Development Doesn't Stop with Atlantic Yards
Within three blocks of Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards proposal are eight new construction projects, and at least five of them are 35 stories or higher, reports the NY Post. Thor Equities is planning a 60-story mixed use tower called Albee Square West; John Catsimatidis – owner of the Gristede’s chain – is planning a…
Within three blocks of Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards proposal are eight new construction projects, and at least five of them are 35 stories or higher, reports the NY Post. Thor Equities is planning a 60-story mixed use tower called Albee Square West; John Catsimatidis – owner of the Gristede’s chain – is planning a project that will reach near 40 stories; BFC Development has a 40-story residential and retail tower development in the works that was designed by Skidmore Owings and Merrill, and Ron Hershco just broke ground for his 35- and 40-story luxury buildings.
New Downtown Brooklyn ‘Heights’ [NY Post]
Albee Square West graphic from Thor Equities
Yes- Acorn did much in the past but how do you explain Lewis’ behavior with AY? Not much of the agreement Acorn signed, along with other community groups, is going to be done the way it was promised. How can she go back to her constitutiency and say “I fought to get like 200+ subsidized apts. for your income level and over 400 apartments promised in subsidized housing for people with income levels up to 100,000?” How do you respect someone who signed an agreement stating she would say nothing about the AY development that didn’t toe the Ratner party line? And Acorn got paid for it. How objective are they now? How trustworthy can they be if they are agreeable to being muzzled by the very company that paid them? Looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck.
As far as slandering or ridiculing Lewis- I think you’re overreacting. I suggest you get a dictionary and look up the meaning of those words. I agree with Shahn- I want them to picket too- but where are they? I believe Lewis compromised Acorn’s credibility and it’s a shame. And I thinks the facts bear me out.
No cheap shot from me. I want them to picket these monster developments. Developers shouldn’t be able to build 30+ stories without having to include some sort of mixed-income housing with a twilight clause for when housing in New York is truly a free market.
I want to see how serious they are about development projects where their involvement is not subsidised by the developer. What’s a cheap shot about that?
ACORN and Betha Lewis have a long and commendable track record and cheap shots by anti-AY people who have never fought for affordable housing. It does not help your cause or argument.
Face it – there are people that are very interested and long-involved in betterment of our community that don’t agree with your position. Doesn’t mean you are wrong but don’t slander and ridicule decent people just because they have other viewpoint.
Don’t expect to see Bertha Lewis out there picketing- no one is paying her. I think the big issue is how much luxury housing will go up and what happns to the rest of us. There is an overall feeling, like anon2 says, that the middle class is no longer important. And that’s a very short-sighted, dangerous view IMHO. City Planning reflects Bloomberg’s attitude- that NYC is a “luxury product.” While I understand what he is trying to say, his words reduce NYC to the level of a store item.
It looks very nice. I hope they built it. NIMBY’s will be pissed. But who cares.
Ugh. There goes the neighborhood. Metrotech is an abomination, and this looks like more of the same.
What a shame.
Did DCP drop the ball, or is the lack of inclusionary zoning part of a deliberate strategy? There’s a confluence of articles, reports, tea leaves, etc. that are leading me to conclude that a decision has been made from on high that a middle-class residential presence in NYC is no longer important. See the article in yesterday’s NYT Week in Review, “Cities Shed Middle Class, and Are Richer and Poorer for It” for reasons why a “superstar” city might want to go this route. Also: the City will now allow DC37 workers to live outside the city – bye,bye big traditional chunk of municipal middle class. The RPA report on affordable housing (cited a few days ago) is encouraging redevelopment of cities outside NYC (e.g., Bridgeport, Newark, Yonkers).
I guess the solution is fight-or-flight (personally, I flew). But maybe the fight for affordable housing gains focus and sharpness if there’s a recognition that the real-estate development powers (and their friends in government, finance, and the NYT) do not, at bottom, value the presence of the middle class or view it as a goal. Then you know what you’re really fighting against.
The Department of City Planning really dropped the ball on this rezoning. Millions of square feet of luxury condos, and no inclusionary zoning for mixed income housing? I better see ACORN out there picketting every day on these projects, or you know they are just a puppet group.