At advisory meeting, planner Shiffman suggests unusually large Site 5 plan is "an untenable proposal for development." Only response concerns affordability trade-off.

This is the third of five articles on the March 25, 2025 meeting of the advisory Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC), held at the office of its parent Empire State Development (ESD). The first concerned the Pacific Park Conservancy. The second concerned making BSE Global pay for a permanent arena plaza. The fourth concerned the AY CDC budget. The fifth concerned the project's future.

AY CDC Director Ron Shiffman--veteran advocacy planner, Pratt academic, and former City Planning Commissioner--raised a question about Site 5, the parcel across Flatbush Avenue from the arena block long home to the big-box stores P.C. Richard and the now-closed Modell's.

Looking south at Site 5. Photo: Norman Oder

It's slated for a far larger project, as of 2021, than previously planned: two towers, one 910 feet and the other 450 feet, thanks to a proposed shift of bulk from the unbuilt B1 tower, once slated to loom over the arena, and a total bulk of 1.242 million square feet.

The approved plan, for now, is a 250-foot building with nearly 440,000 square feet, while in 2015-2016 the developer floated a two-tower plan towers 785 feet and 383 feet, and a total bulk of 1.142 million square feet.

The question had been raised in a public comment (below) based on my coverage of the project's very large Floor Area Ratio (FAR), a measure of bulk relative to the underlying site.

The proposed agreement, Shiffman said, would allow a FAR, of 25.5, "10 FAR greater than the tallest building on Flatbush Avenue.” 

(Not quite the tallest building, but the densest development. The nearby Alloy Block, formerly known as 80 Flatbush, has an FAR of 15.5. It will include the second-tallest building, as of now. The Empire State Building has an FAR of 31.)

The Site 5 outline, bottom center, includes the approved building and the two proposals

“That, to me, goes back to the carrying capacity of whether this community can provide the kind of social and physical and environmental support to that kind of a population,” Shiffman said. "It's 25.5 FAR. That’s unheard of in Brooklyn… I’d like like you to come back and really rethink what you have given preliminary approval.

(Shiffman earlier described what he meant by carrying capacity: "the maximum number of individuals an environment can support without degrading that environment.")

An "untenable proposal"

“It really is an untenable proposal for development,” he said. “I really wish that, before you enter into any agreements like that, that the public processes take place and that our board could really consult with you on what the kind of development should take place on that site."

The Site 5 plan, while gaining support from Empire State Development in a 2021 interim lease, still needs approval by the authority's board, which would come after a public process. 

Complicating the issue is that proposal was made by Greenland USA, the project's master developer, which is expected to lose control of the six railyard sites, via foreclosure, but, if not, may be subject to ESD's pursuit of liquidated damages for 876 units of unbuilt affordable housing.

In other words, though Greenland seems to be a zombie developer for the railyard sites, ESD may retain leverage over the company, as it seeks to monetize the Site 5 plan, either by bringing in a partner or selling the development rights.

What's it for?

“It shouldn't just be a dollar generator,” Shiffman said. “It's got to be something that contributes of the quality of life in the city of New York and the borough in particular.”

“Well, I don't think anyone's talking about it being purely a dollar generator,” countered AY CDC Chair Daniel Kummer said. “The issue is generating housing, affordable housing.” 

That's been the general template for Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park backers: build bigger to cross-subsidize affordability, and still a source of public debate and division. The question is the limit. (That's been an issue even before the most recent proposal for the towers, dated 2021, surfaced last year.)

“Creating shelter is really important,” Shiffman said, “but creating viable and healthy communities is more important. And those kinds of buildings will wind up having a whole slew of one-bedroom and studio apartments, and they won't meet the needs of New Yorkers for two- three-bedroom apartments right now.”

“Not if we have a community engagement process that insists on creation of different configurations of housing,” Kummer said. (That still leaves the question of whether a more mixed configuration of units hits a limit in terms of scale.)

“That's why maybe getting the money from this project and transferring it to other sites might be the most appropriate vehicle,” Shiffman said, referring to the possibility, raised in the main discussion of the project's fate, that damages for unbuilt affordable housing could be used to support affordable housing in nearby neighborhoods. (Stay tuned for more on that.)

ESD officials didn't comment on this exchange. 

 

Discussion of Site 5 has been less than transparent. After all, when Kummer last June proposed that ESD ask Greenland for a Site 5 proposal, the state executives did not disclose that, nearly three years earlier, they'd already come to an agreement.