Yesterday’s news that the Empire State Development Corporation had forgotten to include some responses to the Draft Environmental Impact Statement on Atlantic Yards before issuing the Final document indicates the landscape may be shifting. One would be hard pressed to say that Public Authorities Control Board member and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who holds a critical vote on Atlantic Yards, was rushing to vote on the project before Gov. Pataki leaves office. Now, the need to go back and revise the document and to determine what else may have been left out in the rush to complete the massive task could derail the entire approval schedule. There is rampant talk that the earliest the ESDC can re-issue the document will be December 10-15. Then, the ESDC must wait 10 days to vote. At which point, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas the holidays.

What are the odds that the Public Authorities Control Board, which has to approve the Atlantic Yards project, would vote between Christmas and New Year’s Eve?

It could turn out that the slip up will be The Boo Boo Heard All Around Brooklyn.