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July 12, 2006
The "Other" Affordable Housing Meeting
Forest City Ratner Atlantic Yards Development Group President Jim Stuckey hosts episode of "The Twilight Zone," starring ACORN head Bertha Lewis
Having been ‘disinvited’ from the 6:30 session of Forest City Ratner's affordable housing meeting, NoLandGrab attended the 8:30 dog-and-pony show. Having read others' accounts of the 6:30 showing, it seems Jim Stuckey and Bertha Lewis loosened up once the press left.
The following quotes are transcribed from audio tape.
JIM STUCKEY: In a 24-48 hour period we had almost 5,000 responses.
-Funny, where were all of these people? There were approximately 200 people in a room that could hold 2,200. That makes a total of 2,400 people attending the seminar, if the first one was full. Makes one wonder why so many people did not receive an RSVP confirmation.
BERTHA LEWIS on move-in dates: The project is 2 or 3 years from move-in.
-She should have turned to read the timeline behind her, which stated:
- Construction of the first residential building (s) begins in 2008
- Marketing begins and applications made available in early 2009 for the first rental building (s)
- Building(s) available for occupancy anticipated to be mid-2010
- Final building complete in 2016
LEWIS: Most units are going to families in the $21,000 – $35,000 income range.
-Interesting math, since she was standing in front of a slide stating that 900 units go to this range and 1,350 units go to $42,540 – $113,440 range. 900 units are going to $70,901 – $113,440 alone!
STUCKEY’S explanation of using Income Bands: By doing these bands and making everyone pay 30% it really turns out that the people who make more are helping to subsidize the people who are paying less.
Amazing! Subsidies from everywhere! Even from affordable housing!
In the Q&A – interest in what happens to people between $35,450 and $42,540 who are missing from the income bands. Stuckey explains that the federal government defines low income as “50% of the AMI,” or $35,450, as the NYC Area Median Income (AMI) is $70,900. It is clear that Ratner’s definition of who needs affordable housing income goes as high as $113,440, or a whopping 160% of the AMI! To add insult to injury, Bertha exclaimed that the AMI for Brooklyn is considerably lower.
AUDIENCE: What happens to the affordable housing if the project is scaled back?
STUCKEY: In between the draft scope and the final scope we made reductions to the project size. When we made it, we did not touch a single affordable housing unit.
AUDIENCE: What happens to the people that are currently living in these homes?
STUCKEY: There really aren’t many people living there. There are virtually no homeowners left.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Where can those of us who do think this is appropriate development go – because I haven’t seen any place.
STUCKEY: Come speak to me after this.
Well, sir, you haven’t seen pro-Ratner gatherings because there are none that are not Ratner-sponsored. The community is against this. You can see the community rallying against this on Sunday.
Posted by amy at July 12, 2006 10:48 PM