What's up with the platform? Responding to FOIL request, ESD says it withholds records to protect information that could "impair" contracts.

Yes, something's brewing regarding the reconfiguration of the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park plan. We just don't know the details.

At the Quality of Life meeting earlier this month, Tobi Jaiyesimi, Atlantic Yards Project Manager for Empire State Development (ESD)--the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project--said there were "no updates to share at this time" regarding the delayed platform.

The first phase had been scheduled to start last spring, and would support three of the six towers over the Vanderbilt Yard. Since last spring, it's gotten teased as imminent in the bi-weekly Construction Updates, subject to receipt of permits.

Affordable housing delay

That delayed platform means it's impossible for developer Greenland Forest City Partners to deliver the remaining 876 (or 877) affordable housing units by May 2025, out of the required 2,250 units.

But the developer, dominated by Greenland USA, surely does not want to pay the $2,000/month fines for each missing unit.

Indeed, Jaiyesimi's language at the meeting, whether intentional or a slip, was telling.

"At this time, there have been no discussions with regards to the affordable penalty and for those who may not be familiar, the project has a requirement that there be a specific number of affordable units delivered by 2025," she said. "If not, the developer may face a penalty of $2,000 per unit that has not met that 2,250 number. And so at this time, there have been no considerations or discussions with regards to that penalty."

(Emphasis added)

What about the platform?

Four months ago, in October 2022, I filed a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request for documents regarding plans for the platform, including updates to the timetable, noting that Greenland USA, in a 9/30/19 article published by the New York Post, stated that construction would start in 2020. 

I thought that article was a public relations strategy.

Then came the pandemic, and further evidence that Greenland USA's parent company, Shanghai-based Greenland Holding Group, was struggling financially.

Well, there are documents regarding the platform, unsurprisingly.

However, I was told, "ESD has withheld records as they contain information that 'if disclosed would impair present or imminent contract awards.'"

Yes, that is an exception in the law governing FOIL.

What "contract awards"?

Let me try to tease out the logic.

Greenland needs permits from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), parent of the Long Island Rail Road, and the city's Department of Buildings, to start construction of the platform.

There's no contract with ESD for the platform, other than a 5/12/25 deadline to start the platform, which shouldn't be too hard to meet.

Could the "contract awards" referenced in the ESD letter refer to the Development Agreement, the overall contract regarding the project?

That Development Agreement includes the overall project timetable, with 2035 as an "outside date" for completion, as well as--after a renegotiation in 2014 and new amendments--that May 2025 deadline for the 2,250 affordable units, including the fines.

However, as I wrote in December, ESD told me, in response to a separate Freedom of Information Law request, that there were no documents regarding a request for an extension or renegotiation of the deadline, despite ample hints from Greenland USA's Scott Solish that some kind of renegotiation was brewing.

Note that the Development Agreement also includes a "right to refrain" from enforcement of provisions. 

So that general issue might be what's under discussion. But who knows. This is an issue that local elected officials, especially state ones, should be asking about.