Six neighborhoods are now targeted for upzoning to meet Mayor de Blasio’s affordable housing goals, according to his State of the City speech this week that focused almost exclusively on housing. They include East Harlem, the Cromwell-Jerome neighborhood in the Bronx, the Bay Street Corridor on Staten Island, Long Island City and Flushing West in Queens, and East New York, Brooklyn. The City Planning Department’s most recent proposals on East New York, the first neighborhood targeted a year ago, indicate that 7,250 apartments could be built there by 2030 versus 550 without rezoning. The Mayor also proposed a 12,500 unit affordable development above the Sunnyside rail yard in Queens, which would require cooperation from the MTA and the Governor which was not immediately forthcoming. Several reports noted that building over rail yards is expensive and would push up the cost of the housing, and that the site has also been touted in the past for a convention center and Olympic venue without gaining much traction.
Rezoning may lead to development, but not always the intended development according to the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. In an expensive report out this week the Partnership found that the 2004 rezoning in its neighborhood led to 5,500 new apartments and another 12,750 on the way soon. The idea, however, was to spur office development along with housing and, so far, that hasn’t happened. The office vacancy rate is down to 3.4 percent, but a few new projects are finally in the pipeline.
And, as the Daily News reported this week, development and redevelopment plans can be stymied by determined opponents. AIMCO, the national Real Estate Investment Trust, was found guilty of harassment in an administrative tribunal decision last month when it applied to renovate 70 SRO units still left in a luxury Upper West Side rental. The judge found that failure to fix paint and plaster problems over time and posting rent demands on tenants doors for rent that had been paid, albeit late, was harassment. He found that complaints of actual harassment, i.e., verbal abuse, failure to maintain elevators and other services, failure to provide hot water, and unlawful construction were unfounded or not harassment…but it only takes one complaint to stick.
Join us for an important Energy Market Forecast and discussion of What It Means For Your Energy Buying Strategy, with Thomas Devlin, Director, ABO-FS Energy Services , 4:15 p.m., Thursday, February 26, 2015 at the Club 101, 101 Park Avenue, New York, NY. Please RSVP to associatedbuilders@abogny.com