The Wall Street Journal highlights the disappointment so many people are feeling about the failure thus far of the Atlantic Yards project to create a single one of the 6,400 units of affordable housing developer Forest City Ratner promised during its multi-year sales pitch to the city. “They should do the affordable housing up front, now,” said Assemblyman James Brennan. “The only legitimate selling point for the entire project was the affordable housing.” It turns out that this makes Atlantic Yards more of the rule than the exception: Big real estate projects “rarely get developed as planned.” That’s the finding of a recent Regional Planning Association study. As in the case of Atlantic Yards, it’s much easier for a developer to say what the public wants to hear and then fudge, delay and renegotiate its way out of the tough stuff later on. MaryAnne Gilmartin, executive vice president at Forest City Ratner, said that the developer really did intend to make one-third of the residential units at the Downtown Brooklyn location affordable, “But it turns out not to be so easy.”
Housing Pieces Delayed [Wall Street Journal]
Photo from Ditmas Park Corner


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