July 16, 2008
I.R.S. Could Crimp Bloomberg's Big Plans
NY Observer
by Eliot Brown
The Observer's lead real estate reporter takes an in-depth look at New York City's furious efforts to preserve tax-exempt financing for its favorite son, Bruce Ratner.
As the Bloomberg administration scrambles to get its development projects in the ground amid a slowing economy and a waning political term, two major planned initiatives the city has championed face a formidable hurdle: the Internal Revenue Service.
For the financing plan for the Atlantic Yards housing and sports arena complex in Brooklyn, and for one being considered for the planned middle-income-housing mega-complex at Hunter’s Point South in Queens, the city would need a favorable ruling from the I.R.S. or face substantially higher costs for both projects. Negative rulings from the federal agency could result in tens of millions of dollars in added costs, putting up new obstacles to major developments that have already seen ambitions scaled back.
For both projects, the city wants to use tax-exempt financing, a method that lowers costs substantially—perhaps more than 15 percent—with the bulk of the savings coming out of federal tax revenues.
And, at least in the case of Atlantic Yards, the I.R.S. is rather wary, as it has called the financing method a “loophole” that it has ordered closed.
NoLandGrab: We haven't rooted this hard for the IRS since "The Untouchables."
Posted by eric at 11:18 AM
April 15, 2008
De Blasio blasts Ratner, Calls for Moratorium on Demolitions
Bill de Blasio is mad as hell, and he wants to know why the rug has been pulled out from under Atlantic Yards' promised affordable housing. The Gowanus Lounge and Brownstoner share the scoop from last night's blogger meet-up with the Council Member.
The Gowanus Lounge, De Blasio Calls for Moratorium on Atlantic Yards Demolition
City Council Member and Brooklyn Borough President candidate Bill de Blasio is calling for a moratorium on demolition in the Atlantic Yards footprint. Mr. de Blasio made comments deeply critical of possible changes in the huge project as part of a wideranging discussion last night that covered everything from construction safety as developers race to beat changes in the 421a tax break program to zoning issues in Gowanus and Carroll Gardens.
...On Atlantic Yards, Mr. de Blasio said, "I am livid at the New York Times interview with Ratner" in which the developer announced that the project would be scaled back and that massive amounts of affordable housing would be seriously delayed or eliminated. "There was no discussion with the community before he went on record," Mr. de Blasio said, adding that the changes put "the entire community benefits agreement up for question."
Brownstoner, De Blasio Blasts Ratner on AY Obfuscation
The Councilman also said that he thinks the entire development should be reviewed again by the state if Forest City Ratner is now conceiving of a vastly different project, particularly one that reneges on its promised affordable housing. "I held out hope for the project because of the amount of affordable housing it would create, as well as the number of jobs it would bring," he said. "But I have been constantly disappointed in the lack of community involvement...I've never seen anything that's been mismanaged so fundamentally in terms of community involvement."
NoLandGrab: What Council Member de Blasio is overlooking is that there really hasn't been any discussion with the community ever, and that early support for the toothless and barely enforceable Community Benefits Agreement by him and other politicians has now come home to roost.
Additional coverage:
Curbed, Atlantic Yards Stall: Another Call for a Demolition Moratorium
Posted by eric at 11:58 AM
March 19, 2008
Condo of the Day: 535 Dean Street Penthouse Price Cut
Brownstoner.com
Can you say Atlantic Yards Effect? There's no other reason we can think of (other than that pesky global financial crisis, of course) to explain why this 1,400-square-foot penthouse at 535 Dean Street in Prospect Heights just had to cut its asking price from $899,000 to $799,000. In its current configuration, it's also not much of a family apartment either. Still, you'd think there'd be at least one childless buyer out there who would be digging the open space and views (and rather low monthyl maintenance of $701). What gives?
NoLandGrab: 535 Dean Street is perhaps better known as the Newswalk Building — conveniently located in the notch of the Atlantic Yards footprint.
More "Atlantic Yards Effect" from flickr.
Posted by eric at 6:04 PM
March 9, 2008
The upside of the Miss Brooklyn switch: less density, more public revenues?
Atlantic Yards Report
Given that the flagship Atlantic Yards tower Miss Brooklyn has apparently been shifted from a mix of condos and office space to all office space (after being originally announced as office space), that could adjust two statistics that might make the project look better.As I wrote February 27, the project's residential density would go down from 292 apartments/acre to 273 apartments/acre, still a high number but a 6.5% drop.
More importantly, an increase of more than 200,000 square feet of office space might be seen as significantly recouping the projected $456 million loss the Empire State Development Corporation calculated in December 2006 when 270,000 square feet of office space was cut.
Those dramatic numbers never fully made sense, so any future projection should be subject to more public vetting.
Posted by amy at 11:58 AM
March 7, 2008
Downtown Brooklyn Housing Falls Short of Predictions
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Sarah Ryley
This article gives an overview of new housing projects for Downtown Brooklyn, and also mixes in Atlantic Yards, which is located in Prospect Heights.
The following contrasts Forest City's opinion as to how well housing might sell in Atlantic Yards with that of Halstead Property Director of Marketing, William Ross.
Ratner’s financial projections for Atlantic Yards estimate market-rate condominiums in each tower would sell out in three to seven months, with construction phased over seven years. Miss Brooklyn’s 335 condos would sell in six months; the towers in the second phase, each with roughly 200 condos, would sell in three months, according to projections.
Ratner doesn’t have a crystal ball to predict market conditions over a decade, and Reigelhaupt cities MetroTech and other large projects as proof of his company’s staying power. “Forest City has been in Brooklyn for over 20 years and developed through all sorts of business cycles,” he said.
But William Ross said those projections seem optimistic even during boom years. He predicts towers with hundreds of condos will sell out in two or three years. “I think the timeline is going to stretch,” he said. “If too much comes on the market too quickly, it’s actually not healthy for the market.”
Posted by steve at 7:32 AM
February 7, 2008
ACORN backing the good fight in Queens
Lookie who forgot to take a page from the Bruce Ratner community playbook by promising ACORN a fat contract to administer affordable housing.
From today's events listing on The Real Estate Observer:
12:45 p.m. Queens workers and ACORN members protest redevelopment project that will displace businesses in Willets Point; EDC headquarters, 110 William St.
NoLandGrab: It's nice to see ACORN backing the Willets Point businesses. Hope the grassroots community group doesn't turn its back on its constituents again by signing on to a deal that directs a minimal amount of benefit to its own base.
Posted by lumi at 5:47 AM
January 25, 2008
In Williamsburg, Vito Lopez wants "real" affordability
Atlantic Yards Report
Bruce Ratner's controversial subsidy-sucking Atlantic Yards plan creates an enormous warp in the local political space-time continuum — Brooklyn Democratic Chair Vito Lopez is the latest hypocrite to get sucked into its orbit.
Brooklyn Democratic Chair Vito Lopez, who represents Williamsburg and Bushwick in his Assembly district, is a strong proponent of affordable housing, so strong he's threatening to use eminent domain to ensure that the recently-closed Pfizer site would lead to truly affordable housing.
In a statement to the Observer, he said that the "company’s definition of affordability in no way matches the annual income of working class New Yorkers, nor the low and moderate incomes of Williamsburg residents."
Regarding Atlantic Yards, however, Lopez supported the "carve-out," ensuring a special break for Forest City Ratner and affordability that also departs from the incomes of working-class and average Brooklyn residents.
One commenter notes that it's all about eminent domain abuse:
If eminent domain abuse is used to give big developers, like Ratner, the chance to develop housing to be occupied by people at exceptionally high incomes (like with Ratner’s 421-a exception allowing him higher incomes than anyone else) then Mr. Lopez is in favor of it.
Posted by lumi at 4:38 AM
September 17, 2007
Real estate wonderland, Part 2
Atlantic Yards Report
Crazy, the best affordable housing opportunities currently being advertised in the footprint of Atlantic Yards are in... Georgia, as in the state, not the country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia:
At the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues, at the tip of the Atlantic Yards footprint, a real estate entrepreneur has begun to tout affordable housing... in Atlanta.
The phone number leads to this real estate agency.
The photo at right was taken from the Flatbush Avenue side of the fence, with the Newswalk condos, not part of the AY footprint, in the distance. (Newswalk, of course, would be dwarfed by the project.)
And speaking about crazy, yesterday, Norman Oder stumbled down the Williamsburg real estate rabbit hole at the Conflux festival. The Riviera Real Estate Agency (slogan, "Live here today before tomorrow is yesterday") might not be as ironic as we may think.
Posted by lumi at 10:40 AM
June 12, 2007
PASSIONATE RESIDENTS VOICE DESIRE FOR INPUT ON CHANGE
From all around the city, people unite in their discontent about development.
City Limits
By Angela Dews
Although the First Annual Harlem Anti-Gentrification Conference took place on West 130th Street, in the heart of Harlem, attendees came from Greenpoint, Williamsburg, the Atlantic Yards area of Brooklyn, Sunset Park, Hunts Point, South Bronx, Washington Heights, Chinatown, the Lower East Side, and beyond New York. The diverse group came together to commiserate over the economic and political forces that are reshaping their neighborhoods and discuss what, if anything, can be done.
Conference organizer Nellie Hester Bailey, director of the Harlem Tenants Council, cited the provisions of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights in telling the approximately 100 tenants, researchers and organizers gathered: “Housing is not an entitlement; housing is a basic human right.”
Posted by lumi at 6:41 AM
May 30, 2007
The bosses' takeover of New York
Socialist Worker Online
Review by Aaron Hess
Kim Moody, From Welfare State to Real Estate: Regime Change in New York City, 1974 to the Present. New Press, 2007, 352 pages, $26.95.
Socialist scholar and activist Kim Moody’s new book, From Welfare State to Real Estate: Regime Change in New York City, 1974 to the Present is an angry, accessible and scrupulously researched account of how the city’s rich and politically connected have consolidated their power over ordinary New Yorkers in the last three decades.
Among the strengths of Moody’s book is that it shows how the inequality and racism in the Big Apple today are not accidental features of “development” or the inevitable consequence of uncontrollable market forces. Beginning in the mid-1970s, the city’s business and political elite consciously planned out its war on workers and the poor.
Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner joins the titans of corporate welfare:
While gutting funding for affordable housing, the city and state have doled out hundreds of millions of dollars in tax exemptions and abatements to the upscale housing market and corporate welfare to “public-private” partnerships run by real-estate titans like Bruce Ratner and Larry Silverstein.
Posted by lumi at 7:32 AM
May 15, 2007
One Hanson Place: The Atlantic Yards Effect
The "Atlantic Yards Effect" has been better for some...
536 Carlton aka 565 Dean Street open house
More details emerge from the large-footprint condo going on sale at the NW corner of Dean and Carlton in Prospect Heights. A commenter on our previous post mentioned that the building may have been built by two Columbia professors who were bought out by Ratner at a "very good price."
...
A bit more digging reveals that the duo may have been paid $2.975MM by Ratner for their two coops at 475 Dean Street. With their windfall, they promptly purchased a penthouse unit at Park Slope's famed and prestigious Ansonia Muse Condominiums.
...than others:
526 Carlton sells, in spite of the AYE
This townhouse on Carlton between Dean and Pacific has sold for $1.23MM, quite a bit lower than the original ask of $1.499MM. Back in December 2005 nolandgrab had a post on this property, as did brownstoner.
Note: 526 Carlton is located on the block nestled within the Atlantic Yards project footprint.
Posted by lumi at 7:01 AM
April 12, 2007
GIMME SHELTER
The city continues to kick its citizens to the curb, but Mary Mattingly has created her own wearable solution.
NY Press
By Jackie Delmatre
A local artist blames Bruce Ratner for secondary displacement, though she entertains a perverse interest in seeing the project get built:
Ever since the Forest City Ratner deal went through to build the Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn, Mary Mattingly’s apartment hallway on Eastern Parkway has been the width of a backyard creek. At least 40 boxes are piled up and crammed together with artwork salvaged from the art studio that she had to abandon to the ripple effects of the 8 million square feet, $4 billion real estate development.
...The building that housed her studio was actually purchased by the Department of Education on November 1, 2006, “at the very last minute,” she claims, because the DOE sought a space with proximity to the Ratner development.
...
“There’s nothing we can do about it,” she says, referring to Ratner, when I visit her in her cramped living space to discuss her latest work, “Going to town meetings won’t do anything.”
...
However, in a subsequent conversation, Mattingly corrects her own pessimism. It’s not that nothing can be done, she admits; it’s just so frustrating and “it doesn’t feel like there is much time to be frustrated when there are so many worse things going on in the world.” And besides, she’s become perversely interested in seeing the result. The development’s “going to be gross, but there’s something appealing about that grossness.”
Posted by lumi at 7:22 AM
February 14, 2007
Affordable housing: low income or below market--and neither
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder "mad overkills" Ratner's attorney over his improvised description of "affordable housing."
During the federal court hearing last Wednesday on the Atlantic Yards eminent domain case, Forest City Ratner attorney Jeffrey Braun, in answer to a question about the definition of "affordable housing," responded by saying "below market."
"We have a long history of public intervention in the housing market," he added, citing such programs as the Mitchell-Lama middle-income program, zoning incentives, and the city's plans to increase low-income units.
But "below market" was an imprecise description.
Affordable housing is more precisely described as subsidized housing which, for rentals at least, the rent is pegged at 30 percent of household income. (The affordable housing universe includes a much smaller fraction of subsidized for-sale units.)
Oder continues by explaining that the area median income figures used to formulate the Atlantic Yards housing plan are not relevant to the incomes of Brooklynites.
And here's one of the big myth busters about Atlantic Yards below-market subsidized housing:
Let's look at the Atlantic Yards housing chart. For the two higher-income bands, involving 900 units, two-person households would pay $1701 or $2127 per month for an apartment.
How does that compare to market rents nearby? I looked at the listings from the high-end Corcoran agency, checking off Boerum Hill, Fort Greene, Park Slope, and Prospect Heights, the neighborhoods closest to the project site (which would be mostly in Prospect Heights).
A sampling includes a Prospect Heights one-bedroom for $1395, a Fort Greene one-bedroom for $1400, a Park Slope one-bedroom for $1600, a Fort Greene studio for $1650, and a Boerum Hill one-bedroom for $1900.
Posted by lumi at 9:42 AM
January 19, 2007
More on the renters' lawsuit : lawyer says FCR can't deny offer to those suing
Atlantic Yards Report
Attorney George Locker, who represents renters in the footprint, points out that Bruce Ratner is required by law to relocate the tenants, and that any statements made by Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards Development Group President Jim Stuckey about not making deals with parties of any lawsuits is unlawful.
Posted by lumi at 11:33 AM
January 13, 2007
FCR's Stuckey : "almost no chance" AY would be abandoned
Atlantic Yards Report
From the Times's article today on the lawsuit filed Wednesday by Atlantic Yards footprint tenants challenging the relocation plan:
James P. Stuckey, the Forest City official in charge of Atlantic Yards, said yesterday that the company sent all its tenants a letter in 2005 describing a relocation agreement and instructing them to get in touch if they were interested in it. He said the company chose not to send the agreement itself, unsolicited, lest it be seen as an attempt to intimidate the tenants by treating the project as a settled deal.
The latest version of the agreement, which Mr. Stuckey provided, does include all the offers cited by the development corporation, though it also says that if the landlord of the interim apartment ends the lease, the offer of subsidized rent is void.That's a lot less protection than rent stabilization, which currently protects those renters who are suing, and news to me.
Loophole remains
The relocation offer would be void, as I've written, if the developer abandons the project. The Times reported:
Mr. Stuckey said that if the project was eventually not built, “we would no longer have an obligation” because there would no longer be a project plan for Forest City to adhere to. But citing the hundreds of millions of dollars Forest City has put into the project already, he said there was almost no chance that it would simply abandon the project.Well, if the eminent domain lawsuit is successful, that decision would not be solely up to the developer.
Posted by amy at 2:19 PM
Tenants Sue Agency Over Brooklyn Project
New York Times
ANDY NEWMAN
The suit claims that rather than ensure that there is a “feasible method for relocation” in place to move tenants into suitable apartments nearby, as the law requires, the state agency refers only to an offer by Forest City to provide tenants with apartments in the project once it is completed and to provide the services of a real estate broker to help tenants find interim apartments.Under the terms cited by the corporation, Forest City would cover the tenants’ moving expenses, pay the difference between their current rent and their new rent at the interim apartment, and provide apartments in the proposed development “at rent levels comparable to their current rents.”
Mr. Locker cited several problems with this offer. One is that it is void if the project is not built. Another is that providing the services of a broker is not the same thing as providing an apartment. Still another, he said, is that the offer of rent stabilization on the apartment in the development is good only for the life of the project’s bonds, 30 years, while a rent-stabilized tenancy typically cannot be terminated except for cause. Finally, Mr. Locker said, the offer cited by the development corporation was never formally made by Forest City.
Posted by amy at 2:14 PM
Foes of Brooklyn NBA arena sue, again
Newsday
In the latest suit, filed Wednesday, 13 tenants in rent-stabilized apartments said the state agency overseeing the project hasn't done enough to help them relocate.The suit names the Empire State Development Corporation as a defendant. The state agency is using its eminent domain powers to condemn and seize buildings on the site.
When such seizures take place, the developers are obligated to ensure that displaced tenants find a similar place to live _ a tough thing to do in a gentrifying section of Brooklyn where rents have risen in recent years.
Posted by amy at 1:55 PM
January 11, 2007
Tenants' second lawsuit calls AY relocation plan inadequate
Atlantic Yards Report
Thirteen rent-stabilized tenants, who live in two buildings in the proposed Atlantic Yards footprint and have already sued to block the demolition of their buildings, have filed another suit, claiming that the relocation agreements announced by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) are inadequate and violate state law.
Posted by lumi at 9:12 AM
December 8, 2006
Ratner to pony-up rent
The Brooklyn Papers
By Ariella Cohen
Answering criticism from fair-housing advocates, the Atlantic Yards developer says his company is guaranteeing to pay the difference between the current rent of soon-to-be-evicted tenants within the footprint of his development and the rent for “a comparable unit,” until the tenants are relocated into a Yards building.
Initially, Ratner only promised to pay the rent for three years — but many worried that tenants would get burned if construction of Atlantic Yards dragged on beyond that time frame.
Of course, if Ratner never builds Atlantic Yards, all bets are off, according to the new deal, which is contained in the state’s final environmental impact statement certified last week.
...
“It sounds like an improvement if tenants can have confidence that they can have their rent paid until they are moved into a new unit,” said Brad Lander, executive director of the Pratt Center for Community Development. “But there is still insecurity for the tenants if the project falls apart.”It’s more than insecurity, said George Locker, an attorney for 13 rent-stabilized tenants in the 22-acre Atlantic Yards footprint.
“If this project isn’t built, these people will lose their homes and get nothing in return,” he said. The agreement still violates state [relocation] law. This is not state law, this is Ratner law.”
Posted by lumi at 6:51 AM
December 4, 2006
God Rest Ye Marty Markowitz! Ratner Christmas Carol
Fuhgeddaboudit! Today, the Ratner Christmas Carolers tackle Marty Markowitz.
Word is that the Ratner Christmas Carolers are available for parties and holiday functions and will be making appearances locally when you least expect it.
Posted by lumi at 10:35 AM
November 1, 2006
Housing displacement? The map points to Prospect Heights/Crown Heights
Atlantic Yards Report
Local maps of housing tracts show that some of the low-income neighborhoods most vulnerable to gentrification can be found adjacent to the footprint of the Atlantic Yards project proposal.
Maybe Christopher Morris, the real estate investor quoted in the 10/21/06 New York Times as anticipating a rise in property values because of the Atlantic Yards project, was right. Or maybe he was riding on trends that already existed, trends that suggest that blight and stagnation are trumped by development.
Indeed, as Brooklyn College sociologist Aviva Zeltzer-Zubida recently reported at a panel in June, "Housing Displacement in Brooklyn: A Discussion," there’s some stark evidence about gentrification trends, and they point directly to areas in the orbit of the Atlantic Yards proposal. It's not common for areas of poverty to nudge up against areas of wealth, but when they do, the poorer areas are vulnerable to displacement.
Posted by lumi at 6:59 AM
September 28, 2006
Her brick prison
Though the Atlantic Yards proposal has halted development within the footprint during the past three years, what about development around the footprint?
City Councilman Charles Barron calls Bruce Ratner's plan "instant gentrification." City Councilwoman Letita James riffed off that point to NY1 after yesterday's City Planning Commission vote:
"The adverse impacts of this proposed project outweigh all of the social benefits. They include traffic mitigation. They include the displacement of a significant number of poor people and people of color," said Brooklyn City Councilmember Letitia James. "It will result in instant gentrification."
If you've been thinking that Bruce Ratner is the only landlord in Prospect Heights who has been trying to evict low-income and elderly tenants in order to get on with his real estate bonanza, think again.
As reported in yesterday's Daily News, just two doors down from Ratnerville:
A Brooklyn landlord has bricked up all the windows in his Prospect Heights apartment building - except for one unit where a holdout tenant is still living.
Migdalia Barreto, her daughter and her elderly mother contend landlord Mark Scheiner is trying to drive them out of the eight-apartment building to pave way for a luxury conversion.
Posted by lumi at 9:19 AM
September 1, 2006
Letter to Village Voice re ACORN/FCR responses
Atlantic Yards Report addresses two letters to the editor of The Village Voice, one from ACORN's Bertha Lewis and another from Forest City Ratner Atlantic Yards Development Group President Jim Stuckey.
Lewis's letter failed to mention that Ratner added more than 2,000 units of luxury condos after the "50/50" "affordable" housing deal was signed. Stuckey's letter left out the part about the current tenants' agreement that only covered the difference in rent for up to three years (the project is expected to take 10 years to build).
Posted by lumi at 9:36 AM
August 5, 2006
What about the renters? FCR's Stuckey asserts, "We will take care of them"
Atlantic Yards Report
What about the renters in the Atlantic Yards footprint?
Yes, the [renter's relocation] agreements sound good. They'd pay the difference between their current rent and that charged for a new apartment, and they'd be guaranteed a space in the Atlantic Yards project at their previous rent.
However, the relocation agreements, according to [South Brooklyn Legal Services], “leave [renters] vulnerable.” The agreements would pay the differential in rent for only three years, which means that, given that the project wouldn’t be finished until 2010 at the earliest, the tenant would be left paying a high rent for some unspecified period.
...
Jim Stuckey (Forest City Ratner Atlantic Yards Development Group President) says:
“The three years was never meant to be a period that we would leave people out in the lurch," he said. "And if it turns out for any reason at all that we have to contribute to subsidizing them for a longer period of time, than we will certainly do that. This was negotiated with people earlier on, and the project has actually taken on new life, but there’s no question in my mind that if it takes longer, we will take care of them.”
Norman Oder tries to get to the bottom of the issue:
So, I asked, what agreements are now being offered to people still left in the footprint?
[Stuckey] wouldn't specify how many years of differential rent would be paid. “I think the answer is: 'we’ll take care of them,'" he said. "What I’m not going to do is get into the specifics with individuals.”
It would be good, I said, to see it in writing.
“In time,” he responded.
Posted by lumi at 9:13 AM
July 3, 2006
Freddy's Brooklyn Roundhouse
Freddy's Brooklyn Roundhouse is tryin' to turn it around by broadcasting from "within the footprint of the Bruce Ratner skyscraper Nets arena proposed development project."
This installment of the Roundhouse features a roundtable of residents and a tenants' rights attorney speaking about the coersive use of the threat of eminent domain, gag orders, and constitutional rights hero Michael Ratner's financial stake in the project.
The last 10 minutes is a uniquely uninformative interview with Tenant X, who is restricted by a gag order from speaking freely about Bruce Ratner's project. To communicate, Tenant X knocks once for "yes" and twice for "no." This interview will leave you grunting for more.
Posted by lumi at 9:25 AM
May 26, 2006
Extreme density: Atlantic Yards plan would dwarf Battery Park City, other projects
Norman Oder pokes around NYC and crunches some numbers to try to understand how Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards proposal "stacks up" against our city's other highrise residential developments.
It turns out that the Atlantic Yards proposal would bring more apartments per acre than any other major development he could find. [Using "number of apartments" is a way to approximate the important issue of population density.]
How big should the Atlantic Yards project be (or, for that matter, any project over the railyards)? If you compare AY to other major developments around the city, it would include more than twice as many apartments per acre than at Stuyvesant Town and Battery Park City, and thus a much more dense population--one that would surpass the turn-of-the-century Lower East Side.
| PROJECT NAME | # OF APTS. | ACRES | APTS./ACRE |
| PC Village/Stuy Town | 11,250 | 80 | 140.6 |
| Battery Park City now | 9000 | 92 | 97.8 |
| Battery Park City later | 14,000 | 92 | 152.2 |
| Starrett at Spring Creek | 5881 | 153 | 38.4 |
| Co-op City | 15,372 | 300 | 51.2 |
| Lefrak City | 5000 | 40 | 125 | Atlantic Yards, 5/06 | 6860 | 20 | 343 |
NoLandGrab: Look who just caught on! (Hey we're bloggers not urban planners.)
Project critics have been comparing Atlantic Yards to the superblock development projects of the past, as a way to conveniently grasp the size of the proposal and understand the effects of street closings.
However, Ratner's proposal is a MAJOR break from the traditional superblock paradigm, which used highrise towers to maximize open space in an attempt to improve quality of life.
Ratner appears to be using highrise towers to maximize profit. With a very low open-space ratio, this project's density is off the charts in comparison to other residential housing projects and may be the first "extreme-density high-rise project."
Are there ANY urban planning principles guiding the fundamental Atlantic Yards design, except to say that "extreme density" is necessary to insure profitability?
Posted by lumi at 11:01 AM
May 24, 2006
HPD head mildly criticizes 421-a subsidies, defends "targeted eminent domain"
Today's Atlantic Yards Report post covers Shaun Donovan, commissioner of the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), and a recent interview in which Donovan commented on the City's 421-a housing subsidies and eminent domain.
Posted by lumi at 7:35 AM
April 23, 2006
Mike likes public housing hike
Daily News describes Bloomberg's support for hikes in public housing rents, and the dissident voice of Bertha Lewis of ACORN:
"We can give tax breaks and subsidies to millionaires and billionaires to build luxury condos, but we can't help working families?" Lewis fumed.
Wait, are you taking the kiss back Bertha?
Atlantic Yards Report details the details:
Lewis is right that reform of the subsidy program is long overdue. But unmentioned is that a lot of public housing tenants pay far less of their income in rent than those in affordable housing. For example, the affordable housing plan ACORN negotiated with Forest City Ratner for the Atlantic Yards project caps rents at 30 percent of household income--which is the standard in the definition of affordable housing. As Bloomberg said, according to WNYC, "We are proposing to raise the rent for people who pay less then 10% of their income in rent. It's a small percentage. Someone has to pay for it."That's not true, since the calculations below show that some people facing increases now pay 20% of their income in rent. Still, the relatively best-off public housing tenants are facing less of a hit than some of the others facing increases.
Posted by amy at 10:41 AM
March 6, 2006
Atlantic Yards Report: Density Debate Contextualized & Equity-v-Livability
Atlantic Yards Report attempts to clarify two debates surrounding Bruce Ratner's proposed 22-acre mega-development.
New visuals of AY density; when does it become congestion?
The recent "citizen effort" to provide visual context concerning the density of the Atlantic Yards proposal attempts to address Forest City Ratner Executive VP Jim Stuckey's point that density should be situated near a transportation hub. Do the visually arresting images illustrate density or congestion?
Atlantic Yards Reporter Norman Oder quotes Urbanist Roberta Brandes Gratz, in her book The Living City:
"Density comes when many people are in the same place doing things that gain strength from their interaction; congestion results when there are so many of them that interaction becomes difficult, access in and out unpleasant, and frustration high."
Equity vs. livability: the false choice
Pratt Center for Community Development Director Bran Lander framed the affordable housing debate as divided between "'equity advocates,' as represented by ACORN, and 'livability advocates,' as represented by Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB)."
Are these convenient labels much too simplistic to further the debate over affordable housing and Atlantic Yards?
Posted by lumi at 11:07 AM
February 14, 2006
In Ratner's Shadow: Caroline Gleeman
WNYC, News Radio
Reporter Andrea Bernstein's series about artist being displaced in Ratner's footprint leads to jewelry designer Croline Gleeman's moving day at 475 Dean St.
Posted by lumi at 1:40 PM
February 13, 2006
In Ratner's Shadow
Part I: The Creative Sector
WNYC
By Andrea Bernstein
On Dean Street in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, there’s a six-story factory building from the turn of the last century. Its walls are brick and stone, the window frames are made of huge swathes of green metal. The building has been emptied now, by developer Forest City Ratner. Ratner wants to build a basketball arena here, and 17 high-rise towers. WNYC’s Andrea Bernstein has been following the stories of the tenants who are being displaced. Here’s one of them.
Today, Andrea Bernstein is scheduled to discuss her series on displacement in the footprint of Ratner's proposal on the Brian Lehrer Show (10 am-12 noon, WNYC).
Posted by lumi at 9:29 AM
December 9, 2005
526 Carlton Avenue
In the fight against blight, 526 Carlton Ave. has been listed with Corcoran realty for $1.499 million. 526 Carlton stands on the block carved out of in the midst of the Ratner footprint.
Posted by lumi at 4:43 PM
December 8, 2005
PACIFIC ST. BRACES FOR A MOVE. LONG-TIMERS TO MAKE WAY FOR ATLANTIC YARD PROJECT
The Daily News
By Jotham Sederstrom
This article on an elderly widow who will be displaced by Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project appeared in yesterday's print edition only:
VICTORIA Harmon can recall the days when coal was used to heat her Prospect Heights apartment building.
But one thing the 87-year-old Brooklyn-born widow can't understand is what's going to happen after her apartment of 63 years is razed to make way for the Atlantic Yards arena and towers.
"You'd like to know what's going on," said Harmon, who has lived alone in her second-floor apartment since her husband, Russell, died last year.
"They say it's going to happen, but that's about it. We want to know when."
In a wheelchair and recovering from a stroke, Harmon is one of at least 25 residents in two buildings on Pacific St. bracing themselves for a move when construction begins on the proposed project.
The 22-acre, $3.5 billion plan calls for 9 million square feet of office and residential space in a building to rise as high as 620 feet.
Harmon and other tenants received letters this summer from Forest City Ratner promising new digs at prices similar to what they're currently paying.
Harmon, who draws Social Security checks, pays $180 for her rent-controlled apartment.
"Nobody wants to go, but you gotta go - you have to," said Harmon. "But what do you want me to do? Fight it? They say it will be good for the neighborhood."
Forest City Ratner spokeswoman Lupe Todd said Harmon has not responded to the letter, but that the company would answer any of her questions.
"Our goal is to make the move as comfortable as possible for her once it takes place," Todd said.
If all goes as planned, it will be Harmon's first move since 1942, the year neighbors on her block began displaying stars on their windows to honor sons and daughters fighting in World War II.
It also was the year she and hundreds of other Brooklynites lost their jobs at the nearby Julius Kayser lace factory, which closed shop following union strikes, only to reopen in Pennsylvania.
Decades later, her son Ed would sneak chocolate from the Chunky candy factory that sat behind their apartment on Dean St.
"My mother expected to die there - it's as simple as that," said Ed Harmon, 49, who still lives in the neighborhood.
"The nice thing is her friends take care of her. That's what's going to be missed - not the shell of the buildings; that's neither here nor there - but the community."
Posted by lumi at 7:10 AM
September 23, 2005
What Will Ratner Reap?
The Jewish Week
by Adam Dickter
If he builds it, will Jews come?:
“It will very likely encourage more Jewish life in an area that has not been the main focus of Jewish life in the borough of Brooklyn,” [demographer Jack] Ukeles said.
On the other hand:
But because Orthodox Jews require more local infrastructure than other denominations or unaffiliated Jews, it is unlikely a large Orthodox community will spring up in the new neighborhood despite overcrowding in areas like Williamsburg, Crown Heights and Borough Park.
Letter to the editor from a Jewish Week subscriber.
Posted by lumi at 7:13 AM
June 24, 2005
Some Prospect Heights Residents Fear "Future Brooklyn"
WNYC reveals what's REALLY happening to residents in the footprint, and being made an instant millionaire is not part of the deal:
YOST: I would love for them to come to me and say we’re sorry about you having to move, we realize the inconvenience we’re going to give you an apartment on the 31st floor facing west by southwest so you can see the sunset, a small little terrace so you’ll be able to charcoal your lamb chops out there.REPORTER: Instead, Yost says, he’s moving to a small basement apartment nearby at the end of this month, where his rent will essentially double.
Posted by amy at 9:21 PM
June 10, 2005
STAY PUT!
From the Brooklyn Papers:
During a residents-only meeting of the Dean Street Block Association June 2 at the Latin Evangelical Free Church, on Bergen Street at Sixth Avenue, Markowitz urged renters not to move from their apartments even if landlords threatened eviction or refused to renew leases, according to Robert Puca, a resident of the Newswalk condominium on Dean Street, who attended the meeting.Markowitz said that developer Bruce Ratner had assured him that tenants in Ratner-owned buildings would retain their protections and their rents, Puca said.
article [NoLandGrab files this under "I've got a bridge to sell you."]
Posted by amy at 10:12 PM