nolandgrab - could you clarify please?

i dont know if this would be the case. he could decide to keep the housing empty and uninhabited, which would benefit no one. in that case, you'd have huge buildings full of empty apartments.

case in point: hudson square in north tribeca/ west soho...has one of the highest commercial vacancy rates in the city, yet the developer/owner has not chosen to rent it out for $100 a month.

they just leave it uninhabited for the time being.

escap wrote: I don't get it. What's the motivation?

The loss could be a bigger tax savings than he would make on a greatly discounted rent.

These are good points.

For the record, after crunching Ratner's own numbers, 88% of the housing stock in the Atlantic Yards skyscrapers will be priced beyond the reach of people making Brooklyn's medium income.

In other words, Brooklyn's low-income renters -- ACORN's constituency -- will be locked out of all but 12 percent of what Ratner's planning to build. Further more, there's nothing that prevents him from locating those few "affordable" units off-site.

That's a far cry from the 50-50 luxury-affordable ratio that Ratner crowed about last year, and that encouraged ACORN's Bertha Lewis to plant a nice big wet one on Ratner's lips.

Tellingly, Ratner's also not making a single for-sale condo unit available to low-income home-owning hopefuls.

Danaeo's correct about Ratner's realization that the Atlantic Yards, if it's ever built, would need to be heavily weighted toward luxury housing. He increased the number of housing units from 4,500 to 7,800 -- and the entire increase was luxury stock.

As for jobs, the increase in housing has reduced the number of potential jobs from 10,000 to 2,300, and of those, according to the city's Economic Development Corporation, only a few hundred would be newly created. Cost-per-job-creation numbers for the AY are four times what they should be in New York -- demonstrating that if the city and state really want to create new jobs, the $1.5 billion taxpayers will fork over to Ratner could be far better spent in other ways.

the democratic party, w/ their hundreds of millions of dollars in political backing can waver constantly and be inconsistent but the anti-ratner opposition machine can't?

all joking aside, i find it would be difficult for a grassroots organization(s) to fight the ratner machine. if they have to change strategies, then so be it. i don't think people would begrudge them this privilege.

escap wrote: I have to say that one of my main criticisms of the anti-Ratner movement has been its inconsistency. The AY project has been criticized both for creating gentrification and for creating blight, for pricing poor people out and for driving land value down. Even the whole eminent domain cry is essentially based on libertarian ideals, very strange coming from a group that repeatedly calls for more government intervention, regulation, wealth redistribution and centralized economic planning.
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Escap. there is no inconsistency. if apt. prices go down over the next 15 years of construction, Ratner's project can't come to fruition as currently envisioned. He would have to have FEWER "affordable" units, simply because he'd have to have MORE market rate units to defray his loses in other areas, including the subsidized units.

now, if you'd like to discuss consistency:
Bertha/ACORN says the project is necessary to stem the tide of gentrification.
ESDC/FCR says the project is necessary to clear "blight."

So do we live in a gentrified area or a "blighted" area. Maybe Bertha, or Charles Gargano, or Bruce Ratner can tell us.

the opposition to corrupt abuses of eminent domain is neither Libertarian, Liberal or Conservative, its based in the Constitution. Its a Constitutional issue, which is of interest to the entire political spectrum.

and when you say:
"very strange coming from a group that repeatedly calls for more government intervention, regulation, wealth redistribution and centralized economic planning."

That's absurd. Most of what I hear isn't a call for more government intervention. (wealth redistribution?)

opponents say:
-- follow the law
-- avoid conflicts of interest
-- let us live peacefully in our homes and work productively in our businesses
-- allow local oversight and democractic planning prodecures
-- allow a voice for communities when it comes to our futures
-- build a sane development project
-- i've not heard opponents say "allow centralized economic planning," quite contrarily we call for community-based planning

Ain't it funny that many people, regarding those demolitions, say "those are Ratner's buildings, of course he can knock them down." While many of those same people have no problem with Ratner having the State take property from owners to give to another owner.

That, escap, is inconsistency.

escap wrote: I agree with you in opposing eminent domain. I'm sorry, though, when you say "allow local oversight and democratic procedures", and "allow a voice for communities", I can't help but hear "more government involvement", which ultimately equals "block all development". I guess 30 years of living in this neighborhood and seeing protests against every single brick laid has made me a cynic. Sorry.

But escap, what i wrote is that we'd like to see the law followed. and allowing a voice for communities, allowing local oversight and democratic procedures, is not a call for MORE government involvement. its a call for the law to be followed.

democratic procedures is not a call for more government involvement, its a call for the currernt laws to be followed. and as as the process is as corrupt as its proving to be, then perhaps anarchy will reign.

friendlypitbull wrote: Considering that a huge percentage of (currently) affordable housing was originally built as luxury housing for the upper middle class and wealthy, the senario where housing prices fell putting AY housing into the reach of lower income people would be following in the long history of NYC housing.

if you're still referring to brooklyn brownstones, pitbull, i'm sure you remember what had to happen for these prices to fall: the complete and utter deterioration of the city, with city government wholeheartedly abandoning entire neighborhoods, entire boroughs. sure, maybe prices will fall on those dumbo lofts to the point where they're affordable for working families, once levels of violence, insecurity and poverty rise so high around them that they lose their desirability and the rich move out. then they can be burnt out, sit for 15 years through a crack epidemic, and eventually become real neighborhoods again, as those forced to live in them fight for econmic justice and security. sounds plausible, right? follwing in the long history of NYC housing....

Ben wrote: As I mentioned on another thread, the thought that an over supply of luxury units will make them affordable to low income families is completetly off. Everyone will just take a step up.

does that mean that everyone will take a step up in income, as well?
or will landlords be expected to take a step down in rent?
not sure how this is all going to add up.

We're missing one thing here -- for most of the 20th Century, there was room to expand in the five boroughs. First, outward from Manhattan, then, upward -- pre-war buildings, post-war Mitchell-Lama for middle-class New Yorkers and housing developlents for those in the low-income brackets.

That expansion reached its boundaries at about the same point the city started falling apart, first with white flight in the '50s and then the fiscal crisis in the '70s. This was, at best, serendipity, and at worst, dumb luck -- and by no means was it a policy hatched by city officials.

The fact is, there's a housing crisis in New York City, and the Bloomberg administration has done little to address it -- in spite of this mornings vague mayoral announcement calling for 20,000 Mitchell-Lama units. The city has abdicated its responsibility, ceding it to developers to insert a few cheapie units in the continuing stampede of new market-rate buildings.

Saying that the city never has undertaken a major affordable housing initiative isn't a good enough reason for it not to happen now. Saying that unpredictable forces that luckilly freed up a lot of previously unaffordable housing isn't a reason to sit back and hope that happens again.

The Atlantic Yards project is everything that's wrong with New York City's current housing crisis -- vague and manipulative promises, lack of city oversight, and billions of public dollars financing a luxury high-rise development instead of putting that money and energy into a Manhattan Project for truly affordable housing.

Finally, regarding this statement about nolandgrab.org: "if they got their way would certainly ensure that the ENTIRE site remains dormant for at least another decade (probably more)." Like DDDB, FFFP and the 50 other community groups fighting the Ratner project, nolandgrab.org is pushing for just the opposite -- development atop the Vanderbilt Rail Yards that truly consults with the communities, doesn't involve eminent domain or massive public funding, and is made to work for all of Brooklyn, not just the guy sitting atop 1 MetroTech with a fabulous view of all he lords over.

7,800 units if Ratner gets to build every single building.

Only 31% are "affordable," and NYC regs allow for families making well over $100,000/yr to qualify for "affordable"

Only 12% are within reach of people making Brooklyn's median income or less -- ACORN's exact constituency.

Zero percent of the for-sale units will be priced either as "affordable" or below median-income levels.

For the $1.5 billion (today) this will cost taxpayers, we can do better.

There have been numerous attempts to develop that site going back to the urban renewal in the '60s. It's mythology that Bruce Ratner's the first-ever developer to make at go at the rail yards. Developers go with the times, and Candicissima's right -- who would've built there back then?

One of the galling things about Ratner is that he waited 'til Brooklynites made Brooklyn safe the the likes of him. If the "where were you 20 years ago" bolt is gonna get tossed about, I was on tour with a punk rock band. Not so much with the say over affordable housing in Brooklyn.

But Bruce Ratner was already a developer plopping MetroTech down about as close to Manhattan as possible.

1.5 billion is an out and out fabrication -
It will be 100M in CASH from taxpayers

To qualify while making SLIGHTLY over $100,000 you would have to be a family of SIX.

12% will mean that 900+ families making less than the boros median income will get brand new apartments in a luxury development that would cost in the neighborhood of 1M to own.

Can you cite even one serious proposal to develop the site in the last 30yrs?