Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

Last April, I noted  the 2022 Area Median Income (AMI) figures, the baseline for calculating affordability, had risen 11.8%, and that the maximum rent levels for "affordable" units had increased well beyond that, apparently due to various recalculations. Now housing advocates are blowing the whistle, as first noted in an 11/7/22 article  from Politico. NEW YORK’S RISING AREA MEDIAN INCOME: A GROWING CONCERN FOR NYC’S LOWEST INCOME RENTERS  is the title of a policy brief (also at bottom) from the New York Housing Conference, noting that the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has set AMI for the New York Metro area "wildly out of sync with the modest income increases experienced by renters, increasing by 16 percent year-over-year and 34 percent over the past four years." (Note: their math and my math on the increase differ somewhat.) So now low-income (80% AMI) limits for a family of three are $96,080, while very low-income (50% AMI) is $60,050...

The  mission  of MHANY (Mutual Housing Association of New York), the ACORN successor contracted to manage intake for the affordable housing for Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, is to: Increase affordable housing opportunities by identifying and implementing creative housing development initiatives, with a focus on preservation and  deep affordability ; Improve the way affordable housing for  low and moderate income people  is developed and operated (Emphases added) When ACORN signed the Atlantic Yards Affordable Housing Memorandum of Understanding in 2005, soon incorporated into the much-hyped Community Benefits Agreement (CBA), the developer's non-binding commitment was that 40% of the income-linked housing would go to low-income households, and 20% would go to moderate-income ones. That's not how it's worked out, thanks to the state's long leash , allowing an expansive definition of affordable housing; changes in subsidy programs; and the developers' commitment t...

In August 2006. when I first read an article in Next American City, then a quarterly magazine (and now the online NextCity) headlined A New Dynamic: Atlantic Yards Challenges Brooklyn Progressive Politics , I suggested : While there's not much new for Atlantic Yards-watchers, and some information is dated or inaccurate (the project now would be 6860 apartments, not 7300, and Atlantic Avenue divides Prospect Heights and Fort Greene rather than serves as a Prospect Heights thoroughfare), the article does point out to a national audience how the project has fractured some typical community alliances, notably among progressives. Upon re-reading Michael Freedman-Schnapp's article, I think he was significantly prescient, in part, though his analysis still seems somewhat contradictory: unskeptical at one point, but skeptical in its conclusion.  (As of the publication, Freedman-Schnapp was Senior Policy Associate at the New York Industrial Retention Network. He went on to become ...

In my recent report on the BrooklynSpeaks session on affordable housing, I noted that presenter Michelle de la Uz, executive director of the Fifth Avenue Committee (FAC), sounded low-key--neither enthusiastic nor critical-- about Gov. Kathy Hochul's  proposed replacement  for the 421-a tax break, which would deliver more lower-income units than currently, but has been denounced by some advocacy groups as a giveaway. After all, as de la Uz acknowledged, that proposal could mean that future Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park units do meet BrooklynSpeaks' request to focus on lower-income households. I wasn't sure whether her neutral response was because the proposal was new, or because some advocacy groups for the poor had already criticized it. As of then, the key umbrella group for nonprofit housing groups like FAC, the Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development (ANHD), had not weighed in.  Well, on 1/31/22, ANHD, of which FAC is a member organization, criticized Hoc...

It's another example of what I call "Atlantic Yards down the memory hole"--people don't remember basic facts about the project. In an essay published yesterday in City Limits,  Opinion: Shaun Donovan Praises Atlantic Yards, But It’s No Model Housing Partnership , I wrote, in part: So it’s disappointing to see Donovan unwisely touting the Atlantic Yards project announced under Bloomberg as an exemplary public-private partnership. In a Real Deal interview Feb. 3, he said the next mayor should plan for “equitable growth.” “You folks may remember that when we announced Atlantic Yards and the thousands and thousands of units of affordable housing it would create, Bertha Lewis, the legendary progressive activist from ACORN, kissed Mike Bloomberg on the lips,” Donovan stated . “Those are the kind of partnerships that I could build, bringing together progressive leaders and the public sector, the private sector, to create growth.” ... It’s too bad that Donovan, whose substan...

OK, then explain this (not-Photoshopped) 2005 pic of NYCC predecessor ACORN's Executive Director Bertha Lewis and Mike. (Atlantic Yards made strange bedfellows.) https://t.co/vzJcFelTMI pic.twitter.com/PNgexXBsAG — Eric McClure (@EricMcClureBK) February 17, 2020 Explanation: Bertha is no longer on the payroll and she is pissed. — Aaron Naparstek (@Naparstek) February 17, 2020 Yes, Atlantic Yards made strange bedfellows. But it was a little more complicated than a payroll issue. During a time when the Bloomberg administration was unwilling to require affordable housing as part of rezonings (see: Downtown Brooklyn, Long Island City, Park Slope's Fourth Avenue) that delivered enormous benefit to landowners, Lewis, executive director of New York ACORN, and a founder of the Working Families Party, made a strategic alliance with Forest City Ratner. The developer was willing to promise--if not truly commit to--a significant amount of affordable housing, in exchange for a...

"Apartments renting for $3,700 a month are part of the city's affordable housing program, but can't find tenants," the New York Times Metro section tweeted , promoting columnist Ginia Bellafante's critical look at "100% affordable" 535 Carlton (my summary of the backstory ). Scrolling through the replies, I found the one below, which I'm screenshotting and not linking to because of additional NSFW elements. That reminded me of remarks by Bertha Lewis, then leading New York ACORN, at the June 2008 "Brooklyn Day" rally in support of Atlantic Yards. "Rent is too damn high" “No other developer,” she said in a familiar refrain, is doing what Forest City had promised.  That’s true, I wrote at the time, but the plan for affordable housing is based in part on a zoning override that trades off "extreme density" for the developer, and it was hardly clear that the promises will come to fruition, because there was...

From the New York Times yesterday,  Mayor de Blasio’s Political Standing Improves After Trump Win, but Perils Remain : “We’re still waiting to see whether a Goldman Sachs housing agenda continues at City Hall,” said Jonathan Westin of the advocacy group New York Communities for Change, referring to the city’s deputy mayor for housing and economic development, Alicia Glen, who is a former executive at the financial company. “Or whether this populist uprising of Trump and others is going to spur something different.” Mr. Westin criticized the mayor for counting as affordable a large number of units built during his administration that are too expensive for many of the city’s poorest. “The policies of moderation are failing us,” he said. “I think there’s space for the mayor to move aggressively to the left. If he doesn’t, there’s space on the left for someone to jump in.” Westin's right, except he and his organization have a notable blind spot when it comes to Atlantic Yards/Pacifi...

The most important part of the map below, revised Aug. 13, 2014 by developer Greenland Forest City Partners, is the note at the bottom right: "Building start and finish dates are subject to change." That's a watchword for Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park. I've annotated the map below, pointing out how much remains unresolved. Notably: all the buildings are behind schedule the affordable housing is not being delivered steadily there's a bigger gap in the delivery of low-income affordable housing, as 255 units are under construction, with the remaining 645 units not re-starting until perhaps 2020  The bottom line: a project that was once promised as transformative  or to "encourage systemic changes" is hardly that, and the much-saluted new timetable negotiated in 2014--the completion of affordable units by 2025--could have used specific safeguards. Timetable delays None of the buildings has met the tentative schedule suggested in that 2014 map: ...

Truth be told, there was little illuminating about Forest City's presentation to Community Board 2 last night regarding the upcoming 181 units of affordable housing at 461 Dean Street, the modular tower also known as B2. (They similarly presented at CB 6 .) And presumably the presentation tonight to Community Board 8 will be similar: no details about the units but rather a reminder that information will be available this month, with online applications via NYC Housing Connect and paper applications via Mutual Housing Association of New York (MHANY). Applicants must choose one only. MHANY is a successor to ACORN as a signatory of the Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement and Housing Memorandum of Understanding. MHANY's Ismene Speliotis and Forest City Ratner's Elizabeth Canela said they would be back at a future meeting with more specifics, including affordability. (I outlined the range, as detailed in 2012, in my article .) But even a brief visit to the CB 2...

When I looked recently at the report on minority- and women-owned business enterprises (MWBE or M/WBE) from the Black Institute, it sent me back to another report issued by an organization headed by Bertha Lewis--and how the portrayal of Atlantic Yards was, in retrospect, too rosy, portraying the project as more affordable than it would be. Compounding the challenge, the passage of time has lifted the Area Median Income (AMI), which relies not just on New York City but wealthy suburban counties, pushing subsidized units further out of reach of ACORN's low-income constituency. Not only did the ACORN report describe an affordable housing configuration that differed from that soon tweaked by developer Forest City Ratner, the latter's configuration has undergone further changes. The subsidized housing, at least in the next two all-affordable buildings, is skewed toward middle-income households, rather than low- and moderate-income ones. That means two-bedroom units renting f...