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August 31, 2009
Weaker plan to finance Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards housing project
NY Daily News
by Erin Durkin
The final version of a state plan for developer Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project weakened guarantees that promised affordable housing would get necessary funding, new documents show.
Ratner has pledged to build 2,250 units of affordable housing as part of the proposed Nets arena and 16-tower project, but critics have questioned whether he'll ever come through.
There are many reasons to doubt Ratner's promises, but one of the more recent ones is because — get this — there aren't any guarantees of affordable housing in the state documents approving the project.
ACORN director and Atlantic Yards backer Bertha Lewis said she wished public officials would stop "mucking about" with the plans, but expressed confidence all the promised apartments would get built.
"Bruce Ratner's never wavered," she said. "I never look for anybody else to ensure these guarantees. We look directly to the developer to ensure the guarantees."
The only problem with that is that the only "guarantees" are laid out in the Community Benefits Agreement, which are essentially unenforceable, especially since ACORN is already in hock to Ratner to the tune of $1.5 million.
In an e-mail also obtained by Atlantic Yards Report, ESDC counsel Steve Matlin acknowledged there's no guarantee that funding will be available - but said that's Ratner's problem.
"Forest City will take the risk that adequate housing programs are in effect," he wrote. "The bottom line is that the affordable housing requirements do not go away if housing benefits are inadequate or are not available."
NoLandGrab: "Forest City will take the risk?" "The affordable housing requirements?" Hardly, since essentially, there are no requirements, except in the flimsy CBA. The risk is the public's, in that the state has approved a project largely on the promise of affordable housing that may well not ever materialize.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, The Daily News follows up on the housing guarantees, gets quotes out of FCR, ESDC, and ACORN, lets them off easy
Norman Oder follows up on the Daily News's follow-up of his story in greater detail, natch.
Well, it's nice that the Daily News, alone among the press, followed up on my article last Thursday questioning the guarantees for Atlantic Yards affordable housing, but the omissions and errors deserve attention.
The article, headlined Weaker plan to finance Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards housing project, was posted today though, I'm told, was actually in the paper Friday.
...The Daily News asked the ESDC and the developer about the housing and their answers were reminiscent of that old Marx Brothers line, "Who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?"
Posted by eric at August 31, 2009 8:50 PM