Former Assemblyman Roger Green calls for new homeownership agenda to stem loss of Black population. (What about Atlantic Yards affordable condos?)

Former Brooklyn Assemblyman Roger Green, who served from 1981-2007 and represented the proposed Atlantic Yards footprint when the project was announced and let the push for a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA), is back in the news.

As NY 1 put it Dec. 16, Former Brooklyn assemblyman urges Mamdani to address displacement of Black residents.

I'll describe Green's recent proposals below, but first note that, while suggesting various solutions, he didn't mention the promise, albeit fuzzy, of 600 to 1,000 affordable for-sale units in the Atlantic Yards project, on or off site, later updated to a promise of 200 on site. That requires subsidies.

Given that the promise was incorporated into the CBA, I wouldn't be surprised if Green revives it.

The issue's back

At a meeting earlier this month of the Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC), Ismene Speliotis, the key architect of the Atlantic Yards Housing Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that original developer Forest City Ratner signed with ACORN (and was incorporated into the CBA), lamented that the MOU's promises of affordable rentals had not been upheld.

While she didn't mention it in her public statement, her written statement--which I saw in draft, and presumably has been/will be submitted--also noted the failure to deliver below-market for-sale units.

"We are requesting," Speliotis wrote, "that the developer commence negotiations to meet this MOU commitment on homeownership immediately." (The new development team hasn't mentioned affordable condos.)

That said, there's a cost to delay. If the MOU "contemplated that a majority of the affordable for-sale units will be sold to families in the upper affordable income tiers," rising Area Median Income (AMI) means the income cap for the tiers has risen enormously, potentially advantaging singles earning nearly $200,000 and larger households earning more, all at 165% of AMI.

Setting the agenda

Green, who's held various leadership positions at Medgar Evers College and CUNY Law School, interviewed Mamdani in October at the Major Owens Health and Wellness Center in Crown Heights, organized by the Coalition for a Democratic and Just New York, according to a report from the Bed-Stuy-based Our Time Press. 

(The Coalition doesn't have a website, so its membership is unclear, but Green seems to take a lead.)

At that interview, Mamdani cited his goals: freezing the rent for rent-stabilized apartments, creating an Office of Deed Theft Prevention, and establishing land trusts for residential and business tenants.

Green, in a Nov. 1 essay in Our Time Press, Zohran Mamdani Versus the Economic Royalists,  criticized independent candidate Andrew Cuomo, the former Governor, and praised Mamdani for embracing the principles that the Coalition for a Democratic and Just New York had presented him in October, seeking a "new course toward justice and shared prosperity."

More asks

Green's column in the most recent issue of Our Time Press, Dec. 4-17, is Urging Mayor Elect-Mamdani to Democratize Housing and Land Use, saying a mandate from Black voters "reflects a deep yearning for transformative leadership willing to confront the anti-democratic and inequitable housing policies that have driven more than 600000 [sic] African heritage New Yorkers out of the city in just six years."

Click to enlarge

(Note: that figure may be a typo for 60,000. The New York Times in 2023 reported that nearly 200,000 Black New Yorkers had left in the past two decades.)

The Coalition for a Democratic and Just New York "proposes a transformative housing and land use agenda designed to restore affordability, dignity, and self-determination for African Diasporic New Yorkers and all working families across the city," wrote Green.

These include:

• Impose an Immediate Moratorium on the Sale of In Rem Properties, retaining them as public assets.
• Leverage New York City Public Deposits to Enforce Equitable Banking Practices, such as avoiding short sales, "enabling fair and affordable purchase opportunities for young families in historically disinvested neighborhoods."
• Establish a Citywide Community Land and Conservation Trust to distribute property through a public benefit corporation.
• Expand Affordable Homeownership and Generational Wealth, such as reviving Mitchell-Lama efforts.
• Democratize NYCHA Through Resident Centered Governance, employing residents
• Build Workforce Housing for Essential Public Service Workers, ensuring they live near their jobs

Some of those proposals have significant price tags, while others require political muscle. They significantly address home ownership, not policies regarding rents.

On NY 1

Interviewing Green on NY 1's Inside City Hall, host and Central Brooklyn resident Errol Louis noted the loss of nearly 200,000 Black residents and asked Green why the proposed policies focus on home ownership.

"In order to address  this crisis, you also have to deal with the question of generational wealth," said Green, noting that in the United States that has historically relied on home ownership.

  

Louis observed that neighborhood investments in Central Brooklyn, such as in the Franklin Avenue Shuttle and Medgar Evers College, had made the area more attractive, and that "the pressures that we're seeing that we're now calling unaffordability are things that in some ways are a sign of progress."

Green didn't disagree, but said that redlining and other policies had hampered creation of generational wealth.

Renters vs. homeowners

Louis pointed out that there were far more renters than homeowners, so it would be tougher to build political support. 

Green acknowledged that, but said "we need a radical imagination" regarding policies like community land trusts and limited equity co-operative housing.

One unmentioned issue: the city's skewed property tax system, with powerful forces resisting reform. 

As one commenter on the YouTube version of the interview stated, "Stop taxing my $750,000 home in Flatbush the SAME as a 1.5 million home in Bay Ridge. The math simply does not add up. I blame the stupid and corrupt City Council for this shamefulness."

Louis was professionally cordial and, by providing this forum, gave Green an opportunity to make his case to a larger audience. Unmentioned: Louis, as a columnist for the New York Sun, in 2004 harshly criticized Green for minimizing his misdeeds when pleading guilty to misdemeanors involving false travel expenses, strategically resigning, and returning to office for one more term.