NYC Homelessness | BK Leads Affordable Housing Unit Boom | US Most Expensive Neighborhoods

Image Credit: Richard Perry / New York Times

1. New York City Struggles To Keep Up With High Homeless Numbers “Homelessness in New York reached an all-time high last December, when about 59,000 people were sleeping in shelters, according to the city’s records. That number has dipped slightly in recent months, now at around 56,000. Mary Brosnahan, who leads the Coalition for the Homeless, an advocacy group, says there are likely more homeless people living on the streets than the city’s official count of about 3,000 from a street survey conducted in February. ‘The numbers just keep going up and up and up,’ she says. ‘There are just many more homeless, single adults than we’ve ever seen before.’ Many advocates like Brosnahan say homelessness is so high today in New York because of policies under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who cut a rent-subsidy program for homeless families after state funding dried up in 2011.” [NPR – 08/23/15]
2. Brooklyn Leads City Boom of New Affordable Housing Units “Some relief is coming for New Yorkers desperate for cheaper apartments, particularly in three of Brooklyn’s hottest neighborhoods, which were the top spots for affordable housing creation in the borough this year, according to city data. Prospect Heights, Downtown Brooklyn and Greenpoint will be home to about 75% of the 3,069 newly constructed affordable Brooklyn units that the city’s department of Housing Preservation and Development approved in the 2015 fiscal year. An additional 3,846 affordable apartments in the borough were created by preservation. Housing experts said the addition of these homes that are below market rate will help the evolution of the communities. ‘This is where the demand is, and the developers are moving in,’ said Jonathan Bowles, the executive director for the Center for an Urban Future, a non-profit think tank.” [amNewYork – 08/23/15]
3. America’s Most Expensive Neighborhoods for Renters “Forget groceries, utilities, and dining out—every American knows that the single largest drain on a budget is housing. As homeownership dips to its lowest level in decades, rent has become increasingly unaffordable in America’s superstar cities and tech hubs. In San Francisco and L.A., typical renters can expect to pay about half of their total income to housing and more than 40 percent in New York City, according to a recent Zillow analysis. Across the nation as a whole, rent eats up an average of 30 percent of income to housing, the highest figure since Zillow began tracking this data. And these are city-wide averages: The share of household income put toward rent goes even higher in certain neighborhoods. But just how high can the rent go in America’s most expensive neighborhoods? To get us started, take a look at the table below, which lists the 25 most expensive U.S. neighborhoods to rent in based on Zillow’s Rent Index (ZRI).” [CityLab – 08/20/15]
4. For $28 Million, Another Perch at One57 “A sprawling aerie on the 67th floor of One57, Extell Development’s glassy-blue skyscraper, where the city’s priciest transaction for a single residence took place earlier this year, sold to an undisclosed buyer for $28,005,375 and was the most expensive sale of the week, according to city records. No. 67B, a 4,116-square-foot sponsor unit at 157 West 57th Street, occupies half the floor and includes three bedrooms and three and a half baths, along with a huge grand salon. Monthly carrying costs total $8,895, according to the listing on StreetEasy.com, and the most recent asking price was $29.5 million. The other, slightly bigger three-bedroom on the floor, 67A, sold in March for $30.04 million, weeks after a duplex penthouse sold for a record $100.47 million. Cathy Franklin and Alexis Bodenheimer of the Corcoran Group represented the buyer, whose identity was shielded by the limited liability company Tower 67B.” [New York Times – 08/21/15]
5. Housing Goal Is a Heavy Lift “Mayor Bill de Blasio’s signature policy goal is the creation of 240,000 dwellings over 10 years. The city achieved that pace from 2000 through 2008, as the annual rate doubled during that period. Then the market crashed. Another boom might be getting started, but historical data suggest the mayor’s number will be difficult to reach. The mayor’s target of 24,000 new apartments annually hasn’t been achieved since 2004-08, which was seen in retrospect as a bubble. Housing is expensive in New York because supply hasn’t kept pace with demand. Compared with other large cities, construction here is limited by restrictive zoning, red tape, high labor costs, constricted building sites, community opposition, historic-district rules and lack of vacant land. The city’s plan is particularly ambitious because 80,000 of the new units are to be affordable, requiring public and private subsidies. In fiscal 2015, the city achieved the new target pace of 8,000 units per year for the first time since it began keeping track in 1978.” [Crain’s New York Business – 08/23/15]
6. New York City Website Lets Users Drill Deep Into Census Data “At New York’s Department of City Planning, staff members are bombarded with requests for information about neighborhoods. ‘How do you choose when you get a deluge of requests?’ said Joseph Salvo, director of the department’s population division. ‘The demand just keeps coming up. If we don’t do this, we’re going to be buried.’ ‘This’ is a significantly revamped version of a website with a large volume of neighborhood-level census data, which the department released this month. Dubbed ‘Census FactFinder,’ the website lets users access detailed socioeconomic and demographic information for areas that they define. The tool’s creation is an indicator of what some see as increasing demand for neighborhood-level data from agencies, community organizations and individuals citywide. Customizable demographic and socioeconomic data is an offshoot of the Open Data movement, which is the push for publicly accessible information from governments and other sources.” [Wall Street Journal – 08/23/15]
7. City Could Use Willets Point Ruling to Wring Concessions “The de Blasio administration last week declined to appeal a court decision that has blocked the $3 billion redevelopment of Willets Point in Queens, a signature Bloomberg-era economic development initiative and one of the largest in city history. The mayor’s acceptance of the July ruling, which rejected a mall proposed for a parking lot to the west of Citi Field, will make it difficult for codefendants Related Cos. and Sterling Equities to persuade the state’s highest court to even hear the case. Whether or not the court of appeals stiff-arms the developers—and it likely will, given the city’s withdrawal from the case—de Blasio officials expect the companies to return to the negotiating table to answer the mayor’s demands that they add more affordable housing to the plan and build it sooner.” [Crain’s New York Business – 08/23/15]
8. Why Millennials Aren’t Forming New Households “Recovery or no, the housing news is grim for Millennials. A new report from Goldman Sachs echoes the new findings from the Pew Research Center last month: The economic recovery has not shown any decline in the share of young adults who are living at home with their parents. Since the start of the recovery (in 2010), the share of 18–34 year-olds who are living at home has, in fact, increased. According to the latest figures, about a third of Millennials are sharing living quarters with their folks. While this percentage stopped growing during the second half of 2014, it hasn’t shown any meaningful shift. Despite the recovery, they’re still stuck. However, these findings appear to run contrary to a different trend in American housing: The number of new households in the U.S. is rising steadily, according to Census data. Which raises a question: If the percentage of young adults who are living at home with their parents is still so high, how can the number of new households be growing?” [CityLab – 08/20/15]
9. White House Aims to Boost Homeowner Renewable Energy Use “The White House on Monday expanded its push for greater renewable energy adoption, announcing fresh financial incentives for solar panels, smart grid technology and other alternative energies for homeowners and builders. President Barack Obama will travel to Las Vegas, Nevada, later on Monday to unveil the new steps, which include an additional $1 billion in loan guarantees for new research projects and near-term savings for homeowners using renewable energy. The Department of Interior on Monday approved the Blyth Mesa Solar project in California and its transmission line, expected to bring enough solar energy to power 145,000 homes. The moves are part of Obama’s ‘broader vision’ for ameliorating the effects of climate change, which he will emphasize throughout the next week in trips to New Orleans and the Arctic, Brian Deese, senior adviser to Obama on climate, said on a call with reporters.” [Reuters – 08/24/15]
10. City Hall Responds Cautiously to Proposed LIC Mega-Project “The de Blasio administration offered a measured critique of a bold plan to build a multi-million-square-foot mixed-use development in Long Island City, coupled with a foot bridge to Roosevelt Island. During an interview on Thursday, Alicia Glen, the deputy mayor for housing and economic development, called the plan ‘exciting,’ but cautioned it is ‘a little out of scale.’ As POLITICO New York reported, Rudy Giuliani’s former chief of staff, Bruce Teitelbaum, has been delivering a presentation for a vacant lot where an oil refinery once stood along the East River in Queens. His plan, according to sources who have been briefed, is to build a residential tower. He also wants to buy an adjacent lot owned by the city, which is home to a Department of Education warehouse, to dramatically expand the scope of the project to include open space, offices and possibly a hotel and a school. The most eye-catching part of the proposal is a pedestrian and cycling bridge connecting the neighborhood to Roosevelt Island, where the Cornell Tech graduate school is being built.” [Politico NY – 08/21/15]