Bertha Lewis Defends ACORN's Deal with FCR

They may very well be better off elsewhere, Prowd, but that’s not the point. The point is that ACORN’s endorsement was contingent, in part, upon the AY site being developed with low income and affordable housing as a major part of the complex. Not in East New York, or wherever else it ends up being, if it ends up being at all. ACORN is correct that most new developments in the city, especially in Brooklyn, should be a mixture of affordability levels, most especially when tax abatement and give back programs specifically set up to encourage middle to lower income projects are used. I also agree that the best way for a rising tide to lift all boats, housing wise, is for mixed income developments to be built. Now that causes all kinds of other issues to come up, but the point remains is that this is what was promised to ACORN by FCR. Huge loopholes were built into that by FCR, and unfortunately it seems that ACORN and Bertha Lewis really weren’t aware of who they were getting involved with. Highly successful and rich developers like Ratner have highly paid law firms that write this stuff for breakfast. Unless ACORN has similar people they can consult with, and unfortunately, they don’t, they let themselves get took, pure and simple.

The original CHP

I’m confused. The implication appears to be that moving the low-income housing off-site would be a bad thing. On the other hand, most opponents have painted the future AY site as a hellhole: traffic, smog, congestion, density, overcrowded schools, sewage problems, even terrorism. By that logic, wouldn’t residents of the low-income housing be better off elsewhere?

Let me just start out by saying I think Bertha Lewis and ACORN made a horrendous mistake when they allowed themselves to be bought out by FCR. Having said that, I really feel for her. ACORN and organizations like it serve a tremendous need by being an advocate for affordable housing and a constant thorn in the side of residential developers. We, as a city, need people who are always there to be voices for the voiceless. Let’s face it, the needs of people who can’t afford market rate anything in this city are usually forgotten unless there are organizations or people who make noise. With the vast amounts of money to be made in real estate development, especially given the (mis)use of city, state and federal tax abatements and other programs, there is no excuse for the way money is spent and how the housing market works. Bertha Lewis is a canny, smart organizer and a highly intelligent woman, and I can only think that she thought siding with FCR would be to the best interest of the cause.

Maybe she didn’t do enough due diligence on FCR and Bruce Ratner’s public record, or maybe she just really believed them when they made their inititial promises, or maybe they really needed the money to pay their rent, I don’t pretend to know. Personally, I would have gotten a hint from the way that the Atlantic Center Malls are very lower income bracket unfriendly, that perhaps the presence of the lower classes was not figured highly into plans of any of the dealings of FCR. So now she is in the unenviable position of being legally obligated to shore up the party line, and back the Man, even though he has now started to show his true face. Sad.

Apologist Bertha Lewis’s statements are quite astounding. Let’s analyse:

Yes, developers need to make a profit. This does not need to be stated. However, the scale of the Ratner project is so over-the-top that it clearly goes way beyond that need. Is it reasonable to believe that only such a gigantic project makes a profit? If the entire project were designed as, say, 6-storey buildings, would he not make a profit? It’s ridiculous to imply that only at Ratner’s scale is it possible to profit. If that were so, there’d be no small or mid-scale development in this city.

More importantly, if that’s so, why does he need 1) a substantial public subsidy 2) tax abatements for 30 years and 3) the might of the Empire Development Corp. to reduce city requirements on environmental and other issues? Three points not make it clear that either Ratner’s proposal is unrealistic and unprofitable on its own (hard to believe, but possible) or that he has successfully snowed the powers-that-be into increasing his profit, an unconscionable dereliction of responsibility on their part.

The bottom line is that if AY in its current format were viable, none of the above would be needed.

Pointing, as Ms Lewis does to other developments that do not have an affordable component is presenting a false positive. It has nothing to do with the objections to AY. She could equally well point to projects that do have affordable housing to prove AY is not viable, and there are some of those, maybe not enough. The point is, that the way to improve the affordable housing stock is to give *all* developers either an incentive, or make it a requirement, to build in a affordable component.

Density: I doubt that anyone in opposition to Ratner believes in low density. But it’s a big difference between the type of “high density” prevalent in our brownstone neighnorhoods and what AY will be. So for Ms. Lewis to imply that it’s a “bogeyman” does a great disservice to the many planners, urban designers and just plain concerned citizens who claim, justifiably, that AY’s density is inappropriate, out-of-scale and will cause tremendous problems. These have been documented. But it does not take a rocket scientist, or an urban planner to recognize the disruption that this level of development will cause.

Her final paragraph is another desperate spin. There *is* (was) a viable alternative plan proposed, and Extell afaik, offered *more money* to buy the development rights than Ratner did. That development plan had all the positives implied by Ms Lewis insofar as affordable housing as well as more open space, and, importantly, less overwhelming towers (although still too much in my personal view).

Let us take her statements for what they are: a spin on facts to justify her selling out for the, possibly futile, hope that AY will actually do what Ratner says it will.