While the State Legislature debates legislation barring source of income discrimination by building owners who don’t want to deal with Section 8, the Town of Eastchester has joined numerous other towns and counties in the metro New York area that won’t process Section 8 vouchers anymore because the paperwork is too burdensome and expensive.
Another 250 buildings were added to the Alternative Enforcement List by the City Department of Housing Preservation and Development this month. Buildings on the list have excessive violations and emergency repair liens, but the Department has made errors in the past, so see if any of your properties are listed.
Half the subsidized housing built under Mayor de Blasio’s Housing New York Plan is in neighborhoods where the typical household earns too much to qualify to live in it, according to an Independent Budget Office report issued this week. Another 25 per cent was built in neighborhoods where typical households don’t earn enough to qualify for the moderate and middle income units.
Vacant land prices in New York City have returned to 2015 levels after tanking for much of the past three years, The Real Deal reports, but land sales volume is way down as development just doesn’t pencil out. The borough price differences are startling, with a buildable square foot going for $684 in Manhattan below 96th Street and $74 in the Bronx.
Glug. The Army Corps of Engineers issued reports this week outlining plans to deal with storm surges and six feet of sea level rise expected in the New York metro area over the next hundred years. Alternative projects for barriers at different locations range in cost from $15 to $118 billion—but the cost of doing nothing is estimated at about $7 billion a year through 2085 alone.