Skip to main content

Featured Post

Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park FAQ, timeline, and infographics (pinned post)

2 comments

CNBC suggests lowered crime in 78th indicates Barclays benefit (but crime down more citywide)

From a CNBC article yesterday, New Jersey and Brooklyn offer glimpses of what might have been for Amazon in Queens:
Small business owners were left bemoaning the Queens economic boom that got away. Perhaps the biggest losers were average New Yorkers, who polled 56 percent in favor of the deal.
Um, the poll question was extremely general, and many of the jobs would've gone to newcomers, so it's kind of tough to tease out the "biggest losers."

I had offered warnings about Amazon, given the Atlantic Yards experience revising the deal, so it's interesting to see CNBC trying to make more positive analogies:
No doubt, many stakeholders share the burden in the deal's death — which stirred memories of another epic development battle in Brooklyn years earlier.
Beginning in 2003, developer Forest City Ratner ran into interference from countless interests when attempting to break ground on a huge plot known as Atlantic Yards, now named Pacific Park Brooklyn. It had to draw big stars in the arts and the NBA to fill the seats at Barclay's Arena and promise to build affordable housing along with the luxury residential towers that would surround the arena.
Side by side, the Amazon deal and Pacific Park Brooklyn bear striking differences. There are also some similarities, though. Each saw the city sweetening the pot with multibillion-dollar tax breaks and subsidies. In the case of the Pacific Park Brooklyn, Forest City was embroiled in a local turf war and eventually conceded 2,250 affordable housing units. Construction on the arena began in 2010.
Actually, Forest City offered affordable housing from the start--a so-called 50/50 plan--which was then attenuated to 50% of rental units, after the developer added condos. The "concession" was part of an orchestrated plan, and the affordability of the units delivered has lagged behind the promises, with below-market units skewed toward middle-income households.4

Quoting a booster

From the article:
Former Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, a Democrat who presided over the nine-years-long Pacific Park Brooklyn negotiations, lamented over Amazon's "Fuhgeddaboudit" posture toward the deal in Queens.
"I do think it would've been a positive development for Long Island City and the city as a whole," he said.
Wait a sec. Markowitz was a loud voice of enthusiasm, from a bully pulpit, but Borough Presidents 1) don't have any veto or presiding role in city land use negotiations and 2) sure don't have any role in state projects, like Atlantic Yards.

Given that Markowitz is (or was, until recently) overseeing outer-borough tourism initiatives for NYC & Company, you'd think that he'd be pro-Amazon.

Some dubious statistics

From the article:
There are some indicators that Markowitz is right. The NYPD's 78th Precinct, which patrols the Barclays Center area, has seen a drop of over 25 percent in the seven major felony crime categories from 2003 to 2018. However, a number of those affordable housing units haven't been built yet. It is also still unclear whether all of the jobs and other benefits promised to the city for its tax breaks and subsidies came to fruition.
For more, see my FAQ.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment