After press conference and letter from elected officials, BrooklynSpeaks launches petition asking NY State to enforce penalties for missing affordable housing
New York State could have started collecting more than $1.75 million a month in damages starting June 1, given the failure of Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park developers to deliver 876 (of 2,250) promised affordable housing units, but it hasn't, instead suspending the penalties while it negotiates with a new developer.
That new joint venture apparently involves Cirrus Real Estate Partners, Fortress Investment Group, an affiliate of the U.S. Immigration Fund (USIF), the firm LCOR, and existing developer Greenland USA, surely will seek to revise obligations and gain concessions, while likely making new promises of deferred public benefits.
New petition
The coalition BrooklynSpeaks, which in a 2014 settlement gained that commitment of $2,000/month damages for each missing unit, has previously protested the failure of enforcement (but hasn't yet pursued a lawsuit) and helped influenced local elected officials in writing Gov. Kathy Hochul and Empire State Development (ESD) CEO Hope Knight a letter demanding enforcement, yesterday launched a public petition on the matter.
"No future #Atlantic Yards plan will have any credibility if we can't trust @EmpireStateDev to hold developers accountable now," wrote Gib Veconi, a BrooklynSpeaks organizer, on Twitter/X. ESD oversees/shepherds the project.
As of publication, less than one day after launch, the petition has a relatively modest 172 signatures. It has not yet been publicized, as far as I can tell, by most of the BrooklynSpeaks member groups, nor by the elected officials who wrote the above-mentioned letter and who are aligned with BrooklynSpeaks.
Petition demands
The petition notes that the damages would go to the City of New York to create and preserve affordable housing in neighborhoods near the project, and could be used to accelerate housing planned under the recently adopted Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan, covering blocks just east of Vanderbilt Avenue, the eastern border of the Atlantic Yards site.
"Instead, ESD is allowing itself to be strung along by investors speculating in the distressed debt of the project’s developer, who have yet to demonstrate they are capable of completing the project," the petition states.
That apparently refers to Cirrus, USIF, and Fortress, none of which are developers, but which have recruited LCOR, a firm with a development track record, to qualify as a "permitted developer" under state rules, as Veconi explained in late May at a meeting of the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council (PHNDC), a BrooklynSpeaks member group.
Besides helping lead BrooklynSpeaks and the PHNDC, Veconi serves on the Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC), which is supposed to help ESD monitor the project.
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| Screenshot from PHNDC presentation |
"Governor Hochul, we join local elected officials in calling on you to honor the commitment the State made to the community surrounding Atlantic Yards," the petition reads. "Direct ESD to collect the damages due for the developer's failure to meet the agreed-upon affordable housing deadline."
"This money can be used to develop affordable housing now," it continues. "And the public can have no confidence in any new plan for Atlantic Yards put forward by an agency that is not willing to hold developers accountable."
So it seems BrooklynSpeaks has drawn a line in the sand. It's worth noting that BrooklynSpeaks filed a blistering set of public comments in May 2014 regarding the state's dismissal of the effect of delays, then, after gaining that new timetable in a settlement six weeks later, expressed new optimism about the project.
That settlement came with the penalties the state has since suspended.
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