Housing Starts: Homelessness Rising | Trinity Church in Residential Development | Flood Map Impacts

Rendering of the Landmark Colony on Staten Island (Photo Credit: Curbed NY)

1. Homelessness Rose in New York The number of homeless people living on the streets and in shelters across the country fell this year, according to an annual federal survey released on Thursday. But in New York City, the homeless population continued to grow, swelling in almost every category: individuals, families and the chronically homeless. The report on homelessness, from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, is based on a nationwide “point-in-time” survey conducted on a single night in January as part of the agency’s effort to track the homeless population over time and across the country. [New York Times – 10/30/14]
2. Redevelopment of Staten Island’s Farm Colony Moves Forward The abandoned New York City Farm Colony on Staten Island is one step closer to being brought back to life. Last Tuesday, the Landmarks Preservation Commission unanimously backed a proposal to transform the 45-acre campus that was once a poor farm into 350 units of senior housing plus some retail. Called Landmark Colony, the development will bring life back to a crumbling site that has sat vacant for more than four decades. [Curbed NY – 11/03/14]
3. Port Authority loses $175M Hudson Yards tower deal The Dermot Co. has decided to drop its plans to build a soaring residential tower at Hudson Yards in a deal that was supposed to net the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey as much as $175 million. Dermot, a large development firm that has completed several high-rise residential projects in the city, had been selected by the Port Authority during the summer to develop the site, a 25,000-square-foot parcel on West 33rd Street next to Dyer Avenue. The company agreed to pay about $115 million for the right to build a 500,000-square-foot-plus residential tower and potentially $60 million more for additional development rights. [Crain’s New York Business – 10/31/14]
4. Manhattan Co-op Market Starved for Inventory in Q3 According to a quarterly report from StreetEasy released today, co-op inventory, which dropped by 10.6 percent, saw a greater tumble than overall borough condo inventory for the first time since 2010. The quarter-over-quarter decline in available condos was far smaller, at 2.2 percent. Co-op inventory dropped to 5,678 apartments from 5,646 during the quarter. What’s more, two out of every five co-op units that listed during the third quarter fell into the bottom tier of pricing for the market – less than $625,000. [The Real Deal – 10/31/14]
5. City Admits Error on Astoria Cove’s Affordable Housing City planners made a significant error in calculating the affordable-housing requirement at the proposed Astoria Cove development on the Queens waterfront, officials said Thursday, although the City Council still has time to hammer out a new agreement ahead of a late-November deadline. A partnership led by Queens-based Alma Realty is seeking to rezone an industrial peninsula in Astoria so it can build a 1,700-unit complex there. In exchange, it has proposed to dedicate 20% of the apartments there to households making no more than 80% of the area median income, which in 2013 was $68,700 for a family of four. [Crain’s New York Business – 10/30/14]
6. Canyon Provides Construction Loan for Gowanus Development The construction loan will fund phase one of a planned two-phase development on one square block between 1st and 2nd Streets in Carroll Gardens. The completed multifamily property will contain 429 apartment units, including 86 units of affordable housing, as the newest rental building in the area. [Commercial Observer – 10/31/14]
7. Trinity to Erect Apartment Towers For just over three centuries, Trinity Church has cautiously managed the 215 acres of downtown Manhattan it received from Britain’s Queen Anne, turning it from productive farmland to industrial and office space. In the next few weeks, the Episcopal church—whose property arm, Trinity Real Estate, oversees the 5.5 million square feet of office buildings it owns on the western fringe of SoHo in an area called Hudson Square—will try something new. It will venture into the high-stakes game of residential development. [Crain’s New York Business – 11/03/14]
8. U.S. Construction Spending Weaker than Expected in September U.S. construction spending fell for a second straight month in September as investment in both private and public projects declined, suggesting the third-quarter growth estimate could be revised lower. Construction spending dropped 0.4 percent to an annual rate of $950.9 billion, the Commerce Department said on Monday. August’s construction outlays were revised to show a 0.5 percent fall instead of the previously reported 0.8 percent decline. [Reuters – 11/03/14]
9. New Flood Maps Would Affect $128M Worth of NYC Property, Report Says New flood maps being proposed by FEMA would affect properties worth more than twice those currently deemed to be at risk, a report by Comptroller Scott Stringer found. Under the new 100-year floodplain maps being discussed, $128 million worth of property in New York City would be at risk of rising water. Current maps affect only $58 million worth of property, the report released this week found. [DNAinfo New York – 10/30/14]
10. The City Where Real Estate Developers and Housing Activists Agree to Agree “Usually gentrification just happens by accident,” said Mark Tomizawa to the elderly man seated close beside him. “I’ve lived in Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami and New York, and I’ve never seen anything like this.” Somerville is a small, densely populated city on the northern border of Cambridge. Thanks to its proximity to Harvard and a reputation for affordability and diversity, Somerville’s tightly packed residential neighborhoods have gradually over the last several decades become a go-to nesting ground for a certain breed of well-educated, upwardly mobile Bostonite. [Next City – 11/03/14]