Weekly Digest: The Clock Ticks on the Affordable Housing Deadline
Something's brewing? Flashback: unreliable assurances from MTA in 2009 and ESD in 2019. Cirrus gains momentum. Rise in NY Liberty value suggests public deserves more.
This digest offers a way to keep up with my Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report blog and my other coverage in this newsletter and elsewhere.
As I wrote a week ago, looming are $2,000/month penalties for each of 876 units of below-market “affordable housing” not delivered by May 31, set in a June 2014 settlement with the coalition BrooklynSpeaks.
No news emerged this past week.
Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project, has not indicated any plan to impose penalties on master developer Greenland USA, which has defaulted on $286 million in loans and is about to lose the collateral (the rights to build six towers).
ESD did not last week respond to my queries about the deadline, nor about whether a meeting would be scheduled of the advisory Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC), which—according to discussion in March—was expected to occur in late April or May.
(At an ESD board meeting last Thursday, Atlantic Yards wasn’t on the agenda.)
Nor have any local elected officials, typically following the lead of BrooklynSpeaks, publicly commented yet. Nor has BrooklynSpeaks.
Something’s brewing?
Nothing more emerged last week regarding the lobbying effort by Cirrus Workforce Housing Partners to negotiate a new deal for Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park.
However, Cirrus, construction trade unions, and elected officials rallied with Resorts World New York City in Queens, as I reported, pledging to build "up to 50,000"—that leaves wiggle room—"workforce" units in five boroughs, presumably contingent on Resorts World getting a full casino license. So they have political juice.
Last week, Attorney General Letitia James, speaking at the business group Association for a Better New York, said she was willing to work with President Donald Trump—whose administration is investigating her!—on Penn Station and other big projects: “I'm here if he wants to build affordable housing ... do some major capital projects. Hudson Yards, Atlantic Yards, the railyards.”
Why exactly James, who’s been lobbied on Atlantic Yards, would be an interface on projects like that is unclear, unless 1) some Attorney General approval is needed, 2) she’s being welcomed as a supporter/figurehead, or 3) she’s playing the long game and expecting to run (sooner than 2030?) for Governor.
After all, Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park won’t be finished until the next Governor’s term, at the earliest.
Reasons for skepticism
All the maneuvering raises a question: if New York State, via ESD, can’t be trusted to enforce the “nonnegotiable” (as a state official put it in March 2019) affordable housing deadline, why should it be trusted regarding the contours of a new plan, which might combine concessions to the developer—more bulk, more time—with new public commitments?
Yesterday, I published my flashback to that 2019 discussion, when an ESD executive both pushed back against AY CDC Director Gib Veconi’s request to get projections of the affordable housing buildout yet asserted the commitment was firm.
In response, Veconi, who in 2014 as a leader of BrooklynSpeaks helped negotiate the new 2025 affordable housing deadline, reminded me that ESD in December 2018 had already been given a schedule of sorts, projecting that four towers over the railyard—three on the first block—would contain affordable units. (That was revealed later, after my Freedom of Information Law request.)
That was a program, not a timetable, and at the time I suggested it was unrealistic, given the time to build a platform. It still might have been plausible to reach the 2,250 total by building a 100% affordable building or by building on Site 5, catercorner to the arena.
But any of those tactics—heck, even a 50% affordable building—would’ve required additional government assistance, which would not have been easy.
Bottom line, though: both Greenland and ESD, at that March 2019 meeting, should have confirmed that they did a blueprint of sorts to complete the affordable housin. However, any scrutiny would’ve revealed that plan as difficult to fulfill.
So, again, there’s reason for distrust.
Cy Richardson, the only one of four AY CDC Directors to support Veconi’s motion at the 2019 meeting, argued for transparency, observing, "I've grown into a cynical individual, particularly as it relates to public-private partnerships."
Can anyone disagree?
From Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report
May 19: Cirrus, Resorts World agree to build "up to 50,000" "workforce" units in five boroughs, with $25M/year investment (if Resorts World gets casino license?)
May 20: Among contributors to Fix the City, super PAC backing Andrew Cuomo's mayoral candidacy, is... Bruce Ratner, original Atlantic Yards developer and longtime Cuomo supporter. (Stay tuned for another Cuomo connection.)
May 21: Is the MTA deal for railyard development rights being renegotiated, in cost and/or timing? Just transferred? Or what? The response to my query raises some questions.
May 22: Flashback: in May 2009 renegotiation, Bloomberg aide promised that the MTA could get Vanderbilt Yard development rights back if nothing were built over the railyard. Not quite. It’s more complicated.
Notable quote: “The market is what the market is.”
May 23: As the WNBA’s New York Liberty, owned by BSE Global, raise ownership stake at record $450M valuation, a reminder: New York State could ask teams for more rent at state-assisted Barclays Center.
After all, that was envisioned in a (non-binding) Memorandum of Understanding regarding the arena project.
Yes, Joe and Clara Wu Tsai, who first bought the Brooklyn Nets and the arena company, have savvily invested in the Liberty, but they couldn’t build a fan base and gain new sponsors without the Brooklyn arena, enabled by subsidies, tax breaks, eminent domain, tax-exempt financing, and ability to sell naming rights and other sponsorships. Why shouldn’t the public get a share?
May 24: Flashback 2019: ESD said it was "very serious" about 2025 affordable housing commitment, but wouldn't pressure the developer. Nor would advisory AY CDC.