Atlantic Yards Dust Up: ACORN's Bertha Lewis vs. MAS's Kent Barwick

NY ACORN's Bertha Lewis, who became one of Atlantic Yards' loudest defenders after her group signed a "community benefits agreement" with the developer, and Municipal Arts Society Director Kent Barwick, whose organization has gotten a bit louder in its criticism, don't quite go toe-to-toe on Atlantic Yards in the new City Limits. But their pro and con articles, respectively, could qualify as a quasi- mano a mano.

Lewis--who is by the agreement ACORN signed speaks on behalf of Atlantic Yards and whose organization got money from the developer--focuses, of course, on affordable housing. She writes:

Let’s not beat around the bush. Forest City Ratner is not the United Way. They are looking to make a profit. You can make money building affordable housing only two ways: through direct subsidy to reduce the extraordinary cost of this project, to any developer who chose to undertake it, or cross-subsidy from the market-rate rentals and condominiums...That also leads to the other bogeyman of the Atlantic Yards debate: density. In order to make the cross-subsidy between market rate and affordable units work in this project, you either need to allow the developer to build more, which means taller buildings, or to replace the cross-subsidy from market-rate units with more direct subsidy from government. Currently there is no other existing model for building affordable housing in New York City.

We have followed ACORN's work around the nation for decades and have generally had respect for the organization's principled stand on behalf of affordable housing, but we've been flummoxed by NY ACORN's role in promoting Atlantic Yards. Lewis does make valid points about the horrendous lack of affordable housing in Brooklyn. She cites a March ACORN survey of 87 new Brooklyn developments with 5,934 units of housing. Only 201 of them are affordable to moderate-income people and just 266 units are affordable to low-income families. (Even if the exact numbers are off, the point is valid.) She also points out, quite rightly, that developers of luxury housing are getting tax breaks to do so.

Where opponents say that Lewis' train derails is her argument for Affordable Housing Uber Alles (and the compact she signed with the developer). The Affordable Housing Uber Alles theory of shelter says that it's acceptable to toss up a bunch of 60-story buildings in a neighborhood of four-story buildings in order to get affordable housing. Opponents of the massive project, of course, don't see it that way.

Which brings us to Mr. Barwick, who argues that Atlantic Yards "fails to achieve a delicate balance." That is the way that someone from the Municipal Arts Society says that something is seriously flawed. (We could translate it as meaning that he's saying the project sucks, but then, we sometimes prefer the simple, crude approach to talking planning- and architecture-speak. That's the cool thing about blogs.)

In any case, here is some of what Mr. Barwick has to say:

For all its potential, “Atlantic Yards” as currently proposed would not work for New York City. Successful urban planning is a question of balance, and the project fails to accomplish a delicate balance of bringing density to the area while fitting in and integrating with surrounding neighborhoods. The project also raises questions about how New York is addressing its critical need for affordable housing, designing new areas of its public realm, and involving the public in its decision-making for major projects.

The issue is not whether the city should be pursuing aggressive policies to generate affordable housing. Justice and equity demand that we take steps to ensure our neighborhoods remain economically diverse, and create and preserve housing for low and middle-income New Yorkers. But the scale of Atlantic Yards indicates that the strategy the city is pursuing is flawed. In the rezoning of Hudson Yards and Greenpoint-Williamsburg, the city created an incentive for developers to build affordable housing by permitting them to build bigger buildings than would otherwise be allowed. Atlantic Yards follows this pattern, as the excessive scale of the project -- the developer has proposed 8.7 million square feet, the equivalent in floor area to three Empire State Buildings -- is clearly only acceptable to the project’s political sponsors because of the inclusion of affordable housing.

Lewis or Barwick? ACORN or MAS? Has affordable housing become a Trojan Horse for supersizing developments? You can read Lewis' article here and Barwick's here and decide for yourself.