Housing Starts: NYC’s Real Estate Cool Down | Defending Rent Control | Flood Insurance Hikes

Manhattan’s Luxury Real Estate (Photo Credit: Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)

1. Income Inequality: It’s Also Bad for Your Health We know that living in a poor community makes you less likely to live a long life. New evidence suggests that living in a community with high income inequality also seems to be bad for your health. A study from researchers at the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute examined a series of risk factors that help explain the health (or sickness) of counties in the United States. In addition to the suspects you might expect — a high smoking rate, a lot of violent crime — the researchers found that people in unequal communities were more likely to die before the age of 75 than people in more equal communities, even if the average incomes were the same. [New York Times – 03/30/15]
2. Flood Insurance Hikes Endanger NYC’s Shoreline, Advocates Say For years, fiscal watchdogs have been complaining that flood insurance rates are so low that the government-run program needs repeated bailouts from taxpayers. Now that something is being done about that problem – higher premiums for new and renewed policies are going into effect Wednesday – housing advocates are raising a different alarm: the new rates could force poor and middle class homeowners into foreclosure. The rates will go up no more than 18 percent a year for owner-occupied homes. That in itself would not likely prompt anyone to lose their home, advocates say. [WNYC – 04/01/15]
3. In Defense of Rent Control Rent control is basically dead. The policy is long gone in big cities like Chicago and Boston, and advocates are on the defensive in San Francisco and New York City, where there are only 27,000 units left down from more than two million in the 1950s. In the latter case, at least, 47 percent of the city’s housing stock is still rent stabilized—meaning that the price of covered units can only be raised a set percent every year. But even that is a 12 percent decline from 1991. Landlords and real estate developers hate these laws and are largely responsible for organizing the political efforts that have precipitated their decline. Rent regulations are also exceedingly unpopular among economists, opinion columnists, and armchair urbanists. [Pacific Standard – 04/01/15]
4. Manhattan’s Real-Estate Market Is Finally Cooling Off Perhaps the interminable winter is to blame, or the gradually expanding inventory. Or maybe sellers have overreached with their asking prices, lured by reports of record-breaking real-estate sales. Whatever the reason, prices for Manhattan properties leveled off in the first quarter of this year, according to reports released today by the city’s brokerage firms, a sign perhaps that the market is, yes, finally stabilizing after years of staggering price increases. According to Douglas Elliman, the median price of an apartment in the borough now sits at$970,000, just slightly under what it was a year ago ($972,428). The average price, $1,732,989, fell 2.3 percent. [New York Magazine – 04/01/15]
5. The Mayor’s Affordable Housing Optimism Bill de Blasio has said that his plan to build or preserve 200,000 units of affordable housing in ten years is the largest housing plan attempted by any municipality ever. But while the plan would be historic, so would the challenges that go along with it. Capital has found that portions of the $41.1 billion earmarked for the plan are at risk. […] The housing plan acknowledges in parts that even after nearly doubling city spending, they will still need additional federal and state help, beyond what has historically been provided, to achieve the goal. However, the plan does not say exactly how much new funding is needed. [Capital New York – 04/01/15]
6. New York City Is Already At Its 2020 Population Forecast The new Census estimates show New York City’s population swelling to 8,491,079 people, a 52,700-person increase from the 2013 estimates (which were also revised upwards, or the increase would have been an even larger 85,242 people). Those numbers are up from a 2010 Census baseline of 8,175,133 people. But regardless of whether the 2010 number is correct, the latest estimates pose a problem for city planners, as the new 2014 number falls just under 60,000 people shy of the previous 2020 projection, of 8,550,971 people. If the previous year’s increase of 52,700 people is matched in 2015 — and given construction permits, an even larger jump this year would not be surprising — New York’s population will pass the 2020 estimates within the year, if it has not already. When looking for hope from a worsening housing crisis, there appears to be none. [New York YIMBY – 04/01/15]
7. NYC Gets Record $3 Billion FEMA Grant for Sandy Housing Repairs New York’s 33 public housing developments will get $3 billion from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, its largest grant ever, to repair damage from Hurricane Sandy and to protect against a future storm. About 80,000 tenants will benefit from more secure lobbies in buildings equipped with better lighting, security cameras, boilers and electrical equipment, said Mayor Bill de Blasio, who was joined by U.S Senator Charles Schumer in announcing the grant Tuesday at a housing development in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn. ‘We had the devastation of Sandy, but it gave us the capital to rebuild parts of NYCHA better than before,’ Schumer told reporters, referring to the Housing Authority by its acronym. ‘Even people not affected by Sandy, their lives are going to be made much better. [Bloomberg News – 03/31/15]
8. NYC Boosts Life Sciences Sector Investment The Economic Development Corp. has expanded the Early-Stage Life Sciences Funding Initiative, a public-private partnership intended to position New York City as a global capital for life sciences innovation, a measure that likely would result in both thousands of new jobs and pioneering medical innovations for patients. […] Further, the city is working to “dramatically increase” the current stock of less than one million square feet of commercial R&D laboratory capacity in New York City, in order to give early-stage and established companies the affordable, accessible and connected physical space needed to grow and thrive. These efforts include the redevelopment of an underutilized 14-story city-owned building on First avenue and East 26th street, which will be repositioned into a new bioscience research center anticipated to house 100,000 square feet of new wet lab space. A private partner for this effort will be announced in the coming months. [GlobeSt – 04/02/15]
9. The Troubling Downfall of a New York City Safety Net At the end of January, the announcement that the Federation Employment & Guidance Service (FEGS) would be closing its doors blindsided many connected to the 80-year-old nonprofit agency. Amid allegations of mismanagement and funneled-away profits, and companies that say FEGS still owes them tens of thousands of dollars, some of New York City’s most vulnerable citizens — or their advocates — were left wondering what would replace the organization’s critical support services. […] If an organization of this size in America’s largest city can fail without any notice or explanation, what does that say about support service nonprofits in vulnerable communities in cities throughout the country? [Next City – 04/01/15]
10. NYC Audit Criticizes Processing of Sandy Aid City-paid consultants earned millions doing shoddy administrative work that led to months of delays in getting financial support to New Yorkers whose homes were damaged or destroyed by superstorm Sandy, according to an audit by the New York City Comptroller. The City’s Office of Housing Recovery spent $6.8 million of federal money allocated to help homeowners recover from the storm on the work that was implemented or flawed. [Wall Street Journal – 03/31/15]