Dear Editor:

The teaser above Mr. Atlas’s article, “The Battle in Brooklyn,” (SF 144) on New York ACORN’s benefits agreement with Forest City Ratner Companies (FCRC), includes a chilling thought: that ACORN’s deal “could provide an unprecedented strategy for collaboration....”

Indeed, the essential point, which Mr. Atlas does not make clear, is that ACORN stands to gain financially from this agreement, through its contract not only to market the Atlantic Yards project’s affordable housing units, but also to promote the entire mega-development, including the basketball arena and 16 skyscrapers of market-rate condos and office space.

The contract stipulates that ACORN will “[P]ublicly support the Project by, among other things, appearing with the Developer before the Public Parties, community organizations and the media as part of a coordinated effort to realize and advance the Project....” This moves beyond creating a professional client/provider relationship to becoming a mouthpiece for a real estate developer, pure and simple. ACORN joins the sad group of vocal supporters who are financially or contractually bound to speak publicly on behalf of the now $3.5 billion dollar Atlantic Yards project.

There is little public support for this land grab boondoggle. Numerous elected officials are leading the fight against it – not on gentrification or local NIMBY issues, or the overshadowing of beautiful residential neighborhoods as your photo caption implies, but on the issues concerning the close to $2 BILLION in public subsidies, the lack of public oversight and the abuse of eminent domain, all of which overwhelm the city financially and politically.

The so-called agreement that Atlas credits to ACORN “and several allies” is remarkable in that none of the eight organizations were opposed to the project, which makes the use of the term “negotiated” inoperative.

Atlas is also wrong about the project being in a downtown area. It is near downtown Brooklyn, bordering three low-rise residential areas, notably Prospect Heights and Fort Greene, that are inhabited by a good mix of races and incomes tilted toward the elderly, poor and black – the usual victims of eminent domain abuse – not aging hippies.

Atlas’ biggest factual error concerns jobs. Atlantic Yards will not create 15,000 new jobs for low-income residents. That figure is based on the 1,500 temporary, skilled, union construction jobs multiplied out by the ten years needed to complete the development. FCRC can only offer low-level training and publicity programs for locals. Almost all union construction jobs will go to skilled, experienced workers who live elsewhere.

ACORN can no longer boast of the regular office and retail jobs because the office space was scaled back by an astounding two thirds to make room for more market rate residential units not long after the CBA was signed. The New York Times reported that, “officials of Forest City Ratner said they eventually realized that they would have to reduce the amount of commercial space, to accommodate condominium units that would help pay for the project, including the below-market rental housing.”

This controversial collaboration is about more than creating jobs and affordable housing. ACORN could have accomplished what it did with other developers or could have solely pressured Forest City Ratner Companies for the housing, and let it go at that. Shame on ACORN for jumping for the money, and shame on John Atlas for not digging deeper. We expect the National Housing Institute to catch boondoggles, not support them.

— Steve Ettlinger
New York, NY

John Atlas responds: Ettlinger’s characterization of ACORN as profiting from this deal implies that it is engaged in some kind of nefarious self-dealing. That is neither fair nor true. While Ratner, like many people, is in the business of making money, and countless people have ripped off the poor as poverty pimps or service providers, it’s certainly not true of ACORN.

ACORN’s staff and leaders are not getting rich – their salaries are notoriously low, the leaders are dues-paying volunteers, and they work extremely long hours everyday. More than almost any other group in NYC, ACORN has proved that it can mobilize low-income people of color, win concrete victories and build grassroots political power as it’s doing in Brooklyn. In addition to the Ratner deal, ACORN and its Housing Here and Now coalition negotiated commitments to set aside thousands of affordable housing units in two large re-zonings, and got the mayor to propose a $130 million Housing Trust Fund to create or preserve 4,500 affordable units over four years.

Contrary to Ettlinger’s letter, I described the legitimate reasons people oppose Atlantic Yards. As to who speaks for the community, based on the evidence I have seen, ACORN has significant rank and file support. Certainly it speaks for its members. In just three months, ACORN organized over 44 meetings concerning Atlantic Yards, including three with ACORN’s 36-member governing board, 40 in neighborhood gatherings attended by 25 to 30 members, and a borough-wide meeting. The staff also drafted a series of questions to use in a telephone poll to about 2,000 members to get their views on what ACORN should do. Altogether, the process involved more than 3,520 members participating either by phone or at a meeting.

This battle over Brooklyn captures the tensions between middle-class professionals who want their particular vision of the city to reign, and the poor who need the new jobs and housing that a big development project like Ratner’s can provide. In a conservative era, where government has substantially withdrawn from supporting the poor, community groups have no choice but to directly wrench concessions from private corporations.

On balance I believe that if the deal goes through, ACORN will have won a big victory for poor people of color. Although many community groups felt they were left out of the process, it is rare for low-income community groups to be part of a planning process for a large development. It is extraordinary for NYC, or any other city to have a development where half the residents would pay market rate rents and live side by side with the other 50 percent, the subsidized residents, especially where the developer is building a large, integrated, mixed-income, planned residential community. As a result of this deal poor and working-class people will have more affordable housing, more cultural activities and more jobs.

Finally one can disagree or agree with the deal and speculate whether ACORN could have won more, but when Ettlinger implies that ACORN is self dealing and calls ACORN a “mouthpiece,” that’s just petty name calling.

Read a Rebuttal to John Atlas's Response at this link.