Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

Updated: 1:30 p.m.  Starting Point: 81 Willoughby Street, Downtown Brooklyn. Press Conference: 15 MetroTech Center. Beyond the protest scheduled tomorrow morning by P.P.E.E. (People for Political and Economic Empowerment) and REBUILD, FUREE (Families United for Racial and Economic Equality) tomorrow afternoon will be holding "WHERE THE JOBS AT?", a "Walking Tour & Action" aimed to highlight the lack of jobs at Atlantic Yards and other construction sites. (FUREE, unlike the other groups, has never been an Atlantic Yards supporter.) From FUREE : The hunt starts @ 1PM at FUREE’s office – 81 Willoughby St., Suite # 701. Unemployment is high... Wages are down... Our communities are struggling... IT'S TIME TO TAKE ACTION! "WHERE THE JOBS AT?" Walking Tour & Action Across Fort Greene and Downtown Brooklyn big developers and corporations are given millions of tax-payer dollars and tax-breaks to build in our communities. They promis...

So, is the United Nations "special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing," a Brazilian urban planning professor who's briefly visiting New York , actually going to see the Atlantic Yards site? So a New York Times City Room blog post today stated: Housing advocates will be taking Ms. [Raquel] Rolnik to the Atlantic Yards site in Downtown Brooklyn to see the results of the government’s use of eminent domain to seize property; to the New York City Housing Authority’s Grant Houses in Harlem to see how public housing residents live; and to the Bronx to meet residents whose landlords are in foreclosure. (They changed the "Downtown Brooklyn" mention to "Brooklyn" after I commented .) Not enough time Actually, no. I called around and learned that Rolnik this afternoon is learning about displacement and gentrification issues in and near Downtown Brooklyn from her host, Families United for Racial and Economic Equality ( FUREE ). But she has no time to vis...

When the issue is affordable housing subsidies, an applicant shouldn't be asking for more per unit than has been established for other projects. That was the lesson of a public hearing held yesterday by the New York City Housing Development Corporation (NYC HDC), a first step to consider $400 million in low-interest financing for some 810 units--perhaps 20-25% affordable--at the the CityPoint tower planned at the Albee Square Mall site in Downtown Brooklyn. Families United for Racial and Economic Equality (FUREE), a fierce critic of the effects of the Downtown Brooklyn rezoning, brought several members to protest the CityPoint plan. But the most effective testimony came from Paula Crespo , a planner at the Pratt Center for Community Development working with FUREE, who pointed out that the $1.9 million in bonds requested per unit was "extremely high." Some HDC projects have required only $150,000 to $400,000 per unit, she said. ( Clarification : The testimony she deliv...

As luxury condos rise in Downtown Brooklyn, working-class and poor people in the neighborhood are having it rough. Those in housing projects along Myrtle Avenue have seen a supermarket and drugstore disappear, with no replacement imminent . The Ingersoll Community Center--a crucial outlet for kids--remains yet unopened . And residents and businesses have been displaced, as property owners pursue new profits from the 2004 Downtown Brooklyn rezoning, as the activist organization Families United for Racial and Economic Equality (FUREE) has documented . While a libertarian might say tough luck , it’s not simply the market at work. The city increased the value of land with the rezoning, but, as a tradeoff, didn’t require any affordable housing nor, apparently, effective relocation assistance to small business. And it’s contributing $2 million to the nonprofit Downtown Brooklyn Partnership (DPB) to foster upscale development. So that distorted market is the backdrop to the new film Some Pla...

The now-demolished Albee Square Mall site in Downtown Brooklyn is slated to become the CityPoint tower, and the image at right from the CityPoint web site presumably illustrates the target audience. Below, additional images from the web site suggest other elements of the target audience. The web site promises 900,000 square feet of apartments, while the New York City Housing Development Corporation (NYC HDC) predicts 810 units, which indicates that either the amount of space has shrunk or there would be a significant number of apartments exceeding 1000 square feet. NYC HDC will hold a public hearing Monday at 10 a.m. to hear comments on the proposed issuance of $400 million in bonds for CityPoint, which would include 20-25% (162-202) affordable units. (I'm assuming the units would be affordable to low-income households, but I'm not certain.) The location is the main Conference Room of the New York City Housing Development Corporation, 110 William Street, 10th Floor. FUREE pr...

On July 24, I wrote about the unanticipated impacts of the Downtown Brooklyn rezoning and wondered what policy changes might emerge. A new report, Out of Business: The Crisis of Small Businesses in Rezoned Downtown Brooklyn , from FUREE (Families United for Racial and Economic Equality) and the Community Development Project of the Urban Justice Center cites extensive displacement of small business (mainly run by immigrants) and suggests four policy solutions, including grants and reserved commercial space. (Here's a video from the press conference--and another .) Joe Chan, president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, the public-private organization steering the rezoning, offered a noncommittal quote to Brownstoner , which offered some lengthy coverage yesterday: "Downtown Brooklyn is one of the fastest growing urban centers in America. The redevelopment activity in the area brings with it jobs and a permanently enhanced local economy. The Downtown Brooklyn Partnership wi...

It’s well-known that the 2004 Downtown Brooklyn rezoning resulted in some very different outcomes than expected, given that the hot residential real estate market, coupled with changes in the back-office needs of large companies in Manhattan, made it far more lucrative to build luxury housing (and hotels) than the office space (and jobs) that the rezoning was intended to foster. A new report, Downtown Brooklyn’s Detour: The Unanticipated Impacts of Rezoning and Development on Residents and Businesses, prepared by the Pratt Center for Community Development for FUREE (Families United for Racial and Economic Equality), points out how much has changed in four years, raising concerns about the displacement of lower-income retail and residential tenants. It doesn’t suggest particular strategies, however. (Solutions aren’t simple; perhaps that’ll be another report.) The report does remind us that an EIS (environmental impact statement) is hardly infallible, as we’ve also learned in the case...