Brooklyn Atlantic Yards/Nets Barclay's Arena

Forest City Ratner's plan to bring the New Jersey Nets basketball team to a new stadium in Brooklyn has been hotly contested since its announcement in 2004. The multi-billion project, when first envisioned, included a basketball arena for the New York Nets and several high-rise buildings for residential and commercial use. To win support from some groups, the developer promised a significant number of affordable housing units and local consrtuction jobs. But those promises did little to calm residents angered by New York State's use of eminent domain and the massive scale of the project on the surrounding Prospect Heights neighborhood. In response, two groups formed to create a broader vision for the development of the site and filed suits against the Empire State Development Corporation: Brooklyn Speaks and Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn. For a concise history and regular updates of the policy and politics of the project visit Atlantic Yards Report.

June 2005 - Forest City Ratner Corporation and several community groups released a Community Benefits Agreement on the proposed Brooklyn Atlantic Yards project  

May 2005, New York City Council holds a hearing on the proposed project read our testimony

In March 2005, the Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development issued a report with contributions from Good Jobs New York and the Fiscal Policy Institute: Slam Dunk or Airball? A Preliminary Planning Analysis of the Brooklyn Atlantic Yards Project

Learn more about CBAs.