Published by Brooklynspeaks | June 3, 2025

Empire State Development declines to honor a 2014 settlement that provided for monetary damages if affordable apartments are delayed past May 2025, instead trying a new version of a risky single-source strategy under which two previous developers failed.

BROOKLYN, NY, June 3, 2025: Eleven years after local organizations in the BrooklynSpeaks coalition won a settlement with New York State Empire State Development to require 2,250 affordable apartments at Atlantic Yards be completed by May 2025, community leaders and elected officials called upon Governor Kathy Hochul to fulfill the agency’s pledge to collect liquidated damages for apartments the project has failed to deliver.

When the Atlantic Yards project was announced in December 2003, its 2,250 promised affordable apartments were seen as a solution to a burgeoning housing crisis in Brooklyn. By building platforms over rail yards along Atlantic Avenue, the project would remove blight and connect neighborhoods by creating new open space and high rise apartment towers. Twenty years later, the platforms haven’t been started, and neither have a remaining 877 affordable apartments. The $2,000 per month charge for each unfinished apartment agreed upon in the 2014 settlement means ESD must collect $1,754,000 each month from developer Greenland USA beginning in June. The funds are to be used by the City of New York to create and preserve affordable housing in the neighborhoods surrounding the project.

“ESD has allowed the Atlantic Yards developers to delay the costliest parts of the project–deeply affordable apartments and platforms over the rail yards–until the last possible moment,” said Michelle de la Uz, Executive Director of the Fifth Avenue Committee. “In the meantime, rising housing costs have pushed out thousands of low-income households out of the surrounding neighborhoods. The Governor has a responsibility to ensure her agency fulfills its commitment to address the housing crisis in Brooklyn.”
 

ESD has stated it will defer collecting the damages owed in order to allow a partnership including Greenland USA creditors time to submit a plan to complete the project.

“The 2014 settlement we reached with ESD does not allow the agency to rewrite its terms without our agreement,” said Danae Oratowski, Chair of the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council. “How can the public possibly have any confidence in a new plan if Governor Hochul continues to let Atlantic Yards slide on its commitments?”

Said Assembly Member Jo Anne Simon, “One reason this key deadline was missed is because ESD has consistently allowed developers to take bigger risks than they were able to manage. Two developers have already failed to perform on this project. Having the next plan at Atlantic Yards come from investors speculating in the distressed debt of the last developer certainly doesn’t sound safer.”

“Giving massive tax breaks to real estate developers — in exchange for a small percentage of ‘affordable’ units — has consistently under-delivered for those at risk of displacement. With Atlantic Yards in particular, we’ve faced over 20 years of failed promises,” said State Senator Jabari Brisport. “It’s time for Governor Hochul to stop letting the real estate industry trample over our communities, and demand that ESD collect these damages immediately.”

Assembly Member Robert Carroll said, “My constituents and the public at large will not have confidence in any plan moving forward unless previous commitments are met. As I have said repeatedly, fulfilling the original project goals for affordable housing and open space remains my priority. ESD agreed on damages if the project failed to provide promised housing, and now it must follow through and channel these funds into affordable housing in the surrounding neighborhood.”

“The State’s failure to collect the $1.75 million in monthly penalties will only further exacerbate displacement pressures in Central Brooklyn. The expiration of Atlantic Yards’ affordable housing deadline has come just as the New York City Council approved an adjacent neighborhood rezoning that we conducted alongside local community members that includes 1,900 units of affordable housing — more than double the number of affordable units that were promised but not yet delivered by Atlantic Yards,” said New York City Council Member Crystal Hudson, whose district overlaps both Atlantic Yards and the newly rezoned area. “If we had these funds, we could use them now to improve affordability in the immediate vicinity and provide a tangible remedy to the state’s failure to deliver the affordable housing it promised. This community wants the affordable housing units it is owed, and we will not let Greenland USA nor Empire State Development off the hook.”

“I’m alarmed by the developer’s failure to build over 870 needed affordable housing units at Atlantic Yards,” said New York City Council Member Shahana Hanif, whose district includes Atlantic Yards Site 5. “These deadlines and fines were hard-won accountability measures from 2014 by the BrooklynSpeaks coalition and community advocates, to prevent situations where developers break promises without consequence. Our communities have waited long enough. It’s time to ensure that we hold these developers accountable.”

Said New York City Controller Brad Lander, “Moving to a new phase of development at Atlantic Yards can’t begin by repeating the same mistakes of the past two decades,” said New York City Comptroller Brad Lander. “The community and its elected representatives deserve full transparency on any new proposal—especially if it weakens the commitments they were already promised.”

“The longer this settlement is ignored, the longer our neighbors are denied stable and affordable housing,” said Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso. “For more than twenty years, we have waited on Empire State Development and Greenland USA to deliver on their promises to the people of Brooklyn. Without a meaningful enforcement system for community benefit agreements, more than 800 affordable units remain undelivered and millions in damages withheld; that’s money that can fund and preserve real housing for our communities. It’s time we stop the delays and deliver what’s promised.”

The BrooklynSpeaks coalition released the following as principles for a dialog on the future of the Atlantic Yards project:

• The public must be compensated for Atlantic Yards’ failure to deliver affordable housing when promised.
• The State’s obligation to enforce the project’s affordable housing deadline can’t be modified without the consent of the community and its elected representatives.
• Modification of Atlantic Yards’ project plan must follow meaningful community engagement and public review that address community and city-wide needs of today.
• Previous shortcomings in project governance structure, oversight and quality of life management must be addressed, and accountability for Atlantic Yards’ public commitments must be ensured.

“The history of Atlantic Yards is one in which community members and elected officials have been excluded from decisions that could have avoided the crisis we see today,” said the organizers. “Today, we call on Governor Hochul to change that.”

[See full release here]