Developers and state officials will host a community workshop on the latest plan to build long-promised affordable housing near the Barclays Center.
After years of broken promises and abandoned accountability, a decades-old agreement to build hundreds of affordable housing units at the stalled site surrounding the Barclays Center is getting a makeover.
For veterans of the Atlantic Yards battles of the early aughts, a community feedback session on affordable housing will feel somewhat nostalgic. So will the pushback of advocates, whose initial fears that affordable housing would never be built on the site have largely come true. The development group, dubbed Brooklyn Ascending Land Co., is led by the firms Cirrus Real Estate Partners and LCOR, which took over the project in October from the bankrupt firm that failed to deliver nearly 900 units of affordable housing. They have dramatically revised the previous plan and now hope to build taller towers, increase the overall number of units and raise the income levels for apartments considered affordable.Cirrus Managing Partner Joseph McDonnell told community members that building on several sites, especially over an active railyard, would be expensive. He said the project required far more apartments, with the affordable units reserved for higher-earners than the original plan, in order to make economic sense.A presentation by the new Atlantic Yards developers shows how their project plan differs from one approved two decades ago.McDonnell and his associates are restarting the project two decades after state officials and the firm Forest City Ratner first announced a sweeping plan to develop the area along and above the rail yard between Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Street. That initial plan included 6,400 new apartments, with 2,250 deemed “affordable” for low- and middle-income renters, constructed around a centerpiece sports arena. To build the housing and the arena, the state seized some properties through eminent domain and the developers proposed installing a platform above the railyard. But the company that purchased the site from Ratner never got around to erecting that platform or building nearly 900 affordable housing units before going bankrupt, despite a legally binding agreement signed in 2014 that required them to finish the apartments by May of this year or face millions of dollars in monthly fines. As GothamistAfter taking over in Oct., McDonnell and his associates agreed to pay up to $12 million to cover part of the delinquent fines — an amount that project watchdogs have called inadequate. Their new plan calls for 3,600 more apartments across the site, and dramatic changes to building size and location.Before work above the railyard begins, McDonnell said the companies would first build on “solid ground” at a parcel on Flatbush Avenue, diagonally opposite from the arena, where a PC Richard and Son andare currently located. The new proposal calls for a pair of high-rises reaching up to 775 feet on the site. And they have publicly discussed reserving the affordable units for individuals making up to $130,000 a year, and families of three earning close to $200,000. Those income levels are higher than the thresholds outlined in the earlier, unfulfilled affordable housing commitment.During the meeting last week, some local leaders and members of a community oversight committee questioned the specifics. Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon said she worried the project would again end with no railyard platform, and none of the housing promised for that location if the developers prioritized towers on the Flatbush Avenue lots known as “Site Five.” “ I don't want for the community to be left with two towers on Site Five and never getting that housing that's supposed to be over the rail yards,” Simon said at the public hearing last week. She also said the planned affordable housing units would be too expensive for New Yorkers most in need of homes they can afford and urged the developers to prioritize low-income apartments. “The more affordable units were left to the end in the most expensive construction phase of the project and, in fact, have not been built,” Simon said. “Now you seem to be looking at less affordable units.” McDonnell said the state and his development team had not yet determined the affordability levels of the new apartments, and are seeking community input while figuring out what development subsidies may be available to them.MTA officials say the subway switcheroo will make service more reliable, but many riders weren't sold on the idea.NYCHA to begin Section 8 landlord payments Monday after federal delayGothamist is a website about New York City news, arts, events and food, brought to you by New York Public Radio.
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