Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

As I wrote recently, rising Area Median Income (AMI) means elevated city guidelines for "affordable" housing, which housing advocates say are way out of sync with the actual incomes of city residents, especially those who rent their housing. Indeed, as shown in the graphic at right, under 2022 AMI guidelines, a studio apartment could rent for $3,035 to those earning 130% of AMI, or $3,852 to those earning 165% of AMI.  The two most recent Atlantic Yards Pacific Park buildings to open, 662 Pacific St. and 18 Sixth Ave., and likely the next two, 595 Dean St. and 615 Dean St., have their affordable units limited to those at 130% of AMI. 2022 figures Those rising AMI figures, of course, are easily in the realm of market-rents, especially for units that aren't in new, highly amenitized buildings--and even for the latter, so it's not surprising that developers don't push for the maximum.. Consider Unit 4104 , a market-rate studio at 18 Sixth Ave. (B4, aka Brooklyn Cr...

From the Wall Street Journal yesterday, Hakeem Jeffries, Front-Runner to Succeed Nancy Pelosi, Forged Ties Across Spectrum : Lupe Todd-Medina, a consultant who helped Mr. Jeffries in that 2006 campaign, recalled how he navigated the contentious issue of the Atlantic Yards development, a complex of residential towers built around an arena atop a rail yard. Mr. Jeffries declined to join the most vocal opponents, but stood against the use of eminent domain, she said. “He was pragmatic about it,” said Ms. Todd-Medina. Well, as I tweeted (see below), that statement doesn't quite capture Jeffries' strategically ambiguous 2006 stances. Nor, as I wrote in a 2012 article upon his expected ascension to Congress, does that capture his general caution--critical of aspects, then supportive--regarding the project. Back to 2006 As I wrote in September 2006, Jeffries during his Assembly Campaign could sound like a righteous critic of the project: And finally, let me just imply say, in terms ...

Looking south on Flatbush. Photo: Nov. 15 Well, there's a (partial) solution for the congested sidewalk on Flatbush Avenue below Pacific Street opposite the Barclays Center, where Shake Shack and especially Chick-fil-A generate an enormous number of takeout orders, some from drivers who like to double-park but mostly via app-based delivery services. A new bike corral has been created in the parking lane, which is now blocked by planters for southbound traffic.  That does not, as shown in the photos (and video) below, fully deter drivers from double-parking or some delivery guys to park on the sidewalk, as I saw during a daytime visit and an evening one. "Constant issue" It's been a "constant issue" since Chick-fil-A opened in September 2019, according to a letter from Community Board 6's Eric McClure.  Photo: April 19 Earlier this year, 78th Precinct Commander Frantz Souffrant took temporary action, using barriers to deter parking and set up a bike cor...

One reason for the sluggishness of Empire State Development (ESD) in attending to basic elements of the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park project--like scheduling bi-monthly Quality of Life meeting s or purportedly quarterly meetings of the Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC) or even delivering meeting notes --may simply be bandwidth: they're understaffed. (That said, the person overseeing Atlantic Yards remains Senior Director Tobi Jaiyesimi, who according to her LinkedIn is "Executive lead and Project Director for an interdisciplinary team of professionals managing the World Trade Center Site 5 Project in Lower Manhattan, the Atlantic Yards Project in central Brooklyn and the Queens West Development Project in Long Island City, Queens.") Since March 2022, as I reported , ESD's Executive VP of Real Estate Holly Leicht had departed. Last month, ESD appointed Arden Sokolow as Executive VP, Real Estate Development and Planning  and, according to her Li...

Rendering via CB 2 Yes, Fourth Avenue near Atlantic Avenue (and the Barclays Center) continues to fill in with towers enabled by a city rezoning. Tonight's Brooklyn Community Board 2 Land Use Committee meeting, at 6 pm ( via Zoom ) includes an informational presentation on a Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH) application by RJ 4th AVE LLC for 52 Fourth Avenue, at the southwest corner of Dean Street. From CB 2: The proposed 12-story residential building would consist of 79 total units; 19 units designated for low-income tenants pursuant to the  Inclusionary Housing Program (IHP) , and 1 unit designated for moderate-income tenants pursuant to Option B of the  421a Tax Exemption Program . The 677,030 ft2 residential portion of the building includes an indoor recreational facility on the first floor. Construction is anticipated to start late 2022, with full occupancy by late 2024. Looking south from Dean St. & Fourth Ave. Note that 25% affordability under IHP suggests a...

The latest Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Construction Update (bottom), covering the two weeks beginning Monday, Nov. 14, was circulated at 4:19 pm yesterday (late!) by Empire State Development (ESD) after preparation by Greenland Forest City Partners (GFCP), which is dominated by Greenland USA. There's really no change compared with the  previous update , just ongoing work previously announced, such as the transition to using the loading dock on Dean Street for completion of B12 and B13 (615 Dean St. and 595 Dean St.), rather than using demapped Pacific Street for deliveries to the back of the site. Also, window washing at B12 continues. Platform work  may  start   For more than five months, they've suggested that the preparatory stage of platform work--crucial to three of the six towers over the Vanderbilt Yard--will finally start, but it still requires, as stated, permits to constrain sidewalk access and traffic around the block bounded by Atlantic Avenue and Pacific...

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...

According to the NYC Department of City Planning's recent information brief, New Housing Permits in the First Half of 2022 (also at bottom), the first half of 2022 saw a significant spike in building permits, as the Department of Buildings (DOB) issued permits for about 58,600 homes. That's more than double any previous full year since 2015 (60,500 permits), which, not coincidentally, also was the last period before the expiration of the 421-a state tax break, later renewed and revised as Affordable New York. This year, the tax break expired June 15, 2022. DCP noted that the spurt likely related to developer uncertainty about whether the state legislature and governor will agree--as they were not able to do--on a renewal. In the interim, it's likely that far fewer permits will be filed--and that they'll not be for rentals, like the most recent Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park buildings, with 30% middle-income affordable housing. What's next As Greg David of The City, wh...

Not only is the next Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Quality of Life meeting not scheduled  for Nov. 15 as announced (and thus likely postponed), the Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC) is also way behind schedule. Two months ago, at the previous Quality of Life meeting, Empire State Development's Tobi Jaiyesimi said the next meeting of the AY CDC-- the mostly toothless body (in my estimate ) that is supposed to advise ESD--was being planned.  It's supposed to meet quarterly and had most recently met in June. It has not met the promised schedule. It met in December 2021 for the first time in nearly nine months, and then met--more or less on schedule--in March and June of this year. The typical reason for cited delays is the logistical difficulty of ensuring a quorum, and yesterday AY CDC board member Gib Veconi confirmed that. Strategic delay? AY CDC meetings have been scheduled, with very little notice, to ensure that the gubernatorially dominated body de...

When will the public get a chance to learn more about, and ask questions regarding, the progress of the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park project, including, most notably, the announced (in May) but stalled plan to start the platform over the Vanderbilt Yard, key to three future towers? That's the platform over the first of two blocks, between Sixth and Carlton avenues, and Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Street. The platform over the second block, between Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues, is key to three more towers, as well as the lion's share of the project's open space. When might we learn more about whether and how developer Greenland Forest City Partners aims to meet--or extend?--the increasingly unlikely deadline to deliver at least 876 more affordable units by May 2025? According to the presentation  (excerpted at right) from the most recent project Quality of Life meeting, the next bi-monthly meeting is still scheduled for next Tuesday, Nov. 15. But no notice (or agenda) has b...

In some interim good news for the Brooklyn Nets, the team dodged a bullet by--duh-- not hiring controversial ex-Boston Celtics coach Ime Udoka, as rumored. And former assistant coach Jacque Vaughn, elevated from interim to permanent coach, improved to a 3-2-1 stewardship yesterday, leading the Nets to a resounding win over the crosstown rivals, the New York Knicks. Second Choice Vaughn Just Might Be Nets’ Best Choice To Save This Season , wrote Steve Lichtenstein today, noting how Vaughn is getting more effort out of the players, deploying them more wisely, and is faster than former coach Steve Nash in calling timeouts to readjust. What's next That said, Lichtenstein noted, "Vaughn also hasn’t had to deal with the mercurial Kyrie Irving on a day-to-day basis very often," and we don't know how and when Irving will return from his suspension. Moreover, Irving, as now known, ignored Nash's play-calling. Meanwhile, amping up the tensions, yesterday there were protest...

Well, the Municipal Art Society must be glad they added the unassailable Jon Batiste to its lineup of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Medal winners who have made "an extraordinary contribution to New York City." That's because another winner, Brooklyn Nets owner (and businessman/philanthropist) Joe Tsai, has generated controversy well beyond the issue I raised in September: his purchase of apartments in the kind of "supertall" building against which the MAS has crusaded. (Tsai is being honored along with his wife, Clara Wu Tsai.) As the award ceremony approaches tonight, there's a partial backlash to Tsai's management of star guard Kyrie Irving, whose link-sharing implicitly endorsed (and boosted) an anti-Semitic movie, prompted critical coverage in Rolling Stone, and has led to an extraordinary series of events . That backlash includes not only some defense of Irving, or at least resistance to the penalties--see more below, and note today's New York D...

For Brooklyn Nets and arena company owners Joe and Clara Wu Tsai, philanthropy is part of public relations ( and business ), so let's look at yesterday's rollout of BX-XL , "the largest business accelerator for minority founders of early-stage startups." The means up to $500,000 for 12 Brooklyn-based businesses led by BIPOC founders (which isn't necessarily the same as "minority founders) from the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation's Social Justice Fund  (SJF), announced in 2020 in the wake of protests following the police murder of George Floyd. So that's potentially $6 million and thus, depending on timing, could fulfill (and more) the annual pledge of the ten-year, $50 million commitment. Any profits will be re-invested into Brooklyn businesses.  So far, they've put $2.5 million into a  loan fund , not necessarily fully dispersed, to BIPOC businesses, as well as smaller sums toward grants to Black leaders and an art curriculum for students based on ...