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tel/fax:
718.362.4784
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Brooklyn, New York 11217
About DDDB
Our coalition consists of 21 community organizations and
there are 51 community organizations formally
aligned in opposition to the Ratner plan.
DDDB is a volunteer-run organization. We have over 5,000
subscribers to our email newsletter, and 7,000 petition
signers. Over 800 volunteers have registered with DDDB
to form our various teams, task-forces and committees
and we have over 150 block captains. We have a 20 person
volunteer legal team of local lawyers supplementing our
retained attorneys.
We are funded entirely by individual donations from the community at large
and through various fundraising events we and supporters have organized.
We have the financial support of well over 3,500 individual
donors.
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A Net Loss?
"Atlantic Yards" proposes to build 2,250 "affordable" housing
units and 4,180 unaffordable units.
900, or 40%, of those "affordable" units would be for households earning
$70,901 - $113,440 per year, while 900, or 40%, of those "affordable"
units would be for households earning $21,270-$35,450 per year.
(There would be no units for household incomes below $21,270).
Those 900 low income units would amount to 13.9% of the entire "Atlantic
Yards" development.
We've been doing our reading and it appears to us that there will likely
be a net loss in "affordable" housing
units in the 3/4-mile study area "analyzed" by the Empire State
Development Corporation (ESDC) in the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS).
Let's do the math: "Atlantic Yards" proposes 900 low income units. The
FEIS says that there could be 2,920 households at risk of indirect residential
displacement. Even if we include all of the "affordable" units,
2,920 outpaces 2,250.
Even in the best case scenario the ESDC says that the "at-risk* population
will be much smaller than 2,000." What's "much smaller": 1,000?
1,500? 800? Regardless, we are looking at a wash at best, with a net loss
more likely.
From Chapter 4, Socioeconomic Conditions, of the ESDC's FEIS:
Indirect Residential Displacement:
The proposed project would not result in significant adverse indirect
residential displacement impacts because: a) the number of at-risk
households in the study area has been decreasing and will probably continue
to do so in the future independent of the proposed project and b) the
project would not be likely to affect residential property values in areas identified
as containing an at-risk population. Based on a comparison of 2000
Census data on household income for renters living in housing units that are
unprotected by rent regulations with household income for all renters in Brooklyn,
it was estimated that the study area contains approximately 2,929
households that are potentially at risk of indirect residential displacement.
These households are located in 10 Census tracts, primarily clustered
in the far eastern section of the 3/4-mile study area. However,
further examination of socioeconomic trends in these Census tracts indicates
that the number of households that are actually at risk of indirect displacement
is likely to be substantially lower than 2,929 and that the number of at-risk
households is likely to continue to decrease in the future with or without the
proposed project. By 2010 and 2016, it is likely that in some of the
tracts identified, the at-risk population will be much smaller than in 2000.
It is unlikely that the proposed project would lead to indirect residential
displacement in the 10 Census tracts identified in the analysis. This is true
for a number of reasons. First, as noted above, existing upward trends in residential
property values and incomes in the study area indicate that the at-risk population
is likely to decrease in the future with or without the proposed project. Second,
similarities between the proposed project housing mix and the housing mix
currently present in the 3/4-mile study area indicate that the proposed project
would not substantially change the socioeconomic profile of the study area.
Third, the project would introduce a substantial number of housing units to
the study area, which could alleviate upward pressure on rental rates, reducing
displacement pressures on the at-risk population in the study area. Fourth,
a majority of households identified as at-risk are located more than 1/2-mile
from the project site, and there are intervening established residential communities
with upward trends in property values and incomes, and active commercial corridors
separating the project site from the at-risk population. These four
factors limit the potential for the proposed project to substantially affect
real estate values in the tracts containing at-risk populations. Accordingly,
the proposed project is not expected to lead to indirect residential displacement
in these tracts, and the project would not have a significant adverse indirect
residential displacement impact.
(Bold emphasis added. Underline signifies ESDC text
added from the Draft EIS to the Final EIS)
The "far eastern sections" defined as "at-risk"*, and referred to above,
are called Crown Heights and a piece of Bedford Stuyvesant. There are certainly
price pressures on these neighborhoods as we speak, and the ESDC seems to have
a cavalier attitude towards the accelerated pressure "Atlantic Yards"
could bring.
The underlined text addition, absent in the Draft EIS but in the Final EIS, is
unsubstantiated. Worse it contradicts the facts that can be found in this
chart.
This appears to be another "public purpose" house of cards.
*From the FEIS: "At-risk populations are defined as people living in
privately held units that are unprotected by rent regulations, whose incomes or
poverty status indicates that they could not pay substantial rent increases."
Posted: 1.16.07
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