The last Atlantic Yards Quality of Life meeting was in February. The last AY Community Development Corp. meeting was in early August. Time for an update?

Maybe there's not much to talk about. There's no new construction on the horizon.

Maybe there's no one to come forward. 

But it's notable that the most recent Quality of Life meeting, for years a bi-monthly opportunity to hear updates and ask questions, was last held 2/7/23, itself more than four months after the previous meeting.

Remember, the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park point man for developer Greenland USA left in February, and the corresponding person for state authority Empire State Development (ESD) had left by July.

Neither has been replaced, though higher-ups did speak at the Aug. 2 meeting of the purportedly advisory Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC), which is supposed to monitor the obligations regarding the project.

The AY CDC is supposed to meet quarterly, but it had previously met April 11, which itself was nine months after the previous meeting.

Questions pending

There are questions to be answered, some more important than others.

For example, how many people have moved into the affordable units at 595 Dean, for which the application deadline was extended twice, to Aug. 15. A state official had predicted move-ins by October. Did that happen?

Now that the open space outside 595 Dean has finally opened, how is it working?

And there are larger questions.

As I reported two weeks ago, the AY CDC requested that the parent ESD prepare, by Oct. 3. a financial analysis of Pacific Park's future, an ESD rep said the report was still in process. The timing--as well as the state authority's capacity to do this in a timely fashion--is a mystery. Don't we deserve an update?

That report was requested in light of ESD's inchoate plans for public engagement and a potential tax break deal to get Pacific Park towers started.

Though there was no formal motion, Directors Ron Shiffman and Gib Veconi both asked ESD officials to detail not just the total number of affordable units but also how that configuration compares to earlier promises, notably in the much-promoted but non-binding 2005 Affordable Housing Memorandum of Understanding, or MOU.

I’ve provided such an accounting, below. But there's no reason it shouldn't be should be done officially.