The Brooklyn Paper: Ratner-ACORN deal is finalized
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Ratner-ACORN deal is finalized

By Ariella Cohen
The Brooklyn Paper

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Bruce Ratner has finalized a long-standing promise that his $3.5-billion arena and residential project would be linked to 600-1,000 below-market-rate condo units.

But the question is where.

Under Ratner’s agreement with the housing group ACORN, the units can be built anywhere in Brooklyn — and that has opponents screaming that the project would do nothing to solve the ghettoization of Brooklyn.

“We shouldn’t be segregating homeowners by class,” said Councilwoman Letitia James (D-Prospect Heights).

ACORN says that as long as the developer comes through with his promise to include 2,500 units of affordable rentals in the 8,300-unit Atlantic Yards site, the organization won’t tell him where to put the low-cost condos.

“No one is saying that they won’t be on-site,” said ACORN spokesman Jonathan Rosen. “We have a preference, but in the end of the day we want to insure a mix of families living together in Brooklyn.”

Advocates say that the moderately priced units should be built within the development so that lower-income families could get a stable foothold in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. Located elsewhere, the affordable condos would still ease the borough’s shortage of affordable housing, but not tackle the issue of segregation, whether by race or class.

“Homeownership is how to obtain wealth in New York,” said James. “Affordable rentals are good, but leases expire and people are turned out. Rentals can’t create stable, mixed neighborhoods.”



©2006 Community Newspaper Group

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