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July 16, 2007
Brennan: many questions remain, fresh look needed
Atlantic Yards Report
Assemblyman Jim Brennan, whose lawsuit (with State Senator Velmanette Montgomery) unearthed numerous Atlantic Yards financial documents, has more questions than answers for now about the viability and future of the Atlantic Yards project.
For Brennan, scale and affordability are at issue:
“I would love to see the project get put back on the table. The thing needs to be reconfigured,” Brennan said. “I’m not someone who repudiates the project. I’m interested in rationalizing the scale and preserving the affordable housing. The scale is a community environmental issue. It’s very interesting to me that the rental housing is coming in at a cost of one-third the condos. So if you have 2 million square feet of luxury condos—if a fourth of the project eats up nearly 50% of the costs--then something in there says a downsizing could make sense.”
...
“There are clearly some irrationalities in the project,” he responded. “I’ve always had the feeling that we have the nucleus of something good, and it is surrounding by irrationality. I think the documents reveal some of the irrationalities... The project is extremely expensive. The affordable housing comes at the end, not at the beginning. And the scale of the whole development project, which is too big--these numbers show that a reconfiguration might be dramatically less expensive and still get you the affordable housing. There are just major questions unanswered.”
Posted by lumi at July 16, 2007 9:10 AM