Atlantic Yards CDC agenda: Executive Session should include details of developers' subsidy request. Routine budget approval invites scrutiny of annual spending.

Sometime in the last day, with barely enough time to post public comment by today's deadline of 3 pm, Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds Atlantic Yards, released the agenda for tomorrow's meeting of the purportedly advisory Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC).

The directors will get an oral report on the Draft Community Engagement Report, regarding public input on the future of the project, that was issued a few days ago. 

My critique is here: Draft Community Engagement Report Backs (!?) Developers' Aim to Downplay Low-Income Housing.

Executive session

Also of note, the directors will go into executive session regarding "Negotiations with the Project Developer Regarding Memorandum of Understanding and Development of Property/Project."

The presumably involves the developer's desire for $350 million in subsidies for the platform (as I reported), its announced request for 1.6 million in additional buildable square feet (worth perhaps $320 million, as I've estimated), and an apparent request for tax breaks and/or housing subsidies.

It also likely involves promises of a certain percentage of affordable housing and the level of affordability, as well as deadlines to deliver housing and the full project, with penalties. 

The history of the project is that deadlines and penalties have not been enforced.

It deserves a lot more sunlight.

AY CDC budget

The agenda also includes a seemingly routine item in which the directors are expected to approve the subsidiary's proposed FY 2026-27 operating budget.

The budget is supplied by the project's developer. The fiscal year ends March 31.

As shown in the screenshot at right, the budgets as approved for FY 2025-26 and proposed for FY 2026-27 are essentially the same, with most of the funds going to salaries and fringe benefits, with small amounts allotted to insurance and "other outside services," whatever that means.

However, as I wrote Feb. 18, in Why Has the Atlantic Yards CDC Spent So Little of its Budget? Couldn't the Money Be Used for the Public?, the advisory body, as of Dec. 31, 2025, three-quarters of the way through the fiscal year, had spent only 9.37% of its annual $250,000 operating budget, as shown in the screenshot below.

That’s confounding. By contrast, the comparable percentages for Dec. 31 of the previous nine fiscal years ranged from 43.65% to 76.24%. 

From ESD Board Materials

As I wrote, was the AY CDC budget—funded by the project developer—diminished, or in limbo, because previous developer Greenland USA had run out of money and incoming developers Cirrus Workforce Housing and LCOR were not approved until last October?

The AY CDC budget was once used to support separate staff dedicated to Atlantic Yards, but more recently was said to fund proportionate staff time devoted to the project.

Over the past year, those staffers did not pause work on Atlantic Yards but remained compensated. If so, then, what’s the point of the AY CDC budget?

Will the full budget be used by March 31? Was it in past years? Or are those budgeted numbers merely aspirations?

I queried ESD for comment but never heard back.