Advocate both for and against the air rights deal have been working overtime to generate fliers.

Here are some corrections to a few of the more misleading statements we’ve seen.  There will likely be more to come.

This flier is mostly accurate. We tend to agree that one 28-story building is the most likely as-of-right alternative to the deal. But the flier places the 28-story building on the wrong lot. Due to “setback” requirements, we do not believe it is possible to build 28 stories on the corner lot (even the “with air rights” plans don’t call for a 28 story building on that lot).  Perhaps not coincidentally, a 28-story building on the correct lot would cast a shadow with almost exactly the same impact on Rainbow Park as the “with air rights” scenario.

This flier has a few issues (common to most of its numerous cousins as well): As was pointed out by an opposition flier, the scale of the two photos is different. The statement that two buildings are happening “no matter what” is inaccurate.  It’s a possible scenario, but we believe the single 28-story tower on the eastern lot to be the most likely as-of-right scenario (which, ironically, would make the impact of the YES vs. NO scenarios less disparate). The $53 million figure is pre-tax, so the co-op won’t actually benefit to the tune of $53 million (we believe the $39 million after-tax estimate is more meaningful).

In no circumstance will the air rights towers be 37′ from building 2.  The shortest distance from the corner of building 2 to the Bialystoker lot line is about 60′.  The new buildings won’t be any closer to the F section (and only 12 feet closer to the C section) than the old East Broadway Medical Associates building.  The shortest distance between an F section window and the new buildings will be about 20% farther than the distance between the F section and the E section.

This is the most egregiously misleading flier we have seen so far.  It incorrectly states that we will “permanently give up our access to a strip of our open space,” that we wont’ know how big they can build if say YES until after the deal is done, and that a successor owner would not be legally bound to abide by our contract if Ascend sells to someone else.