank, Brooklyn's tallest building at 512 feet. But critics said the changes were far too modest to allay their concerns over the project's size and scale.
''The changes are positive, but they're small,'' said Assemblyman James F. Brennan of Brooklyn, who with several colleagues had pushed for a much larger reduction in the project's density.
Mr. Silver said yesterday that he was certain that more changes would be forthcoming next year. But in the end, he rejected calls to delay the approval vote, a testament in part to the unusually broad base of support Forest City built for the project, including Mr. Pataki, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, dozens of unions and elected officials, and Acorn, the advocacy group for low-income people.
The project sparked an energetic and determined opposition, centered around the group Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn and elected officials who expressed concerns about traffic in the already congested area and the project's impact on the low-rise neighborhoods nearby, including Park Slope and Fort Greene. But the critics lacked the resources for a protracted battle against Forest City, which spent millions of dollars on lobbying, direct mail and public relations.
Daniel Goldstein, a spokesman for Develop Don't Destroy and a plaintiff in one of the lawsuits against the project, vowed yesterday to stop it in the courts.
''The federal eminent domain lawsuit brought by citizens protecting their constitutional rights is rock-solid, and without those plaintiffs' properties, Atlantic Yards as we know it cannot be built,'' Mr. Goldstein said.
Since the project was proposed three years ago, Forest City has worked to dampen opposition and build support in Brooklyn and beyond. (Forest City Ratner is also the development partner in building a new Midtown headquarters for The New York Times Company.)
A once-sizable chunk of office space was given over to yet more apartments, to woo Brooklynites eager for housing, and to allay potential concerns by Mr. Silver that the project would compete with commercial properties in the speaker's Lower Manhattan district.
On paper, the project grew to a peak of more than nine million square feet, before shrinking back to the roughly eight million square feet originally planned -- a decrease that did little to mollify those residents and officials who said that the project had been far too big and dense from the beginning.
The developer has yet to divulge precisely how much money it will make on the project. But Mr. Silver yesterday played down concerns that the developers were using public subsidies to generate excessive private profits, noting that the board's official review powers were limited to vetting the state's contribution to the infrastructure costs.
''Our role is not to measure the profits that the private investors will make,'' Mr. Silver said yesterday. ''Our role is to make sure that state liability on the project will be limited to what they say it will be. And we were satisfied about that, plain and simple.''
According to a KPMG audit commissioned by the Empire State Development Corporation, a copy of which was provided to The New York Times, Forest City estimated that the overall rate of return on the $4 billion project, excluding the arena, at about 10 percent over 30 years. The accounting firm estimated the return at about 7 percent.
In a statement, Governor Pataki praised the vote, saying that now ''we can build critically needed housing including affordable housing, new community facilities, grand open spaces and increase economic development all across Brooklyn.''
Opponents of the project strongly criticized yesterday's decision.
''From the beginning, the project has been a public-private partnership in which the public has not been represented,'' said Kent Barwick, president of the Municipal Art Society, part of a coalition of civic groups known as Brooklyn Speaks that had urged Mr. Silver to delay the project. ''The vote today reflected a process that simply did not allow New Yorkers to shape the project, and the result is a plan that will not work for Brooklyn.''