{"id":767,"date":"2025-06-03T12:51:18","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T16:51:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/council.nyc.gov\/shahana-hanif\/?p=767"},"modified":"2025-06-09T13:05:20","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T17:05:20","slug":"community-leaders-elected-officials-demand-governor-hochul-make-good-on-promises-for-affordable-housing-at-atlantic-yards-the-public-has-waited-on-for-more-than-20-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/council.nyc.gov\/shahana-hanif\/2025\/06\/03\/community-leaders-elected-officials-demand-governor-hochul-make-good-on-promises-for-affordable-housing-at-atlantic-yards-the-public-has-waited-on-for-more-than-20-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Community leaders, elected officials demand Governor Hochul make good on promises for affordable housing at Atlantic Yards the public has waited on for more than 20 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Published by Brooklynspeaks<\/a> | June 3, 2025 <\/p>\n

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.<\/strong><\/p>\n

BROOKLYN, NY, June 3, 2025:<\/em> Eleven years after local organizations in the BrooklynSpeaks coalition won a settlement<\/a> 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\u2019s pledge to collect liquidated damages for apartments the project has failed to deliver.<\/p>\n

When the Atlantic Yards project<\/a> 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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cESD has allowed the Atlantic Yards developers to delay the costliest parts of the project\u2013deeply affordable apartments and platforms over the rail yards\u2013until the last possible moment,\u201d said Michelle de la Uz, Executive Director of the Fifth Avenue Committee<\/strong>. \u201cIn 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.\u201d
 <\/p>\n

ESD has stated<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 2014 settlement we reached with ESD does not allow the agency to rewrite its terms without our agreement,\u201d said Danae Oratowski, Chair of the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council<\/strong>. \u201cHow can the public possibly have any confidence in a new plan if Governor Hochul continues to let Atlantic Yards slide on its commitments?\u201d<\/p>\n

Said Assembly Member Jo Anne Simon<\/strong>, \u201cOne 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\u2019t sound safer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGiving massive tax breaks to real estate developers \u2014 in exchange for a small percentage of \u2018affordable\u2019 units \u2014 has consistently under-delivered for those at risk of displacement. With Atlantic Yards in particular, we\u2019ve faced over 20 years of failed promises,\u201d said State Senator Jabari Brisport<\/strong>. \u201cIt\u2019s time for Governor Hochul to stop letting the real estate industry trample over our communities, and demand that ESD collect these damages immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assembly Member Robert Carroll<\/strong> said, \u201cMy 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe State\u2019s failure to collect the $1.75 million in monthly penalties will only further exacerbate displacement pressures in Central Brooklyn. The expiration of Atlantic Yards\u2019 affordable housing deadline has come just as the New York City Council approved<\/a> an adjacent neighborhood rezoning that we conducted alongside local community members that includes 1,900 units of affordable housing \u2014 more than double the number of affordable units that were promised but not yet delivered by Atlantic Yards,\u201d said New York City Council Member Crystal Hudson<\/strong>, whose district overlaps both Atlantic Yards and the newly rezoned area. \u201cIf we had these funds, we could use them now to improve affordability in the immediate vicinity and provide a tangible remedy to the state\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m alarmed by the developer\u2019s failure to build over 870 needed affordable housing units at Atlantic Yards,\u201d said New York City Council Member Shahana Hanif<\/strong>, whose district includes Atlantic Yards Site 5. \u201cThese 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\u2019s time to ensure that we hold these developers accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Said New York City Controller Brad Lander<\/strong>, \u201cMoving to a new phase of development at Atlantic Yards can\u2019t begin by repeating the same mistakes of the past two decades,\u201d said New York City Comptroller Brad Lander. \u201cThe community and its elected representatives deserve full transparency on any new proposal\u2014especially if it weakens the commitments they were already promised.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe longer this settlement is ignored, the longer our neighbors are denied stable and affordable housing,\u201d said Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso. <\/strong>\u201cFor 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\u2019s money that can fund and preserve real housing for our communities. It’s time we stop the delays and deliver what\u2019s promised.\u201d<\/p>\n

The BrooklynSpeaks coalition released the following as principles for a dialog on the future of the Atlantic Yards project:<\/p>\n