Atlantic Yards Community Development Corp. meeting re-scheduled for Wednesday. Public comment again requires clairvoyance.

OK, after having been postponed from last Wednesday due to a lack of a quorum, the (purportedly) advisory Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC) meeting has been rescheduled for this Wednesday, Aug. 2, at 3 pm, at the offices of the parent Empire State Development (ESD) in Manhattan: 633 Third Avenue – 37th Floor Conference Room.

The meeting also will be webcast. It might be a chance to ventilate some big questions about the future of Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park--or it might not.

According to purported building procedures--which haven't always been enforced as such--members of the public attending in-person should  RSVP by 4:30 pm on Tuesday, Aug. 1. Members of the press should call (800) 260-7313 and members of the public should call (212) 803-3795. 

The meeting has been re-scheduled with minimal transparency, an ESD hallmark. A media advisory and agenda appears on ESD's board meetings page, but neither were circulated, as far as I know. (I'm typically on the list for both media advisories and updates to neighbors. The media advisory is from Thursday.)

The meeting is not (yet?) announced on the AY CDC's own page.

Public comment requires clairvoyance

Members of the public must submit comments on the Agenda items in writing to AYCDCBdMtg@esd.ny.gov by 3 pm on Tuesday, August 1. As I wrote last week, meaningful comment requires clairvoyance, given the cryptic agenda.

One recommendation in the "Open ESD" report issued last week by Reinvent Albany is:

ESD should provide all materials for Board meetings at least three days in advance of Board meetings so the public can meaningfully comment on agenda items. Any budget or tabular data should be provided in an open, machine-readable format.

About the agenda

Beyond approval of the minutes, the agenda (below) includes an update on the B12/B13 project, aka 595 Dean Street (which recently opened).

The agenda also contains an update on platform construction, which the developer has said is likely to start in the second half of this year but otherwise has not provided any details. 

A platform over the MTA's Vanderbilt Yard, in two phases, would support six towers and five of the eight acres of open space (aka "park").

Will we get an explanation for the delays? Is it negotiations with the Long Island Rail Road? Lack of 421-a tax break? Financial pressures on the Shanghai-based parent of master developer Greenland USA?

Even more cryptic is a reference to "Pacific Park." Does that mean the new open space that's become available outside 595 Dean? Does that mean the future of the project? Does that mean new personnel overseeing the project at both ESD and developer Greenland USA?

I'd bet on a reference to the new open space, but who knows?

Preview observations

As I wrote, the pending issues include:

• the platform needed to support six towers over the MTA's Vanderbilt Yard;
• the 876 (or 877) units of affordable housing due by May 2025, and ESD's seeming reluctance to enforce the associated fines for missing that deadline;
• the expected argument by Greenland USA, which controls nearly all the rest of the project, for an extension of that deadline;
• and changes at both Greenland and ESD, leaving new people as the face of the project

The AY CDC is supposed to advise the parent ESD, the state authority, controlled by the governor, that oversees/shepherds the project. 

The AY CDC mostly been a sideshow or rubber stamp, but it can be a forum for representatives of the developer and ESD to answer questions they otherwise ignore.