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October 22, 2009
New state-Ratner deal has ‘clause’ for concern
The Brooklyn Paper
By Gersh Kutzman
The Brooklyn Paper editor Gersh Kuntzman scrutinizes the dirty little secret about Bruce Ratner's new-n-approved deal with NY State:
State development officials are drafting a new deal with Bruce Ratner that will give the Atlantic Yards developer a loophole out of the project’s main selling point: thousands of units of affordable housing.
New language quietly inserted into a Sept. 17 lease proposal between the Empire State Development Corporation and the Downtown-based developer now make the construction of the long-promised 2,250 units of below-market-rate housing “subject to governmental authorities making available … affordable housing subsidies.”
None of the prior agreements — including two approved general project plans as well as the Community Benefits Agreement that Ratner signed four years ago with several local groups — made the affordable housing conditional on any state or local support. Ratner was required to build the units whether subsidies were available or not.
And such subsidies are in very short supply.
...
If anyone should be upset about the change in language, it should be Bertha Lewis, ACORN’s chief organizer, [Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn's Candace] Carponter suggested. But under the agreement, ACORN and Lewis are contractually barred from saying anything negative about the project, and, as such, both maintained their optimism this week.
Posted by lumi at October 22, 2009 7:20 AM