Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

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 origin...

So, what about the three ballot proposals to speed the approvals of housing in the city? An easy call? After all, it's indisputable that the city--though it would be better to focus on the region, given the recalcitrant suburbs--needs more housing, especially affordable housing, and some Council Districts have been far more welcoming than others. It's easy to outsource conclusions to supporters (like the YES on Affordable Housing coalition, Errol Louis in NY Magazine, and the YIMBY group Abundance NY ), opponents (like the City Council , Village Preservation , and TenantsPac ). or to HellGate's more nuanced A Crash Course in the 3 Controversial Housing Ballot Proposals . I tried to look at the actual language, and it was... confounding. So here's Ballot Proposal 2, according to NYC Votes : What you'll see on the ballot Fast track publicly financed affordable housing . Fast track applications delivering affordable housing in the community districts that produce the...

An article in THE CITY today, by contributor (and former Crain's New York Business editor and columnist, if you're wondering about any slant) Greg David,  Can Mamdani Make Union-Built Affordable Housing Add Up? , notes that Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani has avoided weighing in on three controversial ballot proposals because he doesn't want to tangle with construction unions, which oppose them. The issues are nuanced and complicated--I'll point to more of the debate in a separate post--but it is true that union labor pays higher wages, and union advocates would like the City Council to retain power, in part to ensure a union presence. Do higher wages make projects more costly? One argument for union labor is that it's higher quality, thus enabling faster, more effective construction. Here's the argument ventilated in the article, though: Anyone claiming that higher priced union workers makes the projects too costly is “a lying silly goose,” said Kevin...

State Sen. Jabari Brisport, a Democratic Socialist who represents the Atlantic Yards site, has--like some of his generational cohort (notably Assemblymember and Democratic Mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani)--concluded that upbeat but punchy short video, with snappy graphics, might be the best way to communicate. After all, not everyone reads Gothamist, the publication that's most prominently reported on New York State's (via Empire State Development, or ESD) failure to enforce the $1.752 million/month in penalties for the unbuilt Atlantic Yards affordable housing, much less my reporting in this blog (or my newsletter ). UPDATE: 3 months past due, the penalties are over $5M, owed to the people of NY. Let Gov. Hochul know you want to see them stand against private real estate failures. A big thank you to all the activists, advocates and journalists that have documented this billion dollar mess! pic.twitter.com/GMrExhgKMT — Jabari Brisport (@JabariBrisport) August 29, 2025 ...

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 S...

This is the third 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 fourth addressed plans for "community engagement. For years, executives at ESD have known that master developer Greenland USA, unable to build 876 more required affordable housing units by the May 2025 deadline, would claim it should not face liquidated damages of $2,000/unit for each missing apartment. They just never told the public about such citations of Unavoidable Delay, not until the meeting last week. Consider the discussion at a March 25 meeting of the AY CDC. What, asked AY CDC Director Gib Veconi, who as an organi...