Spillover Crowds, Strong Words Mark AY Hearing
By all accounts, yesterday’s public hearing on the Atlantic Yards project was crowded, raucous and long. There’s ample coverage of the blow-by-blows on the links below. While The Times notes that the two sides of the issue appeared to have hardened, Norman Oder notes that more public figures are heading the opposite direction: There was…
By all accounts, yesterday’s public hearing on the Atlantic Yards project was crowded, raucous and long. There’s ample coverage of the blow-by-blows on the links below. While The Times notes that the two sides of the issue appeared to have hardened, Norman Oder notes that more public figures are heading the opposite direction:
There was some evidence of a push for compromise. Borough President Marty Markowitz, though vague, offered his most forceful words for a project scaledown. Assemblymembers Roger Green and Jim Brennan reminded the crowd of their effort to subsidize a 34 percent reduction in the project’s size. And Kenn Lowy, of Community Board 2’s Traffic and Transportation Committee, drew cheers from opponents when he declared that the project must be reduced by 60 percent.
Is compromise the inevitable course of action?
Raucous Meeting on Atlantic Yards [NY Times]
Hoop Dreams Draw a Foul [NY Post]
Sides Clash Over Atlantic Yards [NY Sun]
Supporters Out in Force, Opponents Go the Distance [AY Report]
AY: Brooklyn Deserves a Better Plan [Municipal Arts Society]
“In the end, DG will sell out to Ratner and give up his rat hole of an apartment for $2-$3 million to FCR (it’s worth about $400k)! In the meantime, DDDB supporters are funding his semi-retirement until his VERY VERY BIG PAYDAY!”
If that were true and I sincerely doubt it, you’re saying it’s okay for Ratner to use the government to forcibly take his home away, but wrong for Dan to defend his property.
If the state goes ahead and uses the rational that the area is blighted NO HOME is safe – it will just be a matter of developers greasing the right wheels.
Very well said at 2:48, dreadnaught. You brought up a point that few have touched on here: all of the low income units will be rentals. So, anon at 3:00 the only flipping that will be going on will be in the form of the large bird that FCR is flipping at low income folks.
THAT’S what Ms Lewis and ACORN should be pressuring Ratner for. Home ownership is an important step to a better life for anyone, and would greatly benefit lower income people by providing them with opportunities they will never get as renters – tax deductions, home equity, better loans and rates for borrowing. The chance to sell your unit down the road, or cash in some equity, can give someone the opportunity to pay for higher education, or start a business.
While the chance to rent a new affordable apartment is not to be discounted, this could have been an opportunity to really make a difference by offering the units for sale. As it is, no new affordable housing of any kind will be built for another 10 years, which gives FCR plenty of time to decide that there is no room for it at AY, or to say “sorry, we just can’t do it now” because of some lame excuse. No matter how this whole AY thing shakes out in the end, lower income people will still lose.
“I am sure that if it was that extel company planning this at first people in that neighborhood will oppose it aswell.”
Nope, its supported by AY opponents. a smaller scale project with more affordable housing is more than doable, and the units would be ready in 3-5 years not ten years.
Would you also like you boys to have clean air and open parkland – because Ratner’s project will kill both – and Brooklyn already has one of the highest asthma rates in the country. It would also make this part of Brooklyn the most densely populated place in the country. What sort of living conditions are those?
If this plan is so good why has he gone around local community and zoning laws put in place to protect neighborhoods from this sort of careless overdevelopment.
and did you know he gets a thirty year property tax break? That means that middle class brooklynites will have to pick up the tax burden because we will need more infrastructure.
Ratner is set to make a BILLION dollar profit from this. and it’s ALL funded by the state and city. and if it fails his investors don’t lose we will have to absorb the cost, and as other articles on brownstoner indicate the luxury condo market is collapsing.
I can wait for 10 years! Hopefully it start to happen. Not only here at the Atlantic Yards but all over the City. I want my 2 boys to have affordabe housing aswell. I don’t plan to move to Georgia, like many of my friends had because of affordability. I also don’t mind the prices. I am sure that if it was that extel company planning this at first people in that neighborhood will oppose it aswell. So I don’t buy the opposition at all. These guys are ready to built. Let them built. I can’t wait to apply for affordability.
To play Devil’s advocate (sort of), Brooklyn could use more housing for the $50,000 – $70,000 a year people. At least in the parts of Brooklyn near Manhattan, there isn’t much available if you want to own but can’t drop $1 million on a house. I don’t think we want the borough to be nothing but millionaires and the impoverished. Anything to keep the middle class from fleeing to the burbs.
The real beneficiary in all of this will be Daniel Goldstein. In the end, DG will sell out to Ratner and give up his rat hole of an apartment for $2-$3 million to FCR (it’s worth about $400k)! In the meantime, DDDB supporters are funding his semi-retirement until his VERY VERY BIG PAYDAY! Smart guy. He’s laughing all the way to the bank!!!
“The low income families will flip their brand new condo apartments to housing starved yuppies for 3x what they paid for it! ”
ALL of the affordable housing units are rental, there are no subsidized/low income condos.
I am a middle class Black man, and I don’t mind getting a unit in there neither and having neighbors that are poor, middle, upper and rich class. I like to interact with all kids of races and monetary status. So this prices for the units doesn’t bother me.
I actaully might afford to live in one. How do I apply for one anyway?
How about this for income redistribution? The low income families will flip their brand new condo apartments to housing starved yuppies for 3x what they paid for it! NOW THAT’S CAPITALISM! They make a quick buck and we get to live in a really cool development!