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February 22, 2010
From the right and the left, critiques of ACORN and its "political cover" for Ratner
Atlantic Yards Report
The connections between Forest City Ratner and ACORN (whose New York affiliate just relaunched as New York Communities for Change) are worth more coverage and, while the mainstream media have pretty much fallen down, both the right (Glenn Beck) and the left (Regional Labor Review) have taken notice.
And that's important, because ACORN head Bertha Lewis continues to shill for the project, as quoted in a Daily News article last August:
"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."
As we learned last month, while the developer is still supposed to build the promised 2250 units of affordable housing, the deadline is 25 years, not ten, the penalties for individual building delays are modest, and an Affordable Housing Subsidy Unavailability can be claimed for up to eight one-year periods--all part of what Noticing New York's Michael D.D. White deems a modest option renewal fee.
Moreover, the affordable housing in the first tower would have to conform to one of six possible scenarios--which include several scenarios with no low-income units.
Posted by eric at February 22, 2010 10:52 AM