In Brooklyn Marine Terminal Discussion, Atlantic Yards is the Elephant in the Room
After Borough President Reynoso points to broken promises, city official says other projects met commitments. Not always. Remember: "be honest about phasing."
New York State’s failure to enforce $2,000/month penalties for each of 876 missing affordable housing units in Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park—see coverage here, and the reaction from BrooklynSpeaks and elected officials here—now fuels skepticism toward other ambitious projects with extravagant promises.
On June 5, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso queried representatives of the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYC EDC) about the massive—and fast-moving—Brooklyn Marine Terminal proposal for Red Hook, aiming to transfer a 122-acre waterfront site “into a modern maritime port and vibrant mixed-used community.”
At 56:37 of the video below, Reynoso noted that a GPP, or General Project Plan, may not meet all its professed commitments, so he asked about oversight: “Has EDC considered or established a performance-based means to deliver commitments to the community, including compensation for delays in public amenities, affordable housing, and/or critical infrastructure?”
How would a future governing board enforce commitments? “This one is specifically for anyone that knows anything about Atlantic Yards,” said Reynoso, noting that the state has refrained from enforcing the affordable housing damages. (Mary Frost of the Brooklyn Eagle first covered the session.)
Should the BMT task force vote to approve the project, Reynoso asked, “How can we feel confident that you will actually follow through on enforcement, as opposed to” the record with Atlantic Yards.
NYC EDC response
“That's a good question,” responded EDC Senior VP of Development and Asset Management David Lowin, “and obviously the recent experience of Atlantic Yards raises the temperature of that question even even beyond what it would otherwise be.”
“I think you know as New Yorkers we've all seen big projects like this happen in our lifetimes,” he said. “This is not the only project of the size that has happened, and we have seen that some of these projects have followed through on all of their commitments, and you can look at a rendering from ten years before the project was built and it looks exactly like the project that we're walking through in real life.”
I’m not so sure. Hudson Yards Phase II was supposed to start in 2019, but remains delayed. So is 80 Flatbush, aka the Alloy Block. The NYC EDC’s Coney Island rezoning didn’t meet expectations, either.
Remember comments at a 2012 forum in Philadelphia by Marilyn Taylor, Dean, University of Pennsylvania's School of Design, keyed to a performance of The Civilians’ play, In the Footprint: The Battle over Atlantic Yards: “think mixed-income, think mixed-use, be honest about phasing: nothing ever gets built at once.”
New structure
The best way to ensure that this project meets its commitments, Lowin told Reynoso, is to establish “a locally controlled project specific entity and that is accountable not only to the mayor but to a whole breadth of local elected officials.”
That, ultimately, didn’t seem too convincing.
A proposed Brooklyn Marine Terminal Development Corporation (BMTDC) would have representatives appointed by the mayor, the governor, and all the local elected officials, he said.
The mayoral appointments would not only include ex oficio city officials (EDC, Housing Preservation and Development) but also at-large members. They, he said, would be appointed based on their familiarity with aspects of the project, such as maritime industrial, affordable housing, and open space, as well as their familiarity with the local community.
An Brooklyn Marine Terminal Oversight Task Force (BMTOTF), meeting quarterly, would hold the development corporation accountable. That entity would provide additional feedback and advise the development corporation.
Though Reynoso didn’t bring it up, that model has its flaws.
The Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation, despite its name, is advisory only, and meets intermittently, rather than quarterly, as per its charter.
As Director Gib Veconi recounted last week, the board was supposed to meet May 29, but that meeting was postponed to let Empire State Development, the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project, evaluate a pending new proposal for the project without consulting the AY CDC board.
Project commitments
The commitments incorporated into the BMT project fall into two buckets, Lowin said. Commitments like affordable housing and park space would be codified within the project’s guiding General Project Plan and would be embedded in the land use controls.
“They would not be allowed to be deviated from without a very intense process of modifying the GPP,” he said, “which would incorporate additional public feedback and opportunity for the public to weigh in.”
Well, that is what’s about to happen with Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park. ESD has already decided to support a massive development at Site 5, catercorner to the arena. That weights the scales ahead of any public feedback. Meanwhile, we’re waiting for a new proposal for the project’s six railyard sites. That surely will be negotiated behind closed doors.
Other parts of the BMT plan, such as funding for NYCHA’s Red Hook Houses and workforce development programs, are outside the General Project Plan, Lowin said. (I don’t think it was explained they’d be ensured.)
Mayoral control
Reynoso asked how the governance structure could affect the project.
Lowin said there would be eleven mayoral appointments, five gubernatorial appointments, and then one each for all of the local elected officials, which include Congressional representative, the City Council, the state Senate and the state Assembly. (It’s unclear how many Council, Senate, and Assembly appointees there would be.)
“So that would be a total of I think 23 board members,” Lowin said, “with the mayor's office having a majority vote, which is reflective of all of the capital that the city is putting in, as well as the PILOT [payments in lieu of taxes] payments and value of the land that the city is contributing to the project.”
Note: 11 is less than half of 23, but it wasn’t clarified. Later, in a June 9 presentation, it was clarified to 12 mayoral appointees.
Reynoso warned that board would be run by the mayor, who could decide not to pursue accountability.
He likened it to the Panel for Educational Policy (PEP), which oversees city schools, and is controlled by the mayor. “The only way a mayor has ever lost the vote was when a PEP member [appointed by the mayor] did not show up to the meeting,” he said.
“Every single elected official in this community could be against that project,” warned Reynoso of the BMT plan, “and it would mean nothing because there are more appointments for the mayor than it is all of us combined.”
“It's just important for people to know what we're voting on,” said Reynoso, pointing to the upcoming vote by the BMT Task Force, on which he sits. (See the Red Hook Star-Revue for coverage of the Task Force members’ postures on the project.)