Housing Starts: NYC Illegal Units | NYCHA Repairs in Time for Christmas |  Wall Street Refinances

1. Illegal NYC homes thrive as De Blasio tackles housing shortage. Around the side or back doors and down 10 steps of the single-family homes in Ozone Park, Queens, lies a netherworld of illegal basement dwellings—a byproduct of New York’s chronic housing shortage. ‘Some are even better than those that are above,’ said Seema Agnani, an urban planner pushing for a law to add the units to New York’s legally protected housing stock. To Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio, the subterranean apartments in neighborhoods mostly outside Manhattan symbolize government’s failure to provide affordable housing for residents of the biggest U.S. city. [Businessweek – 11/21/13]
2. Work set to begin on 206-unit project in Bronx. A group of city agencies, private developers and one nonprofit will break ground Thursday on the first phase of an $80 million, 206-unit affordable housing development in the Soundview section of the Bronx. This particular development is not only prioritized for local families making 60% or less of area median income, meaning a family of four making about $51,500 or less would qualify. It will also serve as space for families on NYCHA’s waiting list, and others who need to move to more appropriately sized apartments. [Crain’s New York – 11/20/13]
3. How JP Morgan’s record settlement could hurt struggling homeowners in Detroit. JP Morgan agreed earlier this week to pay out some $13 billion after it, and two banks it bought, sold investors nearly $1 trillion-worth of dubious securities at the heart of the financial crisis. While the settlement is record-breaking, it’s in some ways less than meets the eye—and it might even hurt the struggling homeowners whose mortgages were the basis for those securities. [Quartz – 11/21/13]
4. When the choice is between abuse and homelessness. Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio’s support for affordable housing is critical to the future of New York, but not just because affordable housing means stable rents and mortgages for the city’s low- and moderate-income families. It is also a critical tool that the city can wield to help homeless persons get back on their feet, as well as to save lives by providing survivors of domestic violence and their families with long-term safety and stability. Yet, homeless persons, particularly survivors of domestic violence, struggle to access existing housing resources, an area where de Blasio can make a difference. [City Limits – 11/20/13]
5. Why some expensive cities may be more affordable than we think. Most lists of the least affordable metros in America include San Francisco, New York, Boston, and Washington - four cities that share a notable characteristic beyond their hefty housing prices. They all have solid public transit, an asset that should, in theory, allow residents to devote more of their income to housing than would be typical in, say, car-dependent Kansas City. Most housing affordability metrics, however, aren’t good at capturing these local differences: the willingness of people in some places to psend more on housing than in others, the related costs that make that possible, the relativity of ‘affordability’ itself. [The Atlantic Cities – 11/19/13]
6. The Bloomberg-Era anti-poverty programs de Blasio should keep around.  When New York City mayor-elect Bill de Blasio takes office in January, he will inherent a number of serious social policy challenges. An estimated 1.6 million New Yorkers live below the federal poverty line, including nearly a third of the city’s children. The homeless population is at an all-time high, the city suffers from an alarming skills gap and, for low-income residents, the road to the middle class has become more arduous than ever. [Next City – 11/21/13]
7. Wall Street keeps swagger in CMBS as sales surge.  Anticipating the Fed cutting back on stimulus measures, landlords and owners are rushing to refinance mortgages while interest rates low. With almost six weeks to go in 2013, sales of commercial-mortgage bonds are already surpassing Wall Street’s forecasts for the year, defying concern that rising interest rates would stymie new deals. [Crain’s New York – 11/20/13]
8. Brooklyn tenants get vow of NYCHA fixes.  NYCHA officials this week promised a roomful of irate residents of Brooklyn housing developments that a long list of repair and maintenance issues would be resolved by the holidays. Now, says one organizer of the event, ‘its accountability time.’ [Brooklyn Bureau – 11/21/13]
9. Has Germany figured out the way to keep rents affordable? From the outside, Germany looks like a renter’s paradise. Worried about being evicted from your German apartment? It’ll only happens if you don’t pay the rent, or if your landlord him or herself wants to move in. Afraid your rent will skyrocket overnight? It can’t really. Rent increases on existing contracts are capped at 20 percent over three years, following a first year where no increase is permitted. Sure, tenants also have extra responsibilities - they need to give three months notice before moving out, and often do their own renovations. Still, renters looking wistfully towards Germany from Paris, London or New York could hardly be blamed for feeling a stab of envy. [The Atlantic Cities – 11/21/13]
10. Bunkering down in a luxury building on the outskirts. Built in 2009 in the eastern part of Bushwick, the Lofts on Irving rises incongruously among auto body shops, asphalt lots and the garishly vandalized hulks of beleaguered manufacturing facilities. Nearby street sport rusted chain-link and sagging razor wire by the acre, suggesting a penal colony gone to seed. Historically the neighborhood has been zoned largely for industrial use, and in its northern portion, the walls of factories and garages stretch whole blocks, pressing close on sidewalks so that pedestrians feel a kind of menacing claustrophobia [NY Observer – 11/21/13]