Housing Starts: State of the City I Mandatory Affordable Housing I Some See Risk in Mayor’s Plan

Photo by Benjamin Norman

1. State of the City: ‘Gentrification’ ‘We pray for the affluent and the economically challenged,’ the Rev. Gabriel Salguero told the audience during the invocation for Mayor de Blasio’s State of the City address this morning. In announcing plans for a five-borough ferry system, immediate housing for homeless veterans, more legal representation for struggling tenants, and affordable housing initiatives for artists and Bronx residents, the mayor invoked the term that makes developers and bespoke skewer salesmen salivate: ‘Gentrification.’ ‘Whether or not you’re a veteran, a senior, or an artist, you’ve likely felt the pinch of skyrocketing housing costs in our city,’ the mayor said. ‘That’s due in part to a phenomenon that everybody sees, everybody feels—but nobody wants to really talk about: gentrification.’ [Gothamist – 02/03/15]
2. Mayor Announces Six Neighborhoods With Mandatory Affordable Housing The mayor announced an ambitious affordable housing plan during his State of the City speech, complete with 80,000 new units by 2024 and six neighborhoods where developers will be required to build affordable units…The neighborhoods that will have new mandatory affordable housing requirements will be East New York, Long Island City, the Jerome Avenue Corridor in The Bronx, Flushing West and the Bay Street Corridor in Staten Island. [DNAinfo – 02/03/15]
3. Some See Risk in de Blasio’s Bid to Add Housing Every month, city planners come to East New York to explain how the city wants to help this corner of Brooklyn, scarred by decades of poverty and violent crime, grow. They will invite developers to build up local streets in exchange for more units of affordable housing. They will invest in new trees and sidewalks. Better services and shops will follow, they say. And every month, the grumbling ensues. [New York Times – 02/03/15]
4. Developers Race to Secure Tax Break Before Law Expires The expiration of a key real estate tax break on June 15 has touched off a fierce race among developers to break ground on residential projects across the city before time runs out. At stake are hundreds of millions of dollars in so-called 421a abatements that allow developers of rental apartments to reduce their real estate taxes on new projects for up to 25 years. [Crain’s NY Business – 02/01/15]
5. Mayor to guv: ‘Plenty of Room’ at Sunnyside Yards After Gov. Andrew Cuomo quickly dismissed the idea of building 11,250 units of affordable housing on top of Sunnyside Yards, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday he is confident the project will get done. ‘I think we’re going to find a way forward here,’ Mr. de Blasio said in a radio interview with WNYC’s Brian Lehrer. He noted that Amtrak, the largest landowner at the 200-acre site in western Queens, is supportive of his idea of decking over the rail yards and building affordable housing on top, and that the city owns air rights on 44 of the acres owned by the state-controlled Metropolitan Transportation Authority. [Crain’s NY Business – 02/04/15]
6. Racially Charged Shouting Match Heats Up Crown Heights Rezoning Debate An already heated debate over possible new development rules in Crown Heights turned into a racially charged shouting match Wednesday night. The Community Board 9 meeting — which was supposed to give the public a chance to discuss the shaping of a City Planning Department study about how the neighborhood should be rezoned —devolved into arguments after a local rabbi urged the community to leave race out of the conversation. [DNAinfo – 02/05/15]
7. Sunnyside Yards Affordable Housing Raises Concerns About Transit, Schools Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to build more than 11,000 units of affordable housing over the Sunnyside rail yards has some local leaders wondering how such a development would impact the surrounding neighborhood. While the officials said they recognize the need for more affordable housing, several expressed concern about how developing the site might strain existing infrastructure, including schools and the already-crowded 7 train line. [DNAinfo – 02/05/15]
8. Mapping the Wealth of New York City by Housing Values New York’s soaring luxury housing market has produced a concentration of property wealth that spans most of Manhattan, flickers across the river into Brooklyn and even touches a corner of the Bronx. A new analysis—the first of its kind—now suggests the size of that wealth. The tally of the upper tier of the co-ops, condos and houses in New York City—those at more than $5 million each—puts its total fair market value at $65.2 billion. [Wall Street Journal – 02/02/15]
9. U.S. Real-Estate Investors Turn to Israel for Cash U.S. debt markets are booming and companies from Apple Inc. to Union Pacific Corp. are borrowing money at historically low rates. So why are some of New York’s biggest real-estate investors heading to Israel to raise cash? Israel, it turns out, offers some key advantages. Large developers with good credit can sell corporate bonds for about 5%, often less than half what they would pay in the U.S. for a junior loan known as mezzanine debt. They also can issue debt in smaller chunks. [Wall Street Journal – 02/03/15]
10. Judge Rules That Greenpoint Landlords Failed to Keep Building Livable A Brooklyn Housing Court judge has ordered a Greenpoint property manager to relinquish authority over his badly damaged apartment building and has appointed a city-approved administrator to oversee the building’s repairs. The ruling, which was handed down on Monday, February 2, comes more than a year after tenants at 300 Nassau Street went to court alleging that the property manager, Joel Israel of JBI Management, intentionally damaged the building and ordered invasive construction work — which resulted in a broken bathroom floor and a rodent infestation — with the intention of forcing them out of their rent-stabilized homes. [The Village Voice – 02/04/15]