Housing Starts: Council to Spur Manufacturing | Affordable Housing in West Flushing | A Mansion-Tax?
Photo Credit:The Wall Street Journal
- Council Aims to Spur Manufacturing Through Zoning While the de Blasio administration focuses on affordable housing, the City Council on Wednesday proposed new zoning to spur the city’s manufacturing and “creative” economies. The 40-page report represents the council’s attempt to reverse the six-decade decline in the city’s manufacturing sector, which employs 76,000 workers, down from its height of 1 million in 1940. Industrial businesses, which pay wages nearly double those in the growing service industry, are under threat by the explosion of residential development and rely heavily on zoning to preserve their footprint in the city. The report also comes amid tension between the council and Mayor Bill de Blasio over the future of the city’s 21 industrial business zones.
- City to Study Affordable Housing in Western Flushing Western Flushing is among the latest New York City neighborhoods that are next in line for the city’s affordable housing agenda. The Department of City Planning will conduct a housing study of the largely industrial area mainly on Flushing Creek, City Planning Commissioner Carl Weisbrod announced Monday. The city will also look at an area in the Bronx between Grand Concourse and Highbridge.
- City Eyes Mansion-Tax Boost to Assist Affordable Housing City Hall is considering a proposal that could take advantage of a soaring luxury real-estate market to help deliver on Mayor Bill de Blasio ’s $41 billion affordable-housing plan by raising the tax on top-priced apartment sales, according to people familiar with the matter. The plan, which would direct the additional money to affordable housing, would require the approval of the state Legislature. It is unclear just how seriously the de Blasio administration is considering a push for it in a legislative session shaping up to include several fights on real-estate policy.
- Air Rights for Affordable Housing: City Pitches LIC Development Deal Swap The city is, for the first time, offering a new deal to developers of affordable housing: free air rights. The Economic Development Corporation has issued request for proposals that makes developers a novel pitch: development rights, at no cost, in exchange for a “permanently affordable housing program that maximizes both the number of housing units and the level of affordability,” according to the EDC. The air rights on the table are for three city-owned parcels beneath the Queensboro Bridge in Long Island City. Because of bridge ramps, the sites themselves are not available for development.
- NYC Pols Push Albany for Stronger Rent Laws Top city pols launched a campaign to wrest more control of the city’s rent laws from Albany and make them friendlier to tenants. At a rally at City Hall Tuesday, the officials demanded a right for the city to set its own rent regulations - which expire next year - and pushed to scrap a rule that lets landlords de-regulate an apartment when it becomes vacant and limit how much landlords can jack up the rent when they do building renovations.
- A.G. Schneiderman Announces Agreements with NYC Building Owners to Enforce Rent Regulations for Those Taking Property Tax Incentives Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today announced four settlements with a landlord and three developers who received lucrative tax incentives from New York City under the state’s “421-a” program, which is aimed at encouraging development, but who failed to comply with the program’s prevailing wage and rent-stabilization requirements. The settlements return more than $460,ooo in unpaid wages to about a dozen building workers at two buildings. They require that nearly two dozen apartments in four buildings be added to the state’s rent regulation registry.
- Harlem Dowling Affordable Housing Development Offers Youth Aging Out of Foster Care Chance at Low-Cost Living Some children will have a home to call their own after they leave foster care. Construction began Wednesday on the Harlem Dowling Affordable Housing Development, a 60-unit complex that’s scheduled to rise on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. near 127th St. in the summer of 2016. The 10-story building will provide affordable housing to youth aging out of foster care with 12 studio units that will rent for as little as $167 a month to those whose income meets an established threshold.
- City to Sell $110.6M Land and Development Package for $1 The de Blasio administration will sell a 25,204-square-foot plot on the southern side of West 53rd Street between 10th and 11th Avenues and a development rights package to the Clinton Housing Development Corporation for $1 if city officials greenlight the proposed transaction next week. The discount purchase would clear the way for Clinton Housing’s 103-unit affordable development slated for 530-548 West 53rd Street and Taconic Investment Partners and Ritterman Capital‘s upcoming 405-unit development with 81 affordable units at 525 West 52nd Street, according to a newly-released proposal from the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development reviewed by Commercial Observer.
- Forest City Ratner Can Restart Construction on Stalled Brooklyn Tower Following Deal for Modular Factory Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner is one step closer to fixing his big Brooklyn problem. Ratner’s company Forest City Ratner has inked a deal to buy construction giant Skanska out of its interest in a shuttered modular unit factory at the Brooklyn Navy Yard where, until recently, modules were being developed for the world’s largest pre-fabricated building next to the Barclays Center. Having wrested control of the factory, Forest City can now begin to get construction of its 32-story tower, which has been stalled since August, back on track.
- U.S. Existing Home Sales Hit One-Year High in October U.S. home resales jumped to their highest level in more than a year in October and outpaced the sales level a year ago for the first time in 2014, further evidence the housing market is on a recovery path. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) on Thursday said existing home sales rose 1.5 percent to an annual rate of 5.26 million units, the highest rate since September of last year.
