Housing Starts: Middle-Class Housing I City Aims to Reduce Asthma Rates I NYC Buildings Going Green

Image Credit: Office of the Governor

1. Report: New Middle-Class Housing Program Possible MacNeil Mitchell was the Yale-educated scion of a Connecticut family steeped in public service, who represented Manhattan’s tony silk-stocking district as a Republican in the state Senate. Alfred Lama was born in Italy, emigrated to New York at age 5, and rose to represent Brownsville as a Democrat in the state Assembly. Both men have been dead for nearly two decades. The product of their legislative partnership 60 years ago, the Mitchell-Lama housing program, survives, having created 66,000 units of rental housing and 69,000 coop apartments. But the program is ailing. [City Limits – 04/22/15]
2. City Looks To Reduce Asthma Rates In Poor Neighborhoods In an effort to reduce asthma in low-income neighborhoods, the de Blasio administration will work to pass a law requiring owners of multi-unit housing to have a smoking policy, and disclose it to current and prospective residents. The proposal was announced Wednesday as part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s OneNYC plan. The administration contends that than one in three children with asthma who live in high poverty neighborhoods are exposed to potential asthma triggers in their homes. City Councilman Donovan Richards has proposed legislation prohibiting smoking in New York City Housing Authority and city subsidized buildings. [Capital New York – 04/22/15]
3. Green Day: The City and Landlords are Going Green The word “green” means different things to different people. For many developers and building owners, it’s what fills their pockets. But if you’re an environmentalist, it means something else entirely. However, sustainability is now officially poised to affect everyone in real estate. [Commercial Observer – 04/22/15]
4. 88,000 Apply to Get In This ‘Poor Door’ A 33-story luxury complex in Manhattan has 55 affordable rentals at below-market rates for those who meet certain income requirements - and a staggering 88,000 applications have been received. For those will money to burn, the gleaming tower on Riverside Drive also has more than 200 luxury condos for sale, with prices ranging from $1 million to as much as $25 million. But there’s a separate entrance for the affordable rentals, which has become known as the ‘poor door.’ [CNN Money – 04/21/15]
5. Why Houston Doesn’t Have San Francisco’s Housing Problems There’s a serious affordable-housing problem in the U.S., the country’s top housing official and several economists said Thursday. But the problems may lie on the supply side, as shown in two of the country’s largest markets, San Francisco and Houston. According to Stan Humphries, chief economist of Zillow, local regulations are at the root of the supply problem. “Zoning, parking minimums — these inadvertently drive up the fixed cost,” Humphries said at the Atlantic’s summit on the economy. And when fixed costs go up, builders have an incentive to create more expensive housing, he said. [Market Watch – 04/23/15]
6. The South Bronx Is the Next ‘It’ Area, Real Estate Experts Predict Vernicia Colon and Peter Medina thought the South Bronx would be the ideal place to launch their pop-up shop that would sell pour-over coffee served alongside a “curated conversation series” on issues like race. With Mott Haven’s mix of “people from different backgrounds and different countries” and a critical mass of artists, the founders of Mix Coffehaus believed they’d find a loyal clientele in the area. […]With artsy additions like Mix Coffehaus, the neighborhood is inching toward becoming a hipster hub. [DNAinfo – 04/22/15]
7. Cost of Housing Soars: How High Can It Go? The housing recovery is coming at a steep price—for both homebuyers and renters. The reasons can be found in the unique supply and demand circumstances that were left in the wake of the worst housing crash in history. For several years, would-be buyers stayed on the sidelines, unwilling or unable to buy a home. That pushed rents higher. [CNBC – 04/22/15]
8. Can New York Actually End Veteran Homelessness This Year? New York City is on track to reach its goal of ending veteran homelessness by the end of 2015, according to numbers from Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office, a potentially remarkable achievement for a city with one of the largest homeless populations in the country. The mayor’s office has determined that there are 990 homeless military veterans in New York City. Of these, 971 are in city shelters and 19 have been identified as living in the streets. That represents a 40 percent drop from the number of homeless vets the city identified last year, and a 75 percent drop from 2012, when there were nearly 3,800 homeless veterans in New York City. [Huffington Post – 04/23/15]
9. Laborers Demand True Reform for Department of Housing Preservation & Development In testimony, today, before the New York City Council Joint Committee of Housing & Building and Contracts the leadership of the Mason Tenders District Council of the Laborers International Union of North America, called on the City Council to enact comprehensive procurement reform for the New York City Department of Housing Preservation & Development. “Mayor de Blasio’s aggressive and much needed housing plan is a bold attempt to address one of our City’s major challenges – affordable housing for the middle-class,” said Mike Prohaska, business manager of Laborers Local 79. “However those goals can only be reached if true reform and transparency is brought to how HPD conducts its business. [PR Newswire – 04/21/15]
10. 5 Reasons Why Micro-Units Will be Huge in the Future Half the world today lives in cities — and, according to the United Nations, nearly 70 percent of the world will live in cities by 2050. At a recent National Association of City Transportation Officials conference in San Francisco, former Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation Richard Davey even went as far as to label this the ‘Century of the City.’ Data shows that younger generations are leading this urban migration. [Inman – 04/21/15]