One thing supporters of giant ugly condos popping up on the Williamsburg waterfront like so many unfortunate genital warts like to say in defense of the developments is that they come with affordable housing. Which, any look at the comments section of any of our affordable housing posts will tell you, is in short supply in Brooklyn. But oh hey, guess what? SURPRISE! Almost none of the housing has been built so far.
DNAInfo is reporting that only 19 out of 1,345 city-owned affordable units promised in the waterfront’s 2005 rezoning have been built, which comes out to less than two percent. A city spokesperson gave DNAInfo some vague answers about housing being in “pre-development” and “unique challenges” faced at the building sites, but promised that someday, Williamsburg would get their affordable housing in exchange for the city selling out the waterfront. We’re sure everyone priced out by luxury housing appreciates that.
Whether that comes before or after the Domino development and Greenpoint Landing flood the market with even more luxury housing is unknown, but hey, we’ve got one reason to be optimistic: the next mayor won’t be a guy who sees himself as a defender of downtrodden private jet owners.