So, why did the Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan report emerge this week rather than "end of July" or mid-August, as previously (& unofficially) projected?

I wrote yesterday (link) about the release of the Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan (AAMUP) Community Vision and Priorities Report, and why the content deserves some caveats, especially because a meeting Sept. 6 will consider more concrete plans for zoning, as the city details potential height and bulk.

Beyond the city's reluctance to share such key information before the meeting, there's another reason for skepticism: why is there just a week--especially one when many people are on vacation or distracted over Labor Day weekend--between the release of the report and the next steps, thus tamping down the opportunity for public discussion?

It's perplexing, especially since those at two Community Board 8 Committee meetings this summer got more optimistic prognostications.

At the 6/21/23 meeting of the M-CROWN Subcommittee, Gib Veconi, the leader of the subcommittee and a member of the AAMUP Steering Committee, asked Department of City Planning staffer Jonah Rogoff if he had any update on the report.

"We hope to share that publicly very soon," Rogoff said. "We are targeting to release the engagement report--by we, I mean, the full project teams... by the end of July. While that's still a tentative date, that's what we're targeting and, I think, given where we're at, we feel pretty confident about that."

Another meeting

The timing was brought up at the 8/3/23 meeting of the Land Use Committee by Veconi.

"The AAMUP draft recommendations were published a few days ago," he said, presumably referencing their circulation to Steering Committee members, "and I suspect within the next several weeks, a few weeks, they'll be available for everybody to read."

Well, it wasn't a few weeks.

We can only speculate on why, but it diminishes public scrutiny and public participation.