The City Council, Wednesday, approved a land use plan for Astoria Cove in Queens that highlights the project-by-project dealmaking it takes to get new housing plans approved under the de Blasio administration. The developer will have to use union labor for construction and later building operations in a sweetheart deal for Local 32BJ; donate land for a ferry dock; and make 27 percent of the apartments affordable–5 percent for families at 60 percent of AMI, 15 percent at 80 percent, and 7 percent at 125 percent–instead of the 20 percent previously required in exchange for tax incentives.
In other action the Council approved a plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050, mostly by modifying public buildings and creating incentives for private developers.
They also passed a bill creating new fines for owners of buildings who get multiple hazardous violations in a 12-month period as the result of tenant complaints. As a result of comments by ABO, several tenant-cause violations such as missing smoke detector batteries and illegal locks were excluded.
Topping the ironic news for the week, DNA Info noted that the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, a non-profit tenant organization that has picketed landlords on the “worst landlords” list, made the list itself this year for a building they acquired in partnership with the Settlement Housing Fund ten years ago.
Four New York multifamily properties were among the first seventeen nationally recognized by EPA as Energy Star certified apartments. Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, both built in 1947, both made the list, along with two 1925 tenements and one 2012 building. See, being old is not that bad.
If you have any issues with State environmental laws or State Department of Environmental Conservation regulations, the New York State Builders Association wants you to join their environmental conservation committee. Call Dan Margulies in the ABO office or reply to this email if you are interested.