Flashback, 2014: What NY Times Scoop on the New Atlantic Yards Plan Missed
Downplaying Greenland, omitting $2,000/mo. fines for 2025 deadline, and misleading re affordable housing and accountability. Today, the absent skepticism seems glaring.
Will the next, dramatically changing phase of Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park be revealed in a scoop fed to an under-informed, not-so-careful publication?1
Well, that’s what happened June 27, 2014, when the New York Times prominently published “Plan Expedited for Affordable Housing Near Arena,” with a misleading subhead, “2,250 Units in Brooklyn, 10 Years Early.”
(Online, it was Plan Expedited for Affordable Housing Near Barclays Center in Brooklyn.)
While the new May 2025 deadline for affordable housing was ten years before the project’s “outside date” of 2035, it wasn’t “early.” Developer Forest City Ratner had always claimed the housing would take ten years to build. The article text more precisely described it as “10 years ahead of the current schedule.”
That article deserves a second look, since it not only had errors and omissions noted at the time, hindsight and further reporting suggest both misleading emphases and lack of skepticism.
Perhaps because it was an exclusive, the only sources quoted were supporters of the deal, including those from the BrooklynSpeaks coalition who’d pushed the state and Forest City on the new timeline and other commitments in this agreement.
However, the history of Atlantic Yards offered ample reasons for doubt. Today, given that the 2,250 affordable units will not have been delivered by the end of the month, with 876 left to go, the skepticism others expressed back then seems prescient.
Affordability and timing
Notably, the Times’s failure to describe the configuration of promised affordability—and the erroneous (and still not corrected) claim that income ceiling in two “100% affordable” buildings would be $104,000—distracted from the reality:
the agreement was silent on future affordability levels
those two buildings would be skewed to middle-income households earning far more than $104,000, explained below
That skew, a significant departure from the promises in the 2005 Affordable Housing Memorandum of Understanding signed with the advocacy group New York ACORN (and incorporated into the purportedly binding Community Benefits Agreement, or CBA), has only continued.
Because the agreement did not mandate affordability levels, not only did the next two affordable towers (B14 and B3) contain more middle-income than low-income apartments, the subsequent towers, which opened after 2022, have offered only middle-income units.
Today, the issue of delay is even more crucial, as Area Median Income (AMI), the baseline for affordability calculations, has risen steadily, a consequence of being tied to more affluent suburbs and a “high housing cost adjustment.”
Beyond the Times’s framing, misleading press releases, from New York State and from BrooklynSpeaks, emphasized the new timetable and the all-affordable buildings—backed by enthusiastic quotes from public officials and advocates—without explaining who'd be eligible to live in them. Nor did the settlement agreement.
(Misled by the Times, my initial coverage omitted the affordability details, though I soon followed up.)
Oversight questions
The article also overemphasized the role of the new Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation, or AY CDC, claiming it was “responsible for ensuring compliance” with the new agreement.
Despite a state press release claiming that the new body would “Monitor and Oversee Atlantic Yards Project and Advise ESD Board,” its role, stated elsewhere in the press release, would be “to provide input on development, housing, and community impact.”
The agreeement said the AY CDC would “improve oversight and monitoring.” That’s advice, not actual oversight.
So let’s go through the article—original text in italics—with the benefit of hindsight and further reporting.
Greenland’s role
After 11 years of delays, lawsuits and a recession, the developer behind the Atlantic Yards project has agreed to greatly accelerate the construction of affordable housing in a deal that involved delicate negotiations with state officials, the de Blasio administration and a coalition of community groups.
Unmentioned in this lead paragraph was the role of incoming developer Greenland USA, slated to take over 70% of the project going forward, excluding the arena and the B2 (461 Dean) modular tower.
After all, Greenland’s entry might have been delayed had BrooklynSpeaks pursued a lawsuit on fair-housing grounds, the threat that achieved the new timetable. Also, Greenland, as future majority owner, would be responsible for fulfilling the agreement, as it is today.
What’s affordable?
Atlantic Yards, one of the largest building projects in recent New York history, was supposed to feature a basketball arena as a centerpiece and include thousands of apartments affordable to poor, working- and middle-class families who were being shut out of a rapidly gentrifying area near Downtown Brooklyn.
Note that the term “middle-class” covers a lot of ground. Yes, the promises in the Affordable Housing Memorandum of Understanding (and Community Benefits Agreement) were to create, among 2,250 units, 40% low-income, 20% moderate-income, and 40% middle-income.
However, those rallying for the project were mainly low-income people organized by ACORN. Nor were the promises honored.
Rising rents
But while the $1 billion arena, Barclays Center, opened to acclaim in September 2012, not one apartment building has been built — a bitter disappointment for some residents who have watched rents soar beyond their reach.
Part of the reason was that B2, the modular tower that had started in December 2012 and was supposed to revolutionize construction, was delayed and prone to leaks, as we later learned.
While building, 461 Dean, was 50% affordable, fulfilling the longtime pledge to build 50/50 (affordable/market) towers, it contained fewer family-sized units than promised. Those larger units were skewed to middle-income households.
About the housing
Now, the developer, Forest City Ratner, facing pressure from public officials and community groups, has signed a formal agreement with the state, which oversees the project, to put housing construction into high gear and finish 2,250 affordable apartments by 2025, 10 years ahead of the current schedule.
Forest City also had to close the Greenland deal by June 30, as we soon learned—another factor.
Keep in mind that, as of April, Forest City CEO MaryAnne Gilmartin had been meeting with Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen, as the Times had put it, to discuss “the next three buildings and the possibility of additional housing subsidies for apartments for poor and working-class families.” The city advanced the two “100% affordable” buildings before the BrooklynSpeaks negotiations began.
Governor’s statement
“New York State is delivering a deal that will ensure this vital housing is built quickly and efficiently and that the community is engaged in every step of the project,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Thursday. “This agreement is a win for the state and most importantly Brooklyn residents who will finally begin to see affordable buildings being constructed in their neighborhoods.”
Those quotes also appear in the June 27, 2014 press release headlined Governor Cuomo Announces Comprehensive Plan to Accelerate the Development of Atlantic Yards Project and Ensure Timely Delivery of Public Benefits.
Today, as mayoral candidate Cuomo apparently backs a new plan for Cirrus Workforce Housing Partners to take over six railyard sites facing foreclosure, he should be reminded of his earlier promises.
What’s next?
Under the agreement, the next two residential buildings — a total of 600 units — will be entirely affordable housing. If the developer fails to begin construction within the next year, it must pay what would essentially be a fine of up to $5 million.
This was both mistaken and misleading.
Yes, the agreement indicated two upcoming towers would be 100% affordable, but that memorialized a separate city negotiation that had been completed six weeks earlier. (See subsidy letters for B14 and B3.) That $5 million fine was not very meaningful, because the towers had already received key city commitments.
In other words, the revised agreement would penalize Forest City $5 million if it didn’t do what it already planned to do.
Also note a small but glaring error. The next two residential buildings, as the Times’s own chart (below) indicates, would not be 100% affordable. Rather, the fully affordable B14 (535 Carlton) would start along with the condo tower B11 (550 Vanderbilt Ave.).
As I wrote in 2014, It would have been more accurate to say the next two rental buildings would be affordable. I tried unsuccessfully to get this corrected.
Each of those rental buildings would be essentially paired with a condo building. (B12, however, was stalled.)
So Forest City, as it prepared for the joint venture Greenland Forest City Partners, seemed to have given up on its 50/50 plan, at least in part. That would allow more spending on more valuable buildings, and less on “all-affordable” ones.
City spending
“We are determined to jump-start affordable housing at Atlantic Yards,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Thursday. “The agreement means two 100 percent affordable buildings will go in the ground starting next year, with units serving a more diverse range of families. And what’s remarkable is that we’ve secured nearly twice as many affordable units for our city investment.”
Yes, they’d serve a more diverse range of family sizes, because they’d contain more two- and three-bedroom apartments—a return toward the original pledge in 2005 to ensure that half the units, in floor area, would be family-sized apartments. The increase in units was eased by a skew toward middle-income households.
The spurs
The unusual deal to expedite construction sprang from Mr. Cuomo’s desire to impose a timeline on a long-sputtering project sponsored by New York State, and Mayor de Blasio’s eagerness to make significant progress on his vow to create 200,000 units of affordable housing.
But another key element was a deep-pocketed Chinese company eager to jump into New York’s booming real estate market. Forest City Ratner is completing a partnership agreement this week with the company, Greenland Holding Group, that represents the group’s first investment in New York and one that will inject tens of millions in fresh capital into the project.
Indeed, as cited above, Greenland had a June 30 deadline to close the deal.
The pressure from BrooklynSpeaks pressure also deserved credit. Forest City was willing to make the deal, which would push the (unmentioned, so far, in the article) penalties on Greenland, to ensure that the Greenland deal went through.
Greenland timing realistic?
This year, Greenland executives, who are buying a 70 percent stake in the project, said publicly that they wanted to complete Atlantic Yards in eight years. The company will pay about $200 million for its stake in the project and cover 70 percent of future costs.
That claim of eight years deserved skepticism, not just because of the history of the project but also because Forest City, its putative partner, had refused to comment when asked if the timeline was realistic.
Moreover, Greenland’s payment reflected an impairment—loss in value—for Forest City, which had dismayed investment analysts.
Penalties left unspecified
On Friday, the state’s economic development authority, which is overseeing the project, is expected to formally approve the new timetable and hefty financial penalties if the developer fails to meet the agreed-upon goals.
It was a lapse to not specify the “hefty financial penalties,” notably $2,000/month in liquidated damages for each unbuilt affordable unit, a request pushed by BrooklynSpeaks. That achievement is now in question.
Compliance assured?
The authority will also establish a 14-member board responsible for ensuring compliance with the agreement, and for monitoring the mitigation of community impacts during the construction period. Its members will be appointed by the governor, the mayor, elected officials and the Brooklyn borough president.
That also was a BrooklynSpeaks request, though they’d asked for more.
The incoming Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC), was not charged with “ensuring compliance” but rather “monitoring the delivery of public commitments.”
That’s a less rigorous responsibility. Too often the AY CDC has been a rubber stamp, or ignored. If it had been charged with ensuring compliance, the AY CDC in 2019 would’ve gained a new schedule—both program and timeline—regarding the completion of 2,250 affordable units. It didn’t.
Developer spin
MaryAnne Gilmartin, the president of Forest City Ratner, said the agreement allowed her company to set the construction schedule and move forward with “the final stages of Atlantic Yards.”
“It is an alignment that says Atlantic Yards will live up to the promises that we’ve worked hard to achieve,” she said.
”Final stages”? They were still getting started! 2
That new “alignment” soon broke down, as Forest City and Greenland ultimately separated.
Forest City obstacles
She added that Forest City has had to deal with a variety of obstacles, “including the Great Recession and numerous lawsuits.” Forest City has already spent over $525 million on the residential portion of the project, which involves building a new Long Island Rail Road storage yard and building a platform overhead for apartment towers.
It had been a costly investment, but it was something her company should have planned for. It’s worth noting that, while Forest City had started on the new railyard, it had not started building that crucial platform. That was left to Greenland.
The averted lawsuit
The agreement would avert another lawsuit against the project from seven community-based organizations and several individuals. Their concerns have been incorporated into the agreement, and they have signed a covenant with state officials not to file a suit as long as the agreement is formally approved.
That threatened lawsuit deserved more credence, since it led to the penalties at issue today. (That said, the threat did not trigger the two “100% affordable” buildings.)
Their concerns were not fully incorporated into the agreement. Rather, it was a compromise. BrooklynSpeaks sought a more powerful governance body.
The covenant not to sue did have a loophole: if “ESD does not take the steps outlined above.” Those steps include that ESD require the affordable housing to be built by May 31, 2025. So, theoretically, BrooklynSpeaks could go back to court.
Demographic change
The groups had argued that the neighborhood was changing so rapidly that many of the people who needed the affordable housing promised by Atlantic Yards would be gone by the time it was built under the old timetable, by 2035.
Specifically, it made the argument that Black Brooklynites eligible for 50% of the slots in city-sponsored affordable housing lotteries, by virtue of their residency in the four nearest Community Districts, would be disadvantaged and displaced by delays, leading to a fair-housing violation.
The unfortunate irony is that, after the first two towers were built with city assistance, the next three towers offered no community preference, as they relied solely on the state’s 421-a tax break.
Moreover, the city’s community preference provision has been renegotiated to 20%, declining to 15%.
“Gentrification and displacement are very real. As an attorney of color, I’m so happy to have been a part of an agreement that helps African-Americans and others maintain the fabric of their communities,” said Aurelia Hepburn-Briscoe, an attorney with WilmerHale, part of the community groups’ legal team, in the BrooklynSpeaks press release.
That was part of original promise of Atlantic Yards. It wasn’t guaranteed then, nor, as it turned out, by this agreement.
Advocate’s spin
“This project has been crying out for real public accountability, and the community has been crying out for affordable housing now,” said Michelle de la Uz, executive director of the Fifth Avenue Committee, one of the groups that signed the covenant. “I’m heartened that everyone realized you can’t have one without the other as part of realizing Atlantic Yards’ full promise.”
While the new affordable housing commitments, notably the timetable, were significant, the BrooklynSpeaks press release used the word “affordable” 42 times without defining it.
In that press release, de la Uz stated that the agreement “ensure[s] the community finally gets the affordable housing it was promised 10 years ago.” Not so, given the skew.
The new advisory body, though an improvement, was less than what BrooklynSpeaks sought: moving the project under a new governance entity, with local representation. Today, the effort to achieve “real public accountability” remains in question.
Who’s eligible
The new agreement specifies that a portion of affordable units would be for low-income families of four that make $48,000 or less, moderate-income families earning up to $88,000 a year, and middle-income families earning up to $104,000.
This passage was inadequate and crucially misleading. The settlement agreement did not specify income ranges.
Rather, income ranges were implied in the letters (B14, B3) sent to Forest City Ratner from the New York City Housing Development Corporation, setting 165% of Area Median Income (AMI), as the income ceiling.
As of 2014, 100% of AMI was $83,900 for a four-person household. So those earning 165% of AMI could earn up to $138,435. As I wrote in 2014, “was that $104,000 a typo? If so, that's a major one.” It still hasn’t been corrected.
When the first tower accepted applications, the income ceiling for a four-person household was $149,490, not $104,000..
A potential beneficiary speaks
Daron Hudson, whose family has lived in the area since the 1950s, said the agreement was particularly important for people like himself. He said he liked the idea of a having an arena in his backyard and the promise of new housing. But the Atlantic Yards project has also sped up the area’s transformation into a higher-priced enclave.
Mr. Hudson, a teacher’s aide, lives in a one-bedroom apartment with his partner and his young daughter. He has scoured the neighborhood for two years, unable to find a two-bedroom apartment they could afford.
“The neighborhood has changed for the good,” said Mr. Hudson, who would have been a plaintiff in the lawsuit. “But it’s created difficulties for a lot of families who have lived here. Rents have soared drastically over the past five years. Some people have moved away. But we have a right to live in this community like anyone else.”
It’s fine to quote someone—a potential plaintiff—who considered the agreement important. However, the article also deserved some skepticism about the deal.
The backstory
Progress on Atlantic Yards’ first residential tower — a modular building next to the arena with 363 apartments, including 181 affordable units — has been painfully slow. It started in December 2012, and Forest City expects to finish late next year.
Actually, it wouldn’t be completed until 2016. It was painfully slow not because of government inaction but because of business decisions that didn’t work out.
Timing questions
But under the new agreement, everything is supposed to move more swiftly. The next building must begin construction by Dec. 30, at Dean Street and Carlton Avenue, following by a second tower next to the arena.
Not “everything,” but rather “some things.” The two affordable towers would start—again, because of decisions made the month before the agreement.
After building three towers, the joint venture partners would begin to separate.
New condos coming
Forest City also expects to begin construction on two luxury condominium towers by December and July.
In other words, a condo tower would start before the second affordable one. That ultimately didn’t happen.
Subsidy numbers
In negotiations with Forest City, Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen agreed to provide a cash subsidy of $11.75 million for each of those buildings, in exchange for 600 units of affordable housing.
That's simplistic. The subordinate loan, on top of tax-exempt financing, would support only those units—half each building—that were not in the upper middle-income “band.” They didn’t get extra subsidy because, presumably, they’d reap enough income to make each building’s finances work.
In comparison
That deal represents a major improvement on Atlantic Yards’ first, still uncompleted building, Ms. Glen said. In that instance, she said, the Bloomberg administration invested $11.6 million for only 182 units of affordable housing.
“We’ve fundamentally changed how developers are working with the city to deliver affordable housing,” she said.
That kicker—the end of the article—made the de Blasio administration look good, but 1) it relied on a skew toward middle-income units, and 2) the change was not, it turned out, fundamental.
Public discussion
Later that day, both positive and negative sentiments were aired at a meeting of Empire State Development. "Today marks an important milestone, kind of a turning point, for the Atlantic Yards project,” said ESD executive director Kenneth Adams.
“I'm heartened by Forest City Ratner's openness to turning the page... and resetting the balance in this ambitious public private partnership,” said de la Uz, also saluting the mayor, governor, and ESD's leadership.
She aknowledged it would take time and “measurable and repeated actions on the part of the developer and the state” to restore trust.
Others were less hopeful. “There is no one with any knowledge of Atlantic Yards who would expect an unsecured promise of future performance to be fulfilled, when so many promises haven’t been met,” said Rhona Hetsrony of the Dean Street Block Association. “We're the ones being asked to bear the risk."
"The community doesn't have access to the governor. The developer has access to the governor," she said, noting the governor would control the new subsidiary.
"The history of Atlantic Yards is that the devil is in the details,” added neighbor Peter Krashes. “What is delivered is rarely more than what is spelled out in written agreements and often is less.”
An affordability pledge
Not long after, Council Member Brad Lander said in response to my query, “I have been assured that the commitment to 900 total low-income units (out of the 2,250 total affordable units) will be adhered to.” That assurance hasn’t been met.
ESD in April 2024 delivered a chart that showed that, while 1,374 (61%) of the 2,250 affordable units have been built, only 254, or 18.5% of the total so far are low-income units. They should represent 40% of the total.
Meanwhile, there are 1,044 middle-income units, or 76% of the total so far. They too should represent 40% of the total, so they’re already overrepresented.
Skepticism from Goldstein and James
Following up on the news, ABC/7 that day reported Deal to expedite affordable housing near NYC arena. After quoting gubernatorial aide Alphonso David and advocate de la Uz, the report went on to quote some skeptics.
Notably, Daniel Goldstein, the longtime spokesman for project opponents Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB, nearly defunct at the time), said, "I would bet you that we won't see this project finished in 2025." He was right.
Newly elected Public Advocate Letitia James, the former 35th District Council Member, told ABC/7, "To negotiate this deal behind my back is totally unacceptable." (Well, she wasn’t threatening the lawsuit, but she could’ve been informed.)
As I wrote in my initial coverage, though the changes were pushed by groups that sought more project transparency, the agreement was negotiated in secret and its outline (though not terms) made public as a fait accompli, less than a day before ratification by the ESD board.
Later, James—who’d opposed the project but backed affordable housing—commented that “the speed of Atlantic Yards’ affordable housing development shouldn’t come at the expense of the most inclusive income limits, which I believe, were reflected in the agreement signed by Forest City Ratner in 2005.”
Developer spin, again
ABC/7 quoted Ashley Cotton, then Forest City’s External Affairs chief: "Obviously Barclays Center's been an amazing success. But this project is always about housing. We've been committed since the beginning to build affordable housing."
Well, not so committed that they would build the affordable housing promised in the Community Benefits Agreement. Nor that they would complete it.
Cotton and Forest City are long gone from the project. Today, blasé Bruce Ratner, the project’s original sponsor as head of Forest City Ratner, deflects blame.
Accountability issues
“The economic realities of solving the city’s affordable housing crisis will increasingly call for public/private partnerships similar to the Atlantic Yards project,” said Gib Veconi, Treasurer of the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council, in the 2014 BrooklynSpeaks press release.
The agreement, he added, “shows that communities can and will hold developers accountable for their commitments to the public.”
Today, that’s in question. Veconi, as a leader of BrooklynSpeaks and as a Director of the Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation, has more potential than most to pursue such accountability. Among the AY CDC’s stated responsibilities:
Reviewing proposed changes to Project plan and agreements, and advising ESD
board accordingly in advance of votes;Monitoring developer compliance with all public commitments;
Making recommendations to ESD on ways to improve and expedite developer
responsiveness to public obligations and increase transparency of Project
development;Assuring effective communication between the developer, government agencies and officials, elected officials and community and civic organizations;
Developing recommendations related to the Project, including in relation to
unanticipated issues
As the housing deadline approaches, with no AY CDC meeting scheduled and no public statement from the parent ESD, the “measurable and repeated actions” (to quote de la Uz) to ensure trust remain in doubt.
I say “publication” rather than blame a journalist because it’s a team effort.
Also astounding, in the state press release, was a statement by Ismene Speliotis, Executive Director, Mutual Housing Association of NY (MHANY), a successor to ACORN: “Accountability for the realization of this [affordable housing] commitment has been monitored through the Community Benefit Agreement.” That CBA was supposed to have an Independent Compliance Monitor. It was never hired.