Would "Community Engagement" work or be an "exercise in futility"? With no plan yet and little trust, let's see what might emerge by October.

This is the fourth of four articles on the Aug. 6 meeting of the Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC), which is supposed to advise the parent Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project. The meeting was held at 55 Hanson Place in Brooklyn. 

The first article concerned the state's suspension of affordable housing penalties. The second discussed why valuable Site 5 is key to the project. The third addressed whether Greenland has a case to protest the penalties.

Given the widespread cynicism about ESD's unwillingness to pursue $1.752 million a month in penalties for missing affordable housing and the absence of a plan for the remaining project from the expected incoming development team(s), it was not the most auspicious time to discuss "Community Engagement": gaining input from neighbors and other interested parties about components of that future plan.

Nevertheless, ESD has hired a consultant, Karp Strategies, which made a presentation (video below) outlining its experience and seeking input from AY CDC Directors about how to understand community sentiment.

One takeaway: though Karp was hired with the expectation of launching such public meetings in September, it would have to wait until at least October. 

Only by then might after a "permitted developer" might be approved for the six sites over the Vanderbilt Yard, which require an expensive platform, and the Site 5 parcel across from the arena.

In both cases, the developer would be a joint venture led by Cirrus Real Estate Partners and the development firm LCOR, but with different financial partners, as explained. 

Other complications

There are other complications.

It's unclear whether and how much the contours of the developer's plan would be available, though surely a revision of project scope and timeline, with new promises of public benefits, would be crucial to assess.

That sets up a potential tension between the project's financial feasibility, public benefits, and community impact. Remember, the project has felled two developers, Forest City Ratner and then Greenland USA, while enriching two owners of the Brooklyn Nets and the arena company, Mikhail Prokhorov and Joe Tsai. 

As I reported, Greenland in 2023 unsuccessfully sought to supersize the project, thus making it more viable, adding thousands more apartments and more affordable units, but pushing back the timeline and even seeking part of a public street to be considered for additional open space.

(Why can't Tsai be asked to cross-subsidize the project, given the value of both the public support so far and the value of making the arena plaza permanent?)

Moreover, it's unclear how much ESD might be able to incorporate community "asks" in a revised plan, given that Cirrus's stated goal to "generate consistent, attractive returns through identifying investments that offer asymmetric risk-return profiles and significant downside protection" and Gov. Kathy Hochul's goal, as far as can be discerned, is to get the project moving forward.

Vetting the proposal

Until and unless various alternatives--see the ever-revised Brooklyn Marine Terminal plan, albeit on publicly-owned property, as one flawed template--are presented, with differing potential outcomes, it would be tough for the public to react.

"In theory, I'm for community engagement," said key AY CDC Director Gib Veconi, as I reported in my first article, "but there has to be some financial underpinnings to give it validity."

"We intend to kick all of these tires," said Arden Sokolow, Executive VP, Real Estate and Planning. "We wanted to be deferential to the stakeholders, the community... hearing how the community would respond."

That, I wrote, seemsed a trifle disingenuous. After all, "form follows finance," which means the developers' expectations shape the program. 

AY CDC Director Ron Shiffman said he agreed that the project needed to be financially sound, "but I also believe there has to be a qualitative basis....who's going to benefit, what are the family sizes, is it truly affordable?"

I'd note that there are tradeoffs between scale and affordability. They can offer more affordability if they build ever bigger, but at some point a development can be overwhelming, which is why, for example, Greenland in 2023 sought more open space. 

May 2023 draft. Click to enlarge

What was missing

ESD's plans, I wrote last November, were in a draft Scope of Work produced in May 2023 in response to Greenland's plans to supersize the project.

(I acquired the document through a Freedom of Information Law request.)

No such detail about this scope was presented at the Aug. 6 meeting, which focused on forms of outreach. 

The contractor's "inclusive" community engagement process would involve perhaps four public sessions, anticipating 50 to 100 attendees per session, that would:

• use maps, texts, and graphics to explain the project history, site context, and programming options for the balance of the project site 
• solicit community feedback and vision on topics including but not limited to: affordable housing preferences, desired community amenities, priorities for open space and public realm, and non-residential space usage 
• translate session feedback into themes to shape project vision into actionable guidelines
• hold a “follow-up” meeting with project partners including the developer, the MTA, and other governmental agencies to present community vision 

(Emphasis added)

As I wrote, the public would be allowed to express preference about the amount and affordability of below-market housing, as well as hopes for new public space. 

 

That, however, does not necessarily address the impact of the developer's desired scale and the significant gift of the additional bulk, much less the overall economics of the project, or all the trade-offs involved. Will that be a black box?

 

The video

The discussion

In the second half of the meeting, David Viana, Assistant VP for Community Relations, updated the group on the planning for public engagement.

Once a permitted developer is approved, he said, "any changes to the project's plan that the permitted developer may seek will first require the completion of the robust communication process." No project changes have been been approved, nor would they before this process.

Via a consultant, Karp Strategies, ESD aims to conduct public engagement throughout this fall, with completion targeted for the end of the year, aiming to "incorporate numerous topics" and "a wide range of stakeholders." (That timetable, starting in September according to the presentation, surely will be pushed back.)

The community input, Viana said, will be part of a public report that will then inform a redevelopment plan for the platform sites and for Site 5, where a giant two-tower project might be built if ESD approves the bulk transfer from B1, the tower once slated to loom over the arena, across Flatbush Avenue. 

That transfer would benefit both Greenland, otherwise unable to monetize B1, and BSE Global, avoiding disruptions from the construction and operation of a huge tower.

The process ultimately would lead to a revised Modified General Project Plan (MGPP) and a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS), which will have its own public process, culminating in an inevitable approval by ESD's gubernatorially-controlled board.

The plan

The work will be done by Karp Strategies, an urban planning and strategy consulting firm based in New York City, with this project led by principal Annie White, an urban planner and architect who worked for the NYC Department of City Planning for five years. Four others will work with her, as a slide below suggests.

Screenshots from meeting video (because they didn't circulate the slideshow)

"Over the next few weeks, Karp's directive is to discuss, plan, and get feedback on what the engagement process will look like as we work on this next phase of the Atlantic Yards project," Viana said..

About Karp

White introduced Karp as a "women-owned urban planning and consulting firm" with ten years of experience. As the slide below shows, it also uses the buzzword "mission-driven."

"We work with public and private sector clients across New York and across the Northeast on projects," White said, "and we really value engagement processes that build... more inclusive equitable economies and cities."

"Many of us live around the site in Brooklyn," she said, acknowledging that "we're coming in with a site with a lot of long history and we're here to learn more from you."

Given Karp's range of services, White said "we're not just a community engagement firm. We're able to kind of see the bigger picture of planning projects and... we can take the planning and real estate jargon and communicate that with residents and individuals."

That raises a question not addressed at the meeting: could this consultant produce alternative plans or economic analyses of the Cirrus plan? Karp likely has the expertise, but it's likely not in their remit Could the AY CDC hire its own consultants, as then-Director Jaime Stein once proposed?

About engagement

Though situations differ, White said, Karp aims to keep core values and "understanding of community needs at the heart of what we do."

She described various past projects, including the St. George Waterfront Development in Staten Island, with the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYC EDC) as client.

Given changing conditions there, she said, the city is rethinking some of the development strategy. So Karp organized workshops and focus groups for feedback. 

Other projects, which she subsequently described, are listed at the bottom of this article.

How they work 

 

"We want to make sure that we are really identifying where there is room for feedback to shape a project," said White. The firm would then document and synthesize feedback to share it with ESD and with the development team.

Broadening engagement

Karp aims to "engage more people" than those who typically show up at Community Board meetings, White said.

"We are still in what we're calling the engagement planning process. So, we're still developing what that outreach plan is going to look like," she said, and preparing to "kickstart the public engagement in whatever form that takes starting in September," through the end of the year.

 

That schedule seems ambitious, given that there's no project to respond to, and indeed it later was informally revised.

Possible avenues

White outlined potential engagement activities, including community tabling, focus groups, public workshops, and an online survey.

Community tabling, for example, would allow them to "meet people where they are," while an online survey could be shared most broadly.

Questions for discussion 

So White asked the board members for their guidance on mode. (Keep in mind, there were six board members present, of whom only a few are particularly informed about, or engaged in, the project.)

Veconi, invoking the stalled St. George project, noted that it would be "very very challenging" to talk about the future of Atlantic Yards "when we've not held it accountable to its past commitments."

(As a leader of the BrooklynSpeaks coalition, he in 2014 helped negotiate the new May 2025 affordable housing deadline, and also organized a recent petition calling on Hochul to impose the penalties. It has 483 signatures as of publication.)

 

"The first thing is just being being honest about the frustrations that people are feeling and taking accountability for the timeline and the frustrations," said White. That of course doesn't address ESD's failure to pursue the liquidated damages.

 

Shiffman suggested that, given the election season, many people's attention will be diverted to other issues. "You're entering this in a very difficult period of time," said Shiffman, a veteran community planner and academic, acknowledging they have the capability to do the work.

He said he thought the discussion should include qualitative standards, such as the need for real affordable housing and adherence to the racial equity standards required now by city projects (but not state ones like this).

 

How, Shiffman asked, would Community Boards and the Borough President's Office be engaged? White noted that a member of Borough President Antonio Reynoso's team was present.

 

AY CDC Director Drew Gabriel, who works for supportive housing operator CAMBA, raised the possibility of building not affordable but supportive housing.

AY CDC Chair Daniel Kummer reminded him, "We're bringing in a developer [Cirrus] whose focus workforce housing."

Gabriel pointed out the history of the project's Community Benefits Agreement, which didn't deliver on promises, and the possibility of new requests from community groups.

Chicken and egg issue

ESD's Anna Pycior, Executive VP, Community Relations, acknowledged there's "an element of chicken
and the egg" in the process, given that that the community wants to know how finances constrain the project, but they want to learn community asks.
 

In this case, the "astronomical costs" associated with the platform are a constraint, she said.

It wouldn't be the first time soliciting community priorities.

 

It's worth noting that the 2023 Community Vision and Priorities report for the city's Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan (AAMUP), anticipating a rezoning of blocks just east of the Atlantic Yards site, established six priorities, leading with: "Create new, permanent, deeply affordable housing on private and public sites through increased density along Atlantic Avenue and surrounding streets."

In the case of Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, New York State already overrode city zoning to allow for larger towers and thus more affordable housing, but that didn't work. Was it that the state didn't give enough away, or the MTA asked too much for development rights, or was it more complicated?

Other priorities included a redesign of Atlantic Avenue, new open space, job training, and more. Some of those are not directly applicable, but they already give a sense of community priorities.

The challenge, of course, would be the tradeoffs.

Past to present

Kummer wanted to know what ESD wanted from the board.

To get advice around cadence and type of engagement, said ESD's Sokolow.

Veconi noted that, in 2022, BrooklynSpeaks held four online charrettes--known as Crossroads--about the future of the project, including housing; urban design and street design, transportation; and accountability. "And I think those are all subjects people are, you know, are are interested in," he said.

 

(My coverage is here. I thought that the sessions were very useful, but BrooklynSpeaks' unwillingness to address the scale of the Site 5 project suggested that affordable housing was their priority.)

"At this stage I think the accountability piece is going to be very important," Veconi said. "That's a place where I think we're going to be confronted with the question: what's different this time?" 

The tradeoffs

Veconi suggested that a large project like this resembles a triangle: one leg involves developer entitlements (or public permissions), another is subsidy and the other is public goods. 

 

"And you can control maybe two sides of that triangle," he said. So "if there aren't many subsidies out there today... the developer who's seeking additional entitlements is going to promise significant public goods in order to justify the entitlements."

 

Translation: a bigger building can deliver more, and more deeply, affordable housing.

 

Also important, noted Veconi, is a timetable for delivery. (I've written about the cost of delay, as below-market housing becomes ever more expensive.) Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner held "a giant affordable housing outreach session in 2005. Hundreds of people came. How many still live in Brooklyn?"

"I think this this project has kind of been in the tube for a long time and it would be helpful for people to understand what the various dimensions and dependencies are," Veconi said. 

 

He's right, but we don't know some key things, such as the cost to Cirrus, the contractual deals, and the ownership percentages for each of the parties. 

 

For example, Greenland, which would be a junior partner in Site 5 and has wound down its development activities, likely just wants to get some money from its holdings, to pay off corporate debt. 

 

Depending on Greenland's contract with Cirrus, it might be plausible to dun Greenland for the liquidated damages, while still not preventing ESD's negotiations with the Cirrus-led joint venture from proceeding. But we don't know the terms.

The whole or just the future?

Kummer observed that the project is partially completed. Will people be discussing the the whole or just the future development sites, which are in different Community Districts?

 

White acknowledged it's a unique condition, and they expect attendees to include people now living in the new properties along with existing neighborhood residents.

 

"I think that to use our time wisely, we need to focus feedback on the project moving forward," she said. "But we also understand that if you're a resident of the property now and you have an issue, that's also a forum... to share what you think of the project overall."

 

Such feedback, she said, might be lessons learned for the future 

Interesting. What about people who bear the brunt of arena crowds? That's why BrooklynSpeaks, for example, has advocated for arena operator BSE Global to fund a quality of life enforcement unit.

 

Also, what about those living in a rental building like 38 Sixth Ave. (B3) managed by a less than responsible company, facing problems like hot water and elevator outages? ESD has previously said its goal was to monitor construction.

 

Feedback modes 

White sought feedback on the value of a large public workshop type meetings versus smaller focus groups and tabling.
 

AY CDC Director Deborah Young pointed out that many seniors aren't online and may have mobility issues. "We welcome ideas on how to reach out," White said.

To provide AY CDC feedback, Kummer said he'd like to have a process where directors could comment

amongst each other without having to call a meeting. That might require an executive session.

What's the premise?

 

Kummer raised the issue of a new project plan.

 

"This is where the 'contours of the plan' come in," observed Sokolow, invoking a vague term she'd previously used. "The developer has ideas that we have not again blessed.... [but] we want them to put forward so that we can get feedback."

Shiffman noted that he'd sent Sokolow a document on how to evaluate housing plans: "You can get higher density sometimes by low-rise high density design than you can by just going 910 feet." (That was a reference to the plans for Site 5.)

"And so there may be other options that we have to take a look at," he continued. "There may be ways of radically changing it that should not be ignored."

 

That did not provoke enthusiasm from ESD.

 

Veconi observed that, to make the process work, they'd need some plan from the developer. He suggested that questions about process were less important than "what are we really looking for?" 

 

He said he thought online meetings could be fraught, perhaps prompting the need to turn off the comments.

Veconi praised the in-person workshops organized for the AAMUP, sponsored by Council Member Crystal Hudson, for channeling feedback on particular topics.

 

An "exercise in futility"?

 

If the process delivers recommendations, asked Shiffman, how much could it influence the developers "or is it just an exercise in futility?"

"So this would result in set of recommendations," Sokolow said, of which those "we all agree can move forward" and would go into state documents.

 

Shiffman asked about the parameters for such input: "Is it going to be a lot or is it going to be a straitjacket?"

 

"I think we don't know yet," Sokolow said. "We don't have to modify anything anything that we haven't negotiated." 

 

Is the developer, asked Kummer, required to engage with incorporating consensus recommendations, which might involve changing its plan?

"We intend to engage in this community engagement process and we intend for them and us to listen to this and do our best to incorporate as much as we can," Sokolow said.

 

"I think basically ESD is in charge of figuring out how long each leg of the triangle is," Veconi observed. "The entitlements, public goods, the subsidies. That is what the agency does."

 

Sure, but they're also set up to boost economic development.

Timing and scope 

Given the delays in approving the permitted developer, acknowledged ESD's Joel Kolkmann, Senior VP, Real Estate and Planning, the best case to start this process would be October, not September.

The Directors then discussed having a meeting in September.

Veconi observed that it was important to engage not only elected officials but city agencies, including the Department of Transportation, which is redesigning Flatbush Avenue for bus lanes and plans a study of Atlantic Avenue as part of the AAMUP rezoning.

 

He also said the New York Police Department should be engaged, given their role "around arena-related issues," including parking, crowds, and deliveries in the area.

It's worth noting that the NYPD has something of a hands-off (or enabling) policy toward Barclays Center operations and visitors, thus enabling encroachments that, in other cases, might generate penalties.

 

Gabriel cited the need for the MTA to be involved. Veconi mentioned arena operator BSE Global.

More from the Karp presentation

White went through various past projects, including the St. George Waterfront Development in Staten Island, with the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYC EDC) as client.

Given changing conditions, she said, the city is rethinking some of the development strategy. So Karp organized workshops and focus groups for feedback,

 

The East 149th Street Street Corridor Study, for the South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation was more of a real estate market analysis to understand retail needs but also involved public realm and quality of life concerns.

The Brownsville Public Library redesign, with the clients the New York City Department of Design and Construction and the Brooklyn Public Library, aimed to rethink community interaction with the labray

The coastal resiliency project cited below, with the Two Bridges community in Lower Manhattan, aimed to get feedback from a community facing a major infrastructure project. In this case, the client again was NYC EDC. 

Looking at senior housing in Central Brooklyn, Karp worked with the Bedford-Stuyvesant-based Bridge Street Development Corporation.