1. Please address your letter to:

The Hon. Sheldon Silver
Speaker of the New York State Assembly
250 Broadway Room
NYC, NY 10007

or email: speaker@ assembly.state.ny.us

The Hon. Joseph L. Bruno
New York State Senate Majority Leader
LOB Room 909
Albany, Ny 11247

or email: bruno@senate.state.ny.us

2. Please CC the following:
Editor@legislativegazette.com contact@developdontdestroy.org

3. IMPORTANT: Please cut and paste your letter into the following form: http://www.timesunion.com/forms/emaileditor.asp

(You can copy and paste this text, to get started. But it's always best to use your own words and thoughts if time permits, and a shorter (even very short) letter is just fine.)

Dear Speaker Silver [or Senator Bruno],

I am writing to voice my strong opposition to the arena/high-rise development proposed by Forest City Ratner (FCR) for Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.

The community is extremely concerned with the fact that Brooklyn's largest-ever project is bypassing the city's Uniform Land Use Review Process which allows for community input, public review and a vote by our elected city council members. Such review is critical because:

• The area impacted by this proposal is larger than the world trade center site.
• The project would demand large sums of city and state subsidies.
• An independent economic study — performed by local residents but vetted by nationally-known economists — has demonstrated that this project would result in the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars for the taxpayers.
• Nobody denies that this project will result in a traffic nightmare at Brooklyn's most important traffic intersection.

One of the main objections that we have is that the plan lacks accountability. The State and City have appointed one favored corporation to develop public lands, without holding an open bid or considering competing developers and proposals. Worse yet, the developer has refused to make either the particulars of his design or critical financial information public.

The community is dismayed that 24 acres of prime land is being handed off to a developer with a no-bid contract. And we are extremely troubled with the use (or threat) of eminent domain to take local homes and businesses (including successful, new developments) and demolish them for another new development. But we are not surprised that FCR wants to grab these 24 acres in our beloved Brooklyn— it is very valuable property surrounded by five of Brooklyn's most popular and successful neighborhoods.

Speaker Silver [or Senator Bruno], please do the right thing and call for the development of the railyards at Atlantic Avenue to go through the ULURP process and to be open to an RFP. In spite of what FCR may have told you, other developers and other architects are interested in developing the site in ways that are supported by the community. And in spite of what you‘ve heard from FCR‘s lobbyists, tens of thousands of local residents adamantly oppose this project.

I hope you will use every means at your disposal to guarantee that New York allows this part of Brooklyn to continue growing in the successful manner it has been doing.

Thank you for your help in dealing with this terribly misguided plan.

Sincerely,