The New York Observer » Affordable Housing http://www.observer.com Just another WordPress site Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:28:58 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Quinn Tackles Affordable Housing and Maintenance Problems In State of the City Address In between heavy dollops of sentiment, Christine Quinn cemented some specific plans to combat the affordable housing problem and the facilitation of upgrading the City’s landlord maintenance code in her State of the City address last week.

Ms. Quinn outlined how the Housing Preservation and Development Department is extending affordability to 60 years for some of the biggest developments. Affordability agreements currently stand at just the 30-year mark. Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2012/02/quinn-tackles-affordable-housing-and-maintenance-problems-in-state-of-the-city-address/ ‘A Nihilistic and Vapid Form of Art Never Seen in the Big Apple’ That is what Brooklyn activist Samuel E. Anderson sees resulting from the subway-driven gentrification The Observer explored on Friday. It was a widely debated story, with a number of commenters pointing out that Bushwick really isn't that far from Manhattan, so there is no reason to assume the (over) development will not be just as swift and brutal as before.

There was a lot of  talk about money and power and access, both to capital and transportation. But what they all ignored, excepting Mr. Anderson, who sent us an email, was not just the minorities but the minority artists affected by these changes. This is not exactly new territory, but it is well said—including our emphases—and it speaks to a dark future for minority communities, affordable housing and the art scene as a (w)hole. Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2012/01/a-nihilistic-and-vapid-form-of-art-never-seen-in-the-big-apple/ Out With The Old, In With The Few Sometimes it seems that the market in New York operates completely separate from any others. With the conversion of two more buildings into condos, the disconnect between New York and the rest of the country, goes to another level. Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2012/01/out-with-the-old-in-with-the-few/ Lloyd Blankfein’s Bed-Stuy Pet Project Rising Fast It was less than a year-ago that Lloyd Blankfein's set his loafered foot in Bed-Stuy, for the groundbreaking of the Bradford, a middle- and low-income development being constructed on Fulton Street. It was an unusual place to find the banker, but Goldman, capable of making money anywhere, had made a $45 million investment in the project. Brownstoner recently passed by the project, and, as you can see, it's come a long way in a short amount of time.The whole shebang is due to open next summer. Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/11/lloyd-blankfeins-bed-stuy-pet-project-rising-fast/ Gotham West, What Took You So Long? Hellsea is now officially "Midtown West." Or it will be as soon as Gotham Organization's massive new development is completed. Representatives from Gotham joined Mayor Bloomberg, Speaker Quinn and Housing Commissioner Matthew Wambua to break ground at the site earlier today. Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/11/gotham-west-what-took-you-so-long/ Welfare No More: Another Roosevelt Island Co-op Privitizes Roosevelt Island was once known as Welfare Island. Although they shook the unfortunate the name back in 1973, it looks like the community is taking another step to break from it's subsidized past, The Wall Street Journal reports. Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/10/welfare-no-more-another-roosevelt-island-co-op-privitizes/ The New Face of Affordable Housing at the Bronx’s Via Verde Michael Kimmelman was not the only one writing about Via Verde yesterday. The Architect's Newspaper also has a report on the revolutionary South Bronx public housing complex done by architects Grimshaw and Dattner Architects and developers Jonathan Rose and Phipps Houses. Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/09/the-new-face-of-affordable-housing-at-the-bronxs-via-verde/ Do 36 Harlem Tenements Hold the Key to the City’s Affordable Housing Future? Better days are ahead for the Randolph Houses on West 114th Street—not that the 36 tenement buildings in Central Harlem have ever truly known good days.

Built in the 1890s, along with thousands of other substandard cold water flats serving the booming population of European immigrants, the buildings were abandoned amidst white flight. Like so many other unwanted apartments of that generation, they were taken over by the city in the 1970s and turned into public housing. Attempts at upkeep have been made over the years, but the upkeep never really was, well, kept up. The buildings have deteriorated to such a state that only 109 of their 452 units are occupied, but the city cannot afford to fix them.

To finally revive the Randolph Houses, the city’s Housing Authority and Department of Housing Preservation and Development are partnering with a private developer to retrofit the properties into modern, low-income housing. A request for proposals was released last week, and the winning developer will be charged with transforming the buildings into a mix of 140 public housing units and at least 155 affordable housing units. Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/08/nycha-hpd-randolph-houses-harlem-public-housing-tenements/ Related Rescues Tenements The Related Companies is synonymous with flashy, glassy luxury apartment towers, from the sentinels of Columbus Circle to the Best Building downtown. But within this cool facade beats a caring heart. Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/08/related-rescues-tenements/ Wage War Between Dems, Affordable Housing Advocates A rare divide has formed between Democrats and affordable housing advocates over a prevailing wage provision in the extension of the popular 421-a tax credit. Those advocates say that an extension of the 421-a tax credit that includes requiring them to pay prevailing wages to construction workers on non-public projects will drastically reduce the number of Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/06/wage-war-between-dems-affordable-housing-advocates/ How Sweet It Will Be: Judge Gives Domino Go-Ahead The transformation of the massive Domino sugar refinery into an even bigger condo development has passed its last hurdle--besides finding financing, of course--as a New York Supreme Court judge dismissed a suit seeking to stop the project.

Even with 30 percent of the 2,200 units set aside as affordable housing, the project came under stiff Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/real-estate/how-sweet-it-will-be-judge-gives-domino-go-ahead How Depressing: City’s Homelessness Worst Since 1930s The Coalition for the Homeless released its annual count yesterday of those living in shelters and on the street, and the group found a record number of homeless New Yorkers, 113,553, of whom 42,888 were children. The report points out this is the highest number since the city began keeping count, and it reaches Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/real-estate/how-depressing-citys-homelessness-worst-1930s Is Affordable Housing Gentrifying Brooklyn? Is the city's public-private affordable housing model—the Community Preservation Corp., a group of 70 banks and insurance companies, in particular—expediting Brooklyn's gentrification?

The Gotham Gazette seems to think so. The Gazette investigated the city's publicly available property transaction records and found that since 2007, 65 percent of the $701 million invested in Brooklyn went Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/real-estate/cpcs-affordable-housing-gentrifying-brooklyn They Want to Build WHAT In Washington Heights? Just because they call it Washington Heights does not mean super-tall apartment buildings are welcome in the typically low-rise neighborhood.

A while back, Curbed got wind of an outrageous-looking plan for a complex of four towers ranging in size from 23 to 42 stories. Like our blogging pals, The Observer figured this was a pie-in-the-sky leftover Read More

]]> http://www.observer.com/2011/real-estate/they-want-build-what-washington-heights SPURA On! Housing Fight Brewing on 50-Year-Old Lower East Side Site Is there such a thing as too much affordable housing? In contemporary New York, just maybe.

In the postwar years, New York City cleared miles of land for redevelopment, demolishing tenemants and building public housing and other projects. Some of these developments stalled out like a busted subway, among them the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area. Read More

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