Housing Starts: Real-Estate Pros Fight Tax I Harlem ‘High Line’ Proposal I Airbnb Violates Law

Photo Credit: Harlem Promenade

1. Real-Estate Pros Fight NYC Tax on Wealthy Absentee Owners A political battle is brewing at the apex of New York’s property market. The real-estate industry is mobilizing to kill a proposed levy on non-resident owners of apartments valued at more than $5 million, seeking to ensure the world’s biggest city doesn’t follow London, Hong Kong and Singapore in extracting extra cash from trophy properties. [Bloomberg – 10/15/14]
2. ‘Harlem High Line’ Proposal Could Bring Affordable Housing Harlem may be getting its own version of the High Line. The proposed project — dubbed the Harlem Promenade — would create an elevated park over a portion of the Amtrak rail lines that run along the West Side Highway…The proposal would move the air rights to Broadway and set up a special district that would bring in 2,000 units of affordable housing to West Harlem, Cohen said. [DNAinfo – 10/16/14]
3. NY Attorney General: 72% Of Airbnb Rentals Violate State, City Laws New York state’s crackdown on the burgeoning short-term home rental industry continues this morning, with a new report from the state’s Attorney General claiming that nearly 3-in-4 of the short-term New York rentals listed over the last few years were in violation of state and/or city law. The report from NY AG Eric Schneiderman is based on data obtained as a result of the May 2014 agreement in which Airbnb agreed to turn over anonymized user information to state investigators. [Consumerist – 10/16/14]
4. Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding to be Offered to Locals First: De Blasio Residents of neighborhoods hard-hit by Hurricane Sandy will get first dibs on rebuilding jobs, Mayor de Blasio said Wednesday at a Queens job fair. The Far Rockaway fair drew hundreds of people looking for jobs in construction, landscaping and office work. Contractors with the city’s Build It Back program will be required to give hiring priority to people who live in storm-ravaged neighborhoods, de Blasio said. He also announced $1.1 million to expand job placements programs in the Rockaways. [New York Daily News – 10/16/14]
5. Wary Optimism Greets De Blasio’s Brooklyn Redevelopment Plans When the subject of Brooklyn’s hottest neighborhoods comes up, Broadway Junction seldom enters the conversation…This unlikely location, however, is firmly in the crosshairs of the Department of City Planning to become the hub of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s vision for remaking New York City. As laid out in a 150-page report issued by the Department of City Planning in June, the junction could ultimately become the site of a college campus, or possibly a mall. Immediately to the east, meanwhile, the three main East New York shopping streets of Fulton, Atlantic, and Pitkin Avenues would be transformed by new, higher zoning allowances that would allow for more residential buildings. [Brooklyn Bureau – 10/16/14]
6. New Yorkers Could Live in This Prefab Housing After Sandy 2.0 If another storm like Hurricane Sandy comes along and displaces thousands of people, the City of New York wants to be ready. That is why they put out a request for proposals for designs for post-disaster housing that could be used for up to two years. This housing would not replace immediate emergency shelters in places like hotels or school auditoriums, but it would come after, as a more permanent solution for displaced families. [New York Curbed – 10/15/14]
7. Key Councilman Says He Doesn’t Support Controversial Development Proposal Councilman Costa Constantinides said that he doesn’t support the luxury Astoria Cove project in its current form, as the project moves toward a vote that hinges on his support. ‘The current proposal includes ‘affordable’ apartments that will actually be too expensive for the area and doesn’t capture what real Astorians need,’ Constantinides said Wednesday. ‘I cannot support the proposal as it currently sits with the Council.’ The development team led by Alma Realty is asking the city for the rezoning and permits necessary to transform the industrial land it owns, to allow for the luxury 1,700-unit residential development on the Astoria waterfront. [New York Daily News – 10/15/14]
8. City Hall Looks to Hire More Disadvantaged Workers for Development Projects Mayor Bill de Blasio is testing out a new initiative that will require contractors on city development projects to provide provisions for hiring disadvantaged workers. The language was buried in a Request for Proposals the NYC Economic Development Corp. released earlier this year for infrastructure work at the second phase of the 5,000-unit Hunter’s Point development in Queens. The RFP included a section that requires responders to lay out an employment-opportunities hiring plan that provides opportunities for very-low income city residents, the homeless, those with criminal records, people on public assistance, custodial single parents or those who have participated in a vocational program for non-native English speakers. [The Real Deal – 10/16/14]
9. Park Avenue Skyscraper Becomes Tallest Building in NYC, Western Hemisphere New York City just reached a new milestone in architecture: 432 Park Avenue, between 56th and 57th streets, is now the tallest building in the city and the western hemisphere. It just reached its full height of 1,396 feet tall, 28 feet taller than One World Trade Center– if you don’t count the building’s spire. [CBS News – 10/14/14]
10. Mortgage Rates Tumble as 30-Year at 16-Month Low of 3.97% U.S. mortgage rates plunged, sending borrowing costs for 30-year loans below 4 percent for the first time in 16 months, as signs of a slowing global economy drove investors to the safety of government bonds. The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage dropped to 3.97 percent, the lowest since June 2013, from 4.12 percent last week, Freddie Mac said in a statement today. [Bloomberg – 10/16/14]