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We might maybe allegedly see affordable housing at Atlantic Yards sooner than expected

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Hi, remember us? via A/N Blog

Hey, remember how the Barclays Center was supposed to wind up with a bunch of apartments around it, and some of them were even supposed to be affordable apartments? We know, it was a long time ago, before Mayor Tall and his crimewave, when whathisface, the short rich guy was mayor. Anyway, those apartments are still on the table, and according to the New York Times, after the bad press of yet another long delay, the governor and mayor have a new agreement with developer Forest City Ratner for an expedited build and two buildings made up entirely of affordable apartments. They mean it this time though. Seriously guys, stop laughing.

The previous bad press had pegged the completion of the entire residential portion of Atlantic Yards as being finished in 2035, a far-off year we can’t possibly imagine. The new deal Forest City Ratner reached with Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio sets the completion date for the project at 2025 a… less far-off year we can almost imagine.

The deal also contained the requirement that two buildings, one on Dean Street and Carlton Avenue and the other right next to the Barclays Center, will be made up entirely of 600 affordable units. Forest City is required to start construction on the Dean Street building’s 299 affordable apartments by December 30 this year and start on the Barclays-adjacent building’s 301 units by March 2015. If not, the multi-million dollar real estate company will face a fine of up to $5 million, which we’re sure they’re terrified of. Over by Dean Street and Vanderbilt however, two buildings with 265 and 278 units will be entirely market rate condos, which should lead to some awesome rich kid/subsidized kid gang battles in the coming years if enough families move into both areas.

Will all of this actually come to pass? A look in the Brokelyn archives back to 2012 reveals both that January 2014 was supposed to be when the first affordable housing applications were to be made available to the public, and our super fresh jokes about Kris Humphries jerseys. So, maybe this time will be different. On the other hand, given all the previous promises we’ve heard about the project, the mayor and governor may as well have just assured us that they had reached a deal with Dr. Strange to merge our reality with one of the Earth B Atlantic Yards projects that looks cool and also is at least halfway finished.

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