The combination of some poor political calculation on the part of the Bloomberg administration and the back-room dealings of a state assemblyman may spell doom for a housing bill that was supposed to create more affordable housing in the city while stemming the flow of handouts to luxury developers, according to some post-game analysis in The New York Times this morning. The most embarrassing piece of the eleventh-hour alterations to the bill by Assemblyman Vito Lopez of Brooklyn (who, notes the Atlantic Yards Report, has received campaign contributions from Bruce Ratner’s brother and sister-in-law) in heavy consultation with REBNY’s Steven Spinola, is the additional $300 million it gives to Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project in return for no additional affordable housing concessions. In addition, Bloomberg et al are pissed that the Lopez version of the bill, which expands the exclusion zones in the outer boroughs beyond what the city had originally defined, removes the city’s ability to give tax benefits for some 10,000 middle-income apartments currently in the works and also blocks the city from funding 2,000 apartments in poor areas. So here’s a question: Is the Bushwick-based Lopez as big a dirt-bag as this whole ordeal makes him out to be (he is, after all, a close pal of the poster boy for corruption Clarence Norman) or was he just following his heart in fighting to tilt the bill more in favor of low-income residents than middle-income even if it meant further enriching some wealthy developers in the process? Or does the truth lie somewhere in the middle?
City’s Plans for Housing Flop in Albany [NY Times]
City says “Atlantic Yards carve-out” worth $300 million [AY Report]