BrooklynSpeaks seeks meeting with Empire State Development over future of Atlantic Yards. Fair enough, but NY State should also speak to public at large.

With a foreclosure sale on the development rights to six Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park parcels, what next?

I wrote yesterday about coalition BrooklynSpeaks' argument for a new plan, but that's not the most pressing thing. After all, the primary question, to me, regards transparency regarding the foreclosure sale.

It's unclear who's responsible for delivering 876 more affordable housing units by May 2025, as established in a 2014 settlement the coaltion negotiated, with $2,000/month fines for each missing unit, and whether the deadline and damages would be attached to the parcels.

Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project, owes the public more transparency.

So I followed up with a few questions for BrooklynSpeaks. Responses below, in italics, are from Gib Veconi of the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council, on behalf of the coalition. I've added a few observations, as well.

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What might BrooklynSpeaks sponsors/supporters do in the next weeks to affect and/or shed light on the foreclosure sale? 

We will continue to work to increase public awareness of the issues surrounding the Greenland USA default. We’ve also requested a meeting with ESD to discuss the questions raised in our December 11 briefing.

Indeed, ESD should say more than, as it told the Real Deal, that Gov. Kathy Hochul is committed to the “successful buildout and completion of this project" and they are reviewing the issues. They should speak not just to coalitions involving elected officials, like BrooklynSpeaks, but to the public at large.

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Do you favor a greater public role, in terms of building the platform and/or the affordable housing? if so, where could/should the money come from?

Additional public support should be considered as part of a new plan for the site that includes deeper affordability and local representation in project governance.

That's a huge issue. If the public might be asked to bail out the project, whether thanks to relaxed requirements regard to timing/damages and/or a request for more deeply affordable housing, local representation in project governance strikes me as a floor rather than a ceiling.

Beyond that, public hearings and discussions would be needed.

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BrooklynSpeaks made reference to the issue of a sole-source developer in the litigation that began in 2009, after the project's revision and re-approval, and which led to a court-ordered Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, but did BrooklynSpeaks bring that up before the project's initial passage in 2006?

BrooklynSpeaks was formed in August 2006, four months before the PACB’s [Public Authorities Control Board] approval of the GPP [General Project Plan]. During that time, the coalition’s principal focus was seeking changes to the project plan. After plan’s approval, our focus shifted to accountability and governance.

Indeed, BrooklynSpeaks was formed by the Municipal Art Society (MAS), a citywide advocate for urban issues, with neighborhood and advocacy groups, with what I termed a "mend it, don't end it" posture.

That contrasted with project opponents Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB), which pursued lawsuits challenging the use of eminent domain, the legitimacy of the environmental review, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's deal to sell development to the Vanderbilt Yard.

Separate lawsuits filed by BrooklynSpeaks--after which the MAS had departed--and DDDB challenging the state's re-approval of the project in 2009 were later combined, and led to a court-ordered study of the impact of a delayed buildout, given that ESD had given the developers 25 years, rather than the ten years long professed.

But it was DDDB, now defunct, that first took aim at the willingness of the state and the city to allow a sole developer an inside track at this project. 

Yes, that was portrayed--including by me--as signs of a sweetheart deal.

And it was, in some sense, enabling the construction of an arena that led to the enormously rising value of the Brooklyn Nets.

But it also meant, more clearly in hindsight, the risk of relying on a single developer.

"In Brooklyn, there’s been no planning, and the sole developer and beneficiary is Forest City Ratner–signs of a sweetheart deal," wrote veteran advocacy planner Ron Shiffman, in an essay posted by DDDB. 

He joined the DDDB advisory board. He more recently has advised BrooklynSpeaks, though last year he argued that the coalition should more aggressively push for a revamp of the project.