First Yards Tower To Be Half-Affordable
Amid all the photo ops at yesterday’s groundbreaking ceremony for Atlantic Yards, there was one big piece of news (well, two if you count Governor Paterson’s disclosure that he grew up on Grand Avenue between Gates and Greene!): Mayor Bloomberg announced that he’d gotten Forest City Ratner to commit to making 50% of the units…
Amid all the photo ops at yesterday’s groundbreaking ceremony for Atlantic Yards, there was one big piece of news (well, two if you count Governor Paterson’s disclosure that he grew up on Grand Avenue between Gates and Greene!): Mayor Bloomberg announced that he’d gotten Forest City Ratner to commit to making 50% of the units in the first residential tower—which currently is slated to get underway in the first half of next year—on the site affordable. As the Brooklyn Paper reported earlier this week, Ratner’s also been toying with hiring David Childs in an effort to beef up on name brand architects after tossing Frank Gehry overboard.
Affordable Housing Deal at Atlantic Yards [Crain’s]
After Years of Controversy, Ceremonial Shovels Come Out [NY Times]
Protests at Groundbreaking for B’klyn Arena [NY Post]
Photo from nycmayorsoffice
This development or project is not tacking on the term ‘affordable’. It is a term used and defined by gov’t for all types of housing built with tax incentives, credits, subsidy whatever. The same formula would apply no matter who the developer is and no matter where built.
The “affordable” units won’t necessarily be cheaper than the “market rate” units. They are all subsidized- Ratner has gotten a bouquet of subsidies, and he will continue to get them.
Posted by: harriet at March 12, 2010 9:58 AM
The “affordable” housing that results from this project develops will be the FIRST available in that area for a long time.
The available housing in the immediate area is far from “affordable” Unless you’re fortunate enough to enjoy rent-control or -stabilization. I rented for years at 521 Dean Street and in the surrounding neighborhood and the prices there are NOT “affordable.”
The neighborhood was pricey when Ratner started his plan and remains pricey. If the housing AY develops is indeed below market rate, it will already be cheaper than the alternative for the majority of people, if not “affordable.”
what a fuc*ing joke. affordable my ass! affordable in these douchbags eyes is 500k for a studio. this project is going to gentrify the shit out of brooklyn. around the arena their is going to be franchises up the ass and expensive stores nearby. brooklyn will be doomed when this montrosity is built.
My problem with their “affordability” formula is that, as I understand it, they average the incomes in the 5 boroughs, Nassau and Suffolk counties, as well as Westchester and Rockland counties to come up with their income tables. That’s ridiculous. They should be averaging incomes in the immediate area, or in the borough of Brooklyn. The figures they would come up with would make the median income more like the reality of most of Brooklyn, and that would be a better determiner of what is truly affordable for the people of Brooklyn.
i wonder if this is how ratner bargained with the community groups for his continued ownership of their souls.
While I generally don’t care for the project, it will be an upgrade If they get SOM to do the housing. I think the term “affordable” is a term of art that refers to the result of a formula – a certain quantity of the units must be “affordable” to those who make up to 120% of the median income of a given area (i.e. the maximum allowable monthly payment for a unit is based on a percentage of monthly income per family size, etc.) So then I suppose the subsidy comes from the massive giveaway to the developer and the resulting tax burden to the rest of us from the project. To the extent that there is any public benefit at all from this thing, some units of housing that are not set aside for millionaires is as good a place as any to start.
I wonder what Brooklyn would be like if we had not joined in the “Great Mistake” of 1898. Well, too late for crying over that now. The other Great Mistake I see just broke ground yesterday.
i meant to say “harriet is right” not “harriet is rich” what a freudian slip
*rob*
harriet is rich, and so many times with affordable units, people who move into them are seriously over extending themselves financially.
it’s like when you see those ads for affordable apartments in the bronx for like 980 a month, but the income restriction is 14 – 19K. it’s like EH?
*rob*