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February 27, 2007
NY Times to blame for what "Brownstoners" don't know about Atlantic Yards?
Commentary, from "Anonymice" on Brownstoner, regarding Jennifer Egan's Op-Ed in the Saturday Times, made us realize that Egan's piece was the very first mention in The NY Times that Atlantic Yards, if built, would be the densest residential community in the nation.
Two commenters posting on Brownstoner found that hard to believe; one even accused Egan of "creating 'facts' out of whole cloth."
This incredulity made us realize that unless these readers were receiving the DDDB newsletter, or were regular readers of NoLandGrab or Atlantic Yards Report, they had no clue. How could they? The New York Times never told them.
Here's how several voices in the public conversation on Atlantic Yards uncovered this amazing fact in the Summer of '06.
STARTS WITH STUCKEY
The questions about density arose when Forest City Ratner (FCR) VP Jim Stuckey was trying to make folks understand that Atlantic Yards wasn't all that big. In a May 15, 2006 interview with Brian Lehrer of WNYC, Stuckey claimed that the FAR (floor area ratio) of Atlantic Yards was around 8, and was close to that of the Downtown Brooklyn Plan.
FACTCHECKING STUCKEY
Stuckey's claims just didn't sound right to Jonathan Cohn from Brooklyn Views, who had been studying the plan and posting commentary from the point of view of an experienced architect. Cohn did a little analysis and calculated what he termed "real FAR" (as opposed to "FCR FAR?") and came up with an estimate more like 9 (see, "How Big Is It Now?"). Cohn also extended an offer to the 
developer to provide more accurate figures in order to nail down the actual figure — he's still waiting by the phone.
ODER UNVEILS STARTLING COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
This revelation, and a quick lesson in the myriad of ways in which planners measure density, sent Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Report sniffing around, comparing Atlantic Yards to other large-scale housing projects in New York City. Oder didn't find any developments in NYC that had nearly the population density of the Atlantic Yards plan (see, "Extreme density: Atlantic Yards plan would dwarf Battery Park City, other projects"). To the Brownstoner/NY Times readers, that includes Battery Park City. Imagine, BPC with, like, twice as many buildings sandwiched into the open space.
A CITY PLANNING EXPERT WEIGHS IN
Then former City Planning Commissioner and Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn Advisory Board member Ron Shiffman pointed out Atlantic Yards's dirty little secret, "If Forest City Ratner’s proposal proceeds at the current scale, it would constitute the densest residential community in the United States and, perhaps, Europe, with the exception of some of the suburbs of Paris."
DENSEST RESIDENTIAL COMMUNITY? C'MON! SCHUERMAN LOOKS AT THE DATA
Oder's article and Ron Shiffman's pronouncement got New York Observer reporter Matthew Schuerman wondering if that could be true. Schuerman checked out the latest census data ("Prisoner of Atlantic Avenue") and found that the densest census tract in the nation is a single two-block project in West Harlem that has "229,713 inhabitants per square mile." Atlantic Yards, according to the figures released by the developer at the time, clocked in "between 436,363 and 523,636 inhabitants per square mile (based on estimated population of between 15,000 and 18,000 residents over 22 acres)."
Atlantic Yards has been shaved down since then, but the fact remains that it would handily eclipse the residential density of any place in the nation.
Why is residential density important? Because residential areas place a heavier load on city services. Those same city services that the Atlantic Yards Evironmental Impact Statement has amazingly concluded would not be significantly impacted by the project.
So thank you Jim Stuckey, Jonathan Cohn, Norman Oder, Ron Shiffman and Matthew Schuerman for putting your heads together and helping Brooklynites who read blogs written by what Senator Schumer calls "self-appointed people" to understand that Atlantic Yards is an experiment in urban density of historical proportions.
Oh, and thanks to Brownstoner readers for illustrating what happens to inquiring minds when the "Paper of Record" gets its info from developer press releases. We can only apologize for The NY Times for not keeping their readers in the loop, especially those who live in Central Brooklyn.
Posted by lumi at February 27, 2007 10:00 AM