What Will Ratner Reap?

Downtown Brooklyn development will likely draw thousands of Jews seeking affordable housing, but where they will come from remains to be seen.

Bruce Ratner’s plan to redevelop 22 acres of downtown Brooklyn, which includes thousands of new units of low-income housing, will likely bolster Jewish life in an area where it has long been sparse.But some observers are predicting that a lack of infrastructure and other factors will prevent, at least in the short term, the new neighborhood from luring many residents of other solidly Jewish communities.

“I don’t see other neighborhoods emptying out,” said demographer Jack Ukeles, who worked on the 2002 Jewish Community Study of New York.

The controversial $3.5 billion Atlantic Rail Yards project, approved earlier this month by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, would create what critics call a city within a borough that will require nearly $1 billion in public subsidies.

Ratner’s firm, Forest City Ratner, will pay the MTA $100 million for the right to build a stadium for the New Jersey Nets basketball team surrounded by as many as 19 skyscrapers containing office space and more than 7,000 rental apartments and luxury co-ops. (As many as half the rentals could be designated for middle- or low-income tenants). That could bring some 20,000 new residents into downtown Brooklyn.

In the process, the development is likely to fuel a trend toward younger, more secular Jews making their homes in the downtown area of a borough widely known as an Orthodox bulwark. Yuppies, hipsters and artists for some time have been pouring into Williamsburg, Prospect Heights, Park Slope and the emerging area nicknamed Dumbo, Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.

“It will very likely encourage more Jewish life in an area that has not been the main focus of Jewish life in the borough of Brooklyn,” Ukeles said.

Using Park Slope as a model, he suggested that about 15 percent of the new development’s population would be Jewish.

But because Orthodox Jews require more local infrastructure than other denominations or unaffiliated Jews, it is unlikely a large Orthodox community will spring up in the new neighborhood despite overcrowding in areas like Williamsburg, Crown Heights and Borough Park.

More housing is available in Flatbush, but soaring home prices have made the area cost prohibitive to most first-time buyers.

“This isn’t going to become Flatbush overnight, where it’s 50 percent Jewish,” said Ukeles.

The only Jewish day school in the downtown Brooklyn area, the Hannah Senesh School, is liberal and nondenominational. Most of the synagogues downtown are non-Orthodox, and there are no Orthodox congregations within walking distance of the development area.

“If people have to walk a mile each way to go to shul, that’s too far for them,” said William Rapfogel, executive director of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty.

But Rapfogel said a growing Jewish presence in the area eventually might supply the needed infrastructure.

“Gradually, if Jews do move in, even if they are not religious Jews [at first], they may slowly begin to build,” he said.

The director of the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg, which has fought for more affordable housing in the cramped chasidic area, said the Atlantic Rail Yards project is too far from established yeshivas, synagogues and retailers to lure a chasidic presence.

“You can’t live in a vacuum,” said Rabbi David Niederman. “We have to have a critical mass in order to support the schools and infrastructure.”

As for building new schools and synagogues, the rabbi said “you need a lot of money to do that, and this is a poor community.”

Chasidic leaders are focusing instead on new projects like the waterfront towers recently built on the site of the former Schaeffer brewery overlooking the East River.

Similarly, chasidim in Crown Heights are focused on new housing in their own bailiwick more than seeking to expand elsewhere in the borough.

“I don’t see any impact whatsoever” on Crown Heights, said the chairman of the local community board, Rabbi Jacob Goldstein, of the Rail Yard project. “Right now there are over 350 condos being built which will help immensely with the sky-high housing market.”

Rabbi Goldstein said the borders of the Crown Heights Jewish community were “moving southward” past Empire Boulevard as well as northward. But he could not see a significant presence in the new Atlantic redevelopment zone other than perhaps a Chabad outreach center.

Another area where young Jews struggle to find affordable housing is the Upper West Side of Manhattan. But the president of the Upper West Side COJO, Rabbi Allen Schwartz, said residents were more likely to wind up in Washington Heights or Riverdale in the Bronx than in Brooklyn.

“Washington Heights is downright reasonable after you look at what’s going on here,” he said. “I don’t see [downtown Brooklyn] becoming a big singles place.”

A more likely source of a downtown influx is the Russian-speaking community, which now makes up about a quarter of New York Jewry. Emigré centers like Brighton Beach in Brooklyn and Forest Hills-Rego Park in Queens are overcrowded and residents have been drawn to new neighborhoods such as Staten Island.

Hundreds of emigres in Brooklyn who meet the eligibility threshold for low-income housing, but cannot find available units, are struggling with rents in market-rate homes, said Alec Brook-Krasny, director of the Council of Jewish Emigre Organizations.

“The apartments in downtown Brooklyn will be very attractive,” said Brook-Krasny. “Some of our 42 organizations, especially those dealing with Holocaust survivors, have lists of 400 to 500 people or families in need of affordable housing.”

Although Ratner’s project seems to be on the fast track after the MTA approval, ardent opponents are lobbying Albany to stop it. They are claiming the development will destroy the neighborhood’s character, choke it with exhaust fumes and lead to the confiscation of homes and businesses via eminent domain, a process recently strengthened by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Atlantic project still faces an environmental review and must clear the little-known Public Authorities Control Board.

“It’s not over,” said Council member Letitia James, who represents Crown Heights and other areas near the rail yards. “This project is too massive and basically creates an entire new city in downtown Brooklyn, involves the taking of homes and businesses, which is wrong, and it’s going to cause massive congestion. It also doesn’t involve any schools.”

Opponents of the plan favored a smaller competing proposal by Gary Barnett, whose Extell Development Corp. has run afoul of residents of the Upper West Side, where he wants to build a high-rise apartment complex.

Ratner supporters reportedly noted at community meetings that Barnett’s partner in the Manhattan development is the Carlyle Group, which has ties to Saudi Arabian oil moguls.

Barnett’s plan for downtown Brooklyn was never taken seriously by the MTA, even though he offered $150 million — at one point three times higher than Ratner’s bid — for the rail yard rights.

“Extell’s plan is more consistent with the character of the community — no 19 skyscrapers and no abuse of eminent domain,” said James.

She said her coalition was working on “a number of lawsuits” against Forest City Ratner.

“I’m standing up for everybody — black, white and Jewish,” James said, insisting the co-ops in the development would be marketed toward people now living in Manhattan. “He’s aiming at people making over $100,000, which is totally out of reach of most Brooklynites.”

A spokesman for Ratner, Joe DePlasco, said the plan was intended “first and foremost” to benefit Brooklynites.

“Of course new people will come,” said DePlasco. “They are coming now. But we created an affordable and low-income housing program — the largest of its kind with 2,500 units — to ensure that working people have access to these homes.”

DePlasco also noted a community benefits agreement with local organizations to ensure jobs for the community, minority- and women-owned contracts, facility access and an intergenerational center for children and seniors.

“This is a project that is open, accessible and beneficial to the city and Brooklyn,” he said.

Ratner seems to have strong support in the downtown Jewish community.

“Bruce Ratner has gone a long way in terms of trying to accommodate the different needs,” said Rabbi Joseph Potasnik of Congregation Mount Sinai in Brooklyn Heights. “He has met with various community groups to make accommodations for everyone. Most of them favor it and are ready to put up with the hardships.”

Rabbi Aaron Raskin, a Lubavitcher and leader of the Orthodox Bnai Avraham in Brooklyn Heights, said he had mostly supportive feedback among his members.

“All in all it’s a good thing when people who don’t have a six-digit paycheck will have the ability to live in a nicer neighborhood,” he said.

But Rabbi Raskin’s shul has one outspoken opponent of the plan with a powerful platform.

“This will completely change the chemistry of the neighborhood,” said Ed Weintrob, publisher of the Brooklyn Paper chain of community weeklies, who regularly editorializes against Ratner’s project. “He’s proposing an unusual hybrid: the Manhattanization of Brooklyn and suburbanization at the same time.”

Weintrob, who helped found Bnai Avraham, said he came to downtown Brooklyn 17 years ago to escape the bustle of overcrowded Jewish life.

“People moved to Brooklyn Heights because they didn’t want to live in Manhattan or the suburbs,” he said. “Now Manhattan and the suburbs are coming to Brooklyn Heights.”