Affordable Housing | The New York Observer

Four More Years! But for What? Experts Opine on Economic Development Through '13

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:45:38 -0500

Almost indisputably, the mayoral race this year was a desert of big new ideas for New York City. Be it the lack of a competitive Democratic primary, the billions in budget gaps or the challenger's preference for blanket criticism over policy prescription, the incumbent and-at the time of this writing-presumptive winner, Michael Bloomberg, was never forced to offer much in the way of innovative policy.

This was particularly true in the realm of the physical...

Bloomberg Casually Tweaks Affordable-Housing Ambitions; Thompson Offers Little Pushback

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:32:24 -0400

Four years ago, three weeks before his convincing defeat of Democratic challenger Freddy Ferrer, Mayor Bloomberg made a stop at a housing luncheon in midtown to unveil a grand $7.5 billion plan to build or preserve 165,000 units of below-market rate housing by 2013. The well-received plan was ambitious and politically adept: it more than doubled the scope of his existing 65,000-unit plan and blunted a policy edge Mr. Ferrer had held in the...

City Launching Plan to Turn Unfinished Condos Into Subsidized Housing

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:51:07 -0400

Will the dangling of city money be enough to get stalled condo projects moving again?

Perhaps.

The city is launching a $20 million initiative to restart stalled condo projects, turning some of the unfinished developments into below-market-rate housing. Details are still hazy, but Council Speaker Christine Quinn and the commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, Rafael Cestero, said Wednesday that the city would solicit proposals from developers and lenders by the end of...

Without a Democratic Primary, Where Will the Housing Ideas Come From?

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 17:24:00 -0400

In the world of low- and moderate-income housing, the last two mayoral campaigns were fruitful ones. Particularly in the competitive Democratic primaries, two fields of candidates launched arms races of sorts on housing, ultimately presenting plans that called for huge infusions of new money and an array of new policies long pushed by advocates. The Bloomberg campaign countered with similar plans of its own, particularly in 2005; now many of the campaign ideas are city...

In Race for Mayor, Democrat Dearth May Mean Housing Idea Desert

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:00:42 -0400

In the world of low- and moderate-income housing, the last two mayoral campaigns were fruitful ones.

Particularly in the competitive Democratic primaries, two fields of candidates launched arms races of sorts on housing, ultimately presenting plans that called for huge infusions of new money and an array of new policies long pushed by advocates. The Bloomberg campaign countered with similar plans of its own, particularly in 2005; now many of the campaign ideas are city...

Rose Takes LEED in East Harlem

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:48:37 -0500

On Tuesday, Jonathan Rose Companies broke ground on the first affordable housing and mixed-income apartment building in East Harlem developed to LEED Silver standards. Called Tapestry, the 12-story, 185-unit building, with 8,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, will rise at 124th Street and Second Avenue, at the base of what's becoming today officially the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge.

The Observer sat down wih Jonathan Rose in September of 2007 to talk about green development.

"I...

Boerum Hill Gets Lots of Affordable Housing for Entertainment Folk

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 15:02:51 -0500

Outside of the East Village, the leafy brownstone neighborhoods of Brooklyn are the defacto homesteads for New York's entertainment types. Michelle Williams and Heath Ledger "moved to Brooklyn for light and space and air," the actress has said, and their neighbors Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard got a $1.75 million brownstone last year with no less than seven fireplaces.

But what about the non-millionaire types who want that light and space...

HPD Seeks Tax-free Financing for the Middle-Class

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 12:12:57 -0500

The downside of all this idealistic talk about building “workforce housing” for the middle class is that there is no easy way to finance them. The Bloomberg administration has used tax-exempt bonds to fuel much of its housing program so far, but those, because of legal restrictions, only work when there is some low-income housing being built.

So, in seeking to finance 3,000 new apartments for middle income families at Hunters Point South (which...

Can Bloomberg Build 165,000 Houses?

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 17:51:52 -0500

The Independent Budget Office came out with a look at the mayor’s housing plan, and while it echoes much of the praise from other quarters about it, it questions whether he will be able to meet his goal of building new affordable housing, as opposed to merely preserving existing units.

For one, the city has drawn down almost all of the money it was planning to spend from the Housing Development Corporation, which...

Vito's Compromise

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 17:42:16 -0400

You can’t get everything you want in life--especially if you are a politician. So Assemblyman Vito Lopez yesterday gave up a couple of things he liked about the 421a tax abatement bill that passed the Legislature earlier this year in order to get it past the Governor’s desk. A new version, reported in the papers this morning, will come up for a vote in September.

“Was I very...

Top Officials Leave City Housing Agency

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 13:50:28 -0400

The top two officials at the city’s Housing Development Corporation—President Emily Youssouff and Executive Vice President John Crotty—stepped down today to head up a new tax-exempt bond division at JPMorgan Chase.

During their reign, the agency went from being a scandal-ridden redoubt for political cronies into the country’s largest issuer of affordable housing bonds.

The Mayor’s statement below.

Schumer to Lead Rally to Keep Birthplace of Hip Hop Affordable

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 11:06:28 -0400

On July 5, 1520 Sedgwick Avenue was recognized by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation as the “Birthplace of Hip-Hop.”

The tenants and supporters of the affordable housing development in the Bronx are now hoping that the recognition will help them avoid being booted from their homes.

In February, word came that the owner of the high-rise was looking into selling...

421a Deal Breaks Down

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 15:58:55 -0400

While the bigwigs duke it out over congestion pricing, another Mayoral drive in Albany has hit rough waters: last-minute amendments that would permit the 421a housing tax break to apply to subsidized middle-class housing planned for Queens West.

A real estate executive said that negotiations between the Department of Housing Preservation and Development and Assembly Member Vito Lopez broke down Friday because of a misunderstanding over the income levels that housing receiving...

Mayor Seeks to Reform 421a Reform

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 18:49:28 -0400

The Bloomberg Administration has another favor to ask of the state Legislature, along with passing congestion pricing: change a law you just passed on the 421a property tax abatement.

The Mayor was none too pleased with the Legislature’s revision of the program and even asked Governor Spitzer to veto it. But it turns out Mr. Spitzer might not have to, because the bill, passed in different versions by the Senate and the Assembly,...

H.U.D. Re-Rejects Starrett City Bid

Mon, 09 Jul 2007 17:58:02 -0400

The Feds today denied Clipper Equity’s bid for the Starrett City housing complex in Brooklyn for the second time, saying that the buyer would not be able to maintain the largest federally subsidized complex in the nation as affordable housing after paying $1.3 billion for it.

In a letter to Clipper’s lawyer, the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Alphonso Jackson, wrote that the revised proposal would...

421a Bill Gives Special Treatment to Atlantic Yards

Wed, 20 Jun 2007 19:48:26 -0400

The state Legislature is expected on Thursday to approve a sweeping, if also haphazard, reform of the 421a tax incentive—a program that gives developers 10- to 25-year abatements off property taxes for creating new apartment buildings. It goes far beyond the City Council’s version passed in December by requiring builders in 14 more communities to include low-income housing in their buildings in order to qualify for the tax breaks.

The one exception, however,...

Developers Pare Housing Plan for Albee Square

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 19:15:22 -0400

A number of community groups thought they might have forced the city to reconsider a downtown Brooklyn real estate deal by packing public hearings with dissenters, but the transaction closed anyway last week pretty much as planned.

The big difference was that the developers have scaled down expectations for the number of apartments—a change that might end up diminishing what critics thought was the one redeeming, if limited, feature of the plan:...

H.D.C. Gives It All Away

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 16:14:46 -0400

At a board meeting this afternoon, the New York City Housing Development Corporation signed away the last of the tax-exempt bonds that it has been allocated for this calendar year, a moment The Observer presaged last month.

Counting taxable bonds and corporate reserves, the agency will have committed $376.4 million in financing by the end of June, $320 million of which were awarded today for 2,285 mixed-income apartments in various projects, according to a...

10,000 Expected at Affordable Housing Rally

Tue, 22 May 2007 17:12:46 -0400

The Working Families Party, labor unions and housing groups are holding a rally tomorrow afternoon in which they plan to form a human chain, 10,000 links long, surrounding Stuyvesant Town. Someone, please, hire a helicopter and take this aerial shot. For a more substantive discussion of the issues, see the Web site New York is Our Home.

...

421a Reform: It's Back and Badder Than Ever

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 17:11:08 -0400

The housing boom, or what’s left of it, has spawned a strong backlash against real-estate developers. First there was the City Council’s dramatic overhaul of the 421a property-tax incentive, which repealed the tax breaks that Mayors since John Lindsay had given new apartment buildings in lower Manhattan and Brownstone Brooklyn. Then came state Assemblyman Vito Lopez’s even fiercer proposal, which would require developers to devote 30 percent—up from 20...