Mayor de Blasio responded honestly, Monday, to a radio interviewer’s question about “affordable housing”. “ ‘If you are saying ‘100% affordable,’ you are saying ‘all taxpayer-funded.’ Let’s be honest about this,’ ” the Mayor said.
The City Council Housing and Buildings Committee will hold a public meeting March 19th to decide if a 3.63% rental vacancy rate means there is still a “housing emergency.” The latest Housing Vacancy Survey also shows a 7.4% vacancy rate for apartments with rents over $2,000 a month, and 8.74% for apartments with rents over $2,500. The survey authors also made a judgment that more than 78,000 apartments being renovated or awaiting renovation are “unavailable to rent.”
Politicians continue to pile on the New York City Housing Authority for failure to maintain heating systems or deal with lead paint problems. The State Senate Independent Democratic Conference compared the lead situation, hyperbolically, to Flint, Michigan’s water woes, and tenants announced a lawsuit to have the courts appoint an independent monitor for the Authority.
If you want to turn thin air into housing in the West Chelsea neighborhood, the City is willing to sell you air rights at $625 a foot.
And if you have a private site that might be suitable for modular housing construction, HPD will consider expediting approvals for affordable components.
Sticking to the subject of affordable housing, a court decision reported this week in DD 11th Ave. v. Sands stood up for the proposition that someone who claims they make $25,000 to qualify for a $722 a month apartment should not really make $238,000 or more.
In Royal Terrace v. Singh, also reported this week, the building owner got possession of a stabilized unit and a judgment for eleven months rent after seven years of litigation over whether the unit, a garage space, was stabilized and whether it could be used for storage.