Hotel Handout, Few Affordable Phase 1 Units at AY
Sarah Ryley over at the Brooklyn Eagle’s been digging through the recently-released Atlantic Yards documents and finding some interesting things. In an article online yesterday, she wrote that the Forest City Ratner would be selling the rights to build a hotel within Miss Brooklyn for $28.8 million. “Basically, it’s eminent domain being used to give…
Sarah Ryley over at the Brooklyn Eagle‘s been digging through the recently-released Atlantic Yards documents and finding some interesting things. In an article online yesterday, she wrote that the Forest City Ratner would be selling the rights to build a hotel within Miss Brooklyn for $28.8 million. “Basically, it’s eminent domain being used to give the land to Ratner for free,” commented Dan Goldstein. “Then he gets to sell it, which again is pure profit to him as opposed to the state and the city. In a separate article, Ryley also notes that less than 10 percent of the first-phase apartments—143 out of 1,580—will be low-income units. Another 216 apartments will be for middle-income earners. “The so-called moderate-income properties are way beyond the incomes of the vast majority of residents in my district, so to call those units affordable is laughable,” said City Council Member Letitia James.
Ratner May Net $30 Million On Sale of Arena Hotel [Brooklyn Eagle]
Few Affordable Apartments for First AY Tower [Brooklyn Eagle]
g-d1 what a truly disgusting thread- I dfeel like I stumbled onto the KKK website. thanks Brownstoner for providing bigots the opportunity to present their views under the guise of urban planning.
This is exactly the reason why I don’t have my employer withhold city taxes from my paycheck. I’ll be subtracting a certain amount so as not to be contributing a dime to this bunch of bullshit.
Marty Markowitz, George Pataki, Michael Bloomberg and every other one of the corrupt, paid-off politicians that made this nonsense possible should be dragged out into the street and shot (not literally of course).
What’s worse is the way in which FCR has attempted to use race baiting to their benefit – and the morons who fall for it hook, line and sinker. Wake UP!
Again a 421-a tax exemption does not mean that future AY condo owners would pay $0 property taxes – it means that they pay the same property taxes as the current owners now pay – so in effect the city doesn’t lose a single property-tax dollar – and in the case of AY the exemption lasts 20 years and then is fazed out over the next 5 yrs.
While we’re all discussing racism – real and imagined – Ratner’s bilking all of us of $2 billion and wrecking our borough.
anonymous 4:02, you wrote:
“Once again, City Boy would be right if the owners of the rentals and the condos were paying PROPERTY taxes…”
I see. So if PROPERT TAXES are disguised as NY City INCOME TAXES, they’re not really PROPERTY TAXES.
Meanwhile, how much PROPERTY TAX revenue is collected from the residents of public housing projects? Is it ZERO dollars? Or is it a big NEGATIVE number? Go with the latter.
You wrote:
“…which they won’t be for at least 25 years, and according to the city that would be $300 million in lost property tax revenue just on the condos.”
I gather you also believe that economies only develop when government collects revenue and distributes it.
One added bonus from postponing the distribution of deeply discounted apartments to residents who can’t afford the neighborhood is an improvement in the character of students in the public schools that will serve the AY community.
This benefit is particularly striking when you look at public school expenditures.
For example, the Average Per-Pupil Expenditure in NY City is about $14,000 a year. The school system is almost 80% black and hispanic.
However, the Annual Expenditure per Stuyvesant High School student is about $9,000 a year.
In other words, it costs much less to educate kids who are not discipline problems. Schools individually report their annual budgets. It’s all there.
Therefore, if the entire city were populated mostly by middle-class families who embraced WHITE and Asian middle-class sensibilities, the education bill for this city would drop by BILLIONS of dollars.
While you see only a tax shortfall — a mythical shortfall — you fail to understand that when problem communities are replaced by functioning communities, many social costs plummet.
Once again, City Boy would be right if the owners of the rentals and the condos were paying PROPERTY taxes, which they won’t be for at least 25 years, and according to the city that would be $300 million in lost property tax revenue just on the condos.
Now sure, N Yorkers pay too much taxes, but that wasn’t really the point City Boy was making, he was making the point that “the rich” are paying for “the poor” but in the case of Atlantic Yards, “the rich” are paying no property taxes at all. Are they paying mortgage and transfer taxes? sure. but they are not paying property taxes.
What an awesome AY thread, I’m sorry I missed it! All the great points have already been made…
I hate the vitriol but City Boy is right, so right it deserved saying twice! I paid 48% marginal tax rate last year for the privilege of living in this great city.
Furthermore the real estate taxes that a lot of people count on being deductible aren’t once you’re “rich” enough to have to pay the AMT (aka the Mandatory Maximum Tax)
One reason why real estate is so attractive is the interest deduction is one thing that doesn’t getting taken away from you once you can actually afford to live in this city (at least without someone else subsidizing you) – its not my fault market rate for apartments almost anywhere decent in this city are around $1000 a sq foot.
For people who want affordable housing move to Kansas instead of expecting the most productive people to help pay for you. There’s no god given right to live in New York City anymore than there is to live in Beverly Hills.
babs, you said:
“Ebbets Field Houses were not built as a public housing project (they were actually considered as quite nice when they were first built)…”
They absolutely were. They project may have been aimed at keeping white Brooklynites in the neighborhood, but the project was NOT a private undertaking.
It may have been claimed that Ebbet’s Field housing was meant for middle- and low-income residents. But it quickly became a site filled with black residents — as it is today.
You wrote:
“…and are still not public housing.”
Really? Take another look at how the rent is paid.
You wrote:
“A not-charming place they may be, because of 1. their out-of-scale size”
Like Lincoln Towers when it was built? Or Stuyvesant Town?
You wrote:
“2. white flight from the surrounding area spurred by an influx of minorities.”
It was the simple reality of rising crime rates that drove whites to safer communities. Not the fact that the new residents were minorities (which is a sadly ironic joke in this city today since less than half the population is white).
You wrote:
“And Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, etc., are very different from a sports arena.”
Well I admit that not many people emerging from an evening at Lincoln Center leave drunk and disorderly. But so what? This is New York City. Residential housing near sports arenas will achieve its own market value. It’s not necessary for the government to interfere. Meanwhile, there was housing near Ebbet’s Field and there is housing by Wrigley Field in Chicago. It all words out okay.
You wrote:
“And I don’t think many people live near the Javits Center.”
There are plenty of people living on the sidestreets off 11th Ave. But the housing in that area is affected by some of the city’s outdated zoning rules. If the old rules are scrapped, a lot of new housing will arrive in that area.