Forest City has proposed to build 8.7 million square feet of development on the Atlantic Yards site, the equivalent in floor area to 23 Williamsburgh Savings Banks or 3 Empire State Buildings.

The site’s proximity to ten subway lines and the Long Island Railroad make it appropriate for dense urban development, because it is more sustainable to house people adjacent to transit so they are less likely to need cars.

However, the density proposed by Forest City is excessive. The New York Observer has reported that if the Atlantic Yards site were its own census tract, it would contain twice as many inhabitants per square mile as the densest existing census tract in the US.

Aside from the impact on services, infrastructure, and transportation, the density proposed would result in enormous buildings. The largest building in the development, the so-called “Miss Brooklyn” structure, would be 100ft taller than the Williamsburgh Savings Bank and nearly three times as bulky.

The view of the current Atlantic Yards Proposal from Flatbush Avenue

The sponsors of BrooklynSpeaks therefore propose that the density of development be substantially reduced. A substantial reduction might be:

• A reduction of one third in the total amount of sf, as proposed by State Assembly Members James Brennan and others, to cap the development to a maximum of approximately 5.8M sf. This density would create development roughly comparable to the density permitted in parts of Downtown Brooklyn.
• A reduction of one half of the total amount of sf, to cap the development to a maximum of approximately 4.3M sf. This would create a development roughly equivalent in density to Battery Park City in Manhattan, which has 152 units per acre. The Atlantic Yards plan would contain more than twice as many per acre if built as currently proposed.

For more information about the density of Atlantic Yards compared to other developments in New York City, please see analysis by journalist Norman Oder or by architect Jonathan Cohn .