PACB urged to delay approval of Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan.

Shadow connections with MSG. An acrimonious relationship with outgoing Governor George Pataki. Fiscal tightwad. Take your pick from a litany of alleged motivations and one thing remains clear; Sheldon Silver's approval for Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan at today's PACB meeting is far from certain.

Silver--who sits on the Public Authorities Control Board along with Pataki and Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno--has already used his position to torpedo some of the biggest building projects in the city's history, including the West Side Yards development last year and Moynihan Station project just last month.

On Monday, his list of reasons to say no to Ratner grew a little longer when community leaders gathered on the steps of City Hall to urge him and his fellow board members to postpone any decision on the $4 billion plan that would transform the Atlantic Yards into a massive mixed-used community that includes a new Nets arena and 8-acres of parkland. "I think I can safely say that everyone here today can recognize the benefit of urban redevelopment projects when they are done correctly. Atlantic Yards has the potential to be one of those projects--but it should not be raced through the approval process," said Eric Goldstein, co-director, Cities Program, Natural Resources Defense Council, at the rally outside City Hall organized by the Municipal Arts Society.

The PACB must unanimously approve any major projects in the state that involve financing from various public authorities which, in the case of Atlantic Yards, is the Empire State Development Corporation.

Both the city and the state have agreed to provide $100 million each for the project and the ESDC has given its full approval to the plan after several modifications were made to lower the height and size of residential and commercial office buildings and assurances were given that all of the site's 16 buildings will qualify for LEED certification.

But on Monday, community leaders called on the PACB to comb through what they called 'flawed' details of the plan, including lack of attention paid to an environmental impact statement and undisclosed finances, before voting.

As the rally went on, Empire State Development officials were being grilled by an Assembly committee on a controversial cost benefit analysis of the project that indicated the it could generate $944 million in tax revenue, a figure that has been widely disputed.

The rally was a last ditch effort to keep the PACB from rushing a decision before Governor Pataki leaves office at the end of December.

"This is a project that will have a serious impact on the city for the next 10-15 years. What we are asking for is a handful of weeks," said Kent Barwick, president of the Municipal Art Society.

Those gathered did not all oppose Atlantic Yards in theory, but said they wanted the developer's plans to be held up for further review by the public.

Attendees raised concerns about the amount of pollution and congestion associated with the 20,000 new vehicles coming into the neighborhood.

They called for more coordination between the head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Department of Transportation and Communication.

"This should not all be put on the shoulders of the developer, the state has a role to play as well," Barwick said.

Panelists admitted some of the concerns they raised to the developer had been addressed--such as the increase in affordable housing designated for the development from 1/5 in the first stage of planning, to 1/2 promised in the second phase.

However none of the promises have been guaranteed in any contract, they said. Moreover, they said, the affordable housing component fails short of the needs of the neighborhood.

"One of the reasons the Atlantic Yards project has been so appealing is the promise of affordable housing. Beneath the surface, the reality is that they are not affordable to current Brooklyn residents," said Michelle Se La Uz, executive director of the Fifth Avenue Committee.

According to Ratner, the project will include 2,250 units of affordable and market rate housing. It will also create over 10,000 construction jobs over the 10-year construction period and a further 5,000 jobs as a direct result of development.

The 18,000-seat sports and entertainment arena will serve as home to the Ratner-owned New Jersey Nets.

According to ESDC chairman Charles Gargano, the owners of Madison Square Garden see the arena as direct competition and may try to exert their influence on thwarting Ratner's plan in the same way they helped secure rejection of the proposed Jets stadium for the Far west Side last year, a proposal which was also crushed by Silver on PACB.

"I wouldn't put it past them to try to sabotage this project as well," Gargano said of MSG recently.

He also questioned the structure of the influential PACB which literally puts the fate of major development in the state in the hands of three individuals, saying, "Something is wrong here."