Been saying for ages that Bruce Ratner's proposed Atlantic Yards over-development plan was too big, too expensive and would never bring the benefits he promised. Been saying it ever since it was supposed to be a "done deal." Slowly, as indeed promises have been broken by Ratner, costs spiral and, of course, the economy collapsed under the watch of Bush nationally and Bloomberg locally, more and more people are jumping ship.

The shift started, I think, when even one of Bruce Ratner's biggest local fans, Bill de Blasio, started to feel betrayed by Ratner's sudden reversal on his promise regarding affordable housing. By taking the affordable housing off the schedule, Ratner actually removed the one excuse many had for supporting it. When even developer-friendly de Blasio started flirting with Ratner's opposition, Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, you knew Ratner was in trouble. Another politician who once was considered a Ratner supporter who became increasingly disillusioned was State Senator Hakeem Jeffries. Ratner has been alienating political allies for some time now. Once the affordable housing was shelved, the political cover many of these politicians had for supporting Ratner was out the window.

Then you had Ratner's second big reversal. Suddenly, as the economy tanked, Frank Ghery, the famous architect who was at the heart of Ratner's design, was let go as too expensive. So much for the promised cultural cache the project was promised to give central Brooklyn.

Well, that leaves the vaguest promise of all: money that the city and state puts in will be returned manyfold by the development scheme. Well, that seems out the window as well. According to New York City's own Independent Budget Office Deputy Director George Sweeting, the time has come to renegotiate the deal with Ratner because the city just won't see the promised benefits. From the Brooklyn Papers:

George Sweeting, deputy director of the city’s Independent Budget Office, sent a shockwave through Tuesday morning’s Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce annual “Economic Outlook Breakfast” when he stated that “it may be time for the city to take another look at the mix of incentives” that it offered to Ratner because “it doesn’t look like there will be much progress in the next few years” on the $4-billion mini-city...

The more-expensive version of the arena will now require more expensive financing by the public, Sweeting said. In addition, the New York Post reported that Ratner has been negotiating with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to scale back $345 million in improvements that he promised to undertake as part of his winning bid for the Vanderbilt railyard over which he proposes to build the arena.

And the New York Times has reported that Ratner is seeking more public subsidies to keep his project afloat.

“If amenities are scaled back and the overall scale of the project is reduced, it’s reasonable to stop and look at whether the city’s contributions and the MTA land deal still show a positive in the cost-benefit calculation,” Sweeting said. “Some of the benefits to the public may now be less than originally assumed. A lot has changed since 2005, when we found that the arena was basically a break-even proposition.”

Broken promises and more broken promises. The community wanted a smaller, more reasonable development plan. Had we listened to the community and gone for the Unity Plan, the city would have saved money, saved a good deal of trouble for the community, and we could actually be seeing benefits by now rather than just digging ourselves deeper and deeper into Ratner's money pit.