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July 11, 2007
First Atlantic Yards Towers Would Contain Few Affordable Apts.
Most Would Be Built in Project’s Second Phase
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
By Sarah Ryley
Here's the latest news, from the documents recently obtained and released by NY State Assemblyman Jim Brennan, for those looking forward to affordable housing units at Atlantic Yards:
Developer Forest City Ratner’s business plan for the Atlantic Yards arena and high-rise project reveals that of the 1,580 residential units in the first phase of construction, 143 would be affordable for low-income tenants and 216 for middle-income tenants. The rest would be market-rate condos and rentals, with a 500-square-foot studio starting at $2,000 a month.
143 low-income + 216 middle-income = 359 "affordable" units built in Phase 1.
What about the remaining 1,891 (84%) "affordable" units?
The rest... would come during the project’s second phase of construction, which Assemblyman Jim Brennan, who filed a lawsuit to obtain the documents, warns could be delayed or even abandoned if the real estate market slows down.
“[The project’s financials] shows that the project is so expensive that it might fail before we ever get to the bulk of the affordable housing, and it shows that the condos are too expensive, too costly to build, and that the developer has tried to do too much,” he said.
“Many people in the community sort of intuitively saw the problems in advance — that the project was very expensive and that the affordable housing wasn’t locked in appropriately — so that all this information that came out basically just confirms the criticisms of the project,” said Brennan. “A stronger case could have been made about [reducing] the scale of the project had this information been available.”
NoLandGrab: Note that Brennan feels that information in these documents make the case for downsizing the project, not scrapping it all together.
Theoretically, Ratner could make the case that these documents show that the project requires even MORE public subsidy, such as the generous exception given to him in the 421-a reform bill, though that might be politically untenable, even in Brooklyn... right?
Posted by lumi at July 11, 2007 7:57 AM