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December 29, 2006
Affordable housing, AY, & 421-a: the solution that came too late
Atlantic Yards Report
A telling pairing of lead articles appeared on the front page of the 12/21/06 New York Times. The passage of the Atlantic Yards project was deemed the day's second most important story. The lead was the City Council's reform of 421-a legislation, which is expected to lead to some 20,000 affordable apartments over the next decade.Seen together, it's clear how much backers of the Atlantic Yards project benefited from the city's failure to reform 421-a any sooner, much less rezone the 22-acre site designated for the project.
Each action could have guaranteed a significant number of affordable low-income apartments, rather than leaving it to a private deal between developer Forest City Ratner and the advocacy group ACORN, which gave crucial cover to a development of unprecedented residential density.
In other words, in part because of the inclusion of affordable housing--which, it was infrequently mentioned, would be funded by taxpayers--the developer got the state to override zoning and build at a scale that otherwise would not be permitted.
Posted by amy at December 29, 2006 9:27 AM