July 17, 2006

NY Daily News Editorial: Real housing for the real Brooklyn

Rosie Perez, one of the Hollywood types recruited by a group called Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn to block the Atlantic Yards project, has explained her opposition thusly: "I'm all for development, but I'm not for the betterment of the filthy rich....My nabe was like my private Mayberry."

Yo, Rosie. This isn't Mayberry; it's Prospect Heights, and Prospect Heights and all of Brooklyn desperately need affordable housing. Those who would benefit are not the "filthy rich." Indeed, that term more aptly applies to smug celebs who are slamming the project from the comfort of their homes in California and the Hamptons.

Last week, more than 2,500 real New Yorkers packed a ballroom at the Brooklyn Marriott to hear a presentation on the estimated 2,250 units of low-cost housing that would be built as part of Atlantic Yards, benefitting families who languish for as long as eight years on waiting lists for public housing and Section 8 vouchers.

Atlantic Yards will have 900 apartments set aside for households earning $35,450 or less for a family of four; 450 units for families earning $70,900 or less and more than 200 for needy senior citizens.

The apartments will be allocated by lottery, with preferences going to local residents, disabled applicants, cops, teachers and other city workers. Hardly the "filthy" or the "rich."

But the naysayers - who have attacked the project from its inception - continue to argue for an empty little underdeveloped oasis. Hey, wait. Maybe Perez is right. You didn't see too many low-income families in Mayberry, did you?

Atlantic Yards News is a publication of Forest City Ratner Companies