By Matt Chaban 9/24/12 9:00am

Troubling Developments

Rat-balloons

A Hit Piece of Legislation: Will a Transparency Bill Reform Affordable Housing or Just Open It Up to a Union Takeover?

On March 23, Wendell Walters plead guilty to two counts of racketeering and bribery. As the assistant commissioner for development at the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, he oversaw billions of dollars in city contracts to build and repair the city’s vast stock of private affordable housing. The projects only grew over the past decade as Mayor Bloomberg launched a program to create or rehabilitate some 165,000 units of affordable housing.

During that time, the kickbacks to Walters also grew, totaling some $2.5 million over the course of a decade involving at least 10 different affordable housing developers in the city. Some payments were made in coffee cups, others in thick envelopes stuffed into Walters’ golf bag as he and the builders took in a round of golf. Among the gifts received was a brownstone on 139th Street in Harlem, free renovations to the townhouse and a honeymoon in Greece.

When he was arrested last October, Walters was paraded in front of the Brooklyn Federal Court House. Like so many perps, he was caught by surprise and still wearing his morning clothes, a black fleece pullover and black sweatpants. Tall and handsome with a shaven head, the 49-year-old Walters looked shocked, embarrassed, dismayed.

So was Matthew Wambua. Read More

By Matt Chaban 9/06/12 12:51pm

Troubling Developments

Looking sharp, but will it fly with the neighbors? (Durst Fetner)

Community Board Spikes Durst’s BIG Pyramid Over Lack of Permanent Affordable Housing, Parking Problems

“My own feeling, and the feeling of board, is that we’d like this project to succeed,” J.D. Nolan, chair of Community Board 4’s land-use committee, told The Observer. “The Dursts are great developers, and they have worked very well with us in the past. Nevertheless, this is a rezoning, and the public should benefit as well as the developer.”

And so, the full board voted unanimously against Durst Fenter’s new apartment building on the far West Side last night. One of the most dynamic designs of the decade, 625 West 57th Street calls for a swooping white pyramid that rises dramatically up from the Hudson like an origami dove taking flight. Designed by Danish wunderkinds Bjarke Ingels Group (aka BIG), the project has even decided to eschew LEED ratings in its quest for singularity. Read More

By Matt Chaban 9/04/12 8:15pm

Troubling Developments

Housing, housing everywhere. (Courtesy NYCHA)

With Public Housing Under Attack, Can An Ex-Lehman Banker Save New York’s Last Affordable Apartments?

Stepping off the elevator on the 12th floor of 250 Broadway, you pass by a dozen  photographs of idyllic, almost bucolic housing projects. The dogwoods are in bloom, matching the pink matting within the frames. That the pictures are a bit faded only adds to the utopianism of the scenes: families frolic in green grass courtyards, the sun is always shining.

These days, the picture is far less rosy: Apartments are overcome with toxic black mold, riven with cavernous leaks, overrun with rats, sometimes all three and then some. Repairs? Fuggetaboutit. Those will be years away. And that’s just inside; outside, it’s a war zone.

Or so the city’s tabloids would have you believe.

But the Housing Authority—or NYCHA, as almost everyone calls it, pronouncing it like some bureaucratic sneeze—represents much more than those run-down apartments we read about, of which there are fewer than the coverage suggests. Read More

By Kim Velsey 7/16/12 6:51pm

Affordable Housing or Lack Thereof

Rejoice! Bed-Stuy gets a new affordable housing development.

Rents Are Rising, But At Least Bed-Stuy Has a New Affordable Housing Development

Late last week, a new 48-unit affordable housing development opened at 926 Madison Street in Bed-Stuy, Brownstoner reports—which is good news for residents in a once-rough neighborhood where the locals’ biggest fear is now likely rising rents.

Rents in the Brooklyn neighborhood went up 6.5 percent between April and May of this year; the neighborhood has seen steadily rising rents since the beginning of the year. Read More

By Matt Chaban 6/05/12 12:05am

Affordable Housing or Lack Thereof

Richmond Hill, one of two pilot developments. (HPD)

Finally, You Can Apply for That Affordable Housing Lottery Online (Though It’s Still Just as Hard to Get In)

“We’ve been doing it the same way since before we had email,” affordable housing developer Martin Dunn lamented, speaking to The Observer about the grueling process through which New Yorkers have historically had to apply for subsidized housing in the city.

Council Speaker Christine Quinn put it even more starkly in her 2011 State of the City address, when she called on the Bloomberg administration to find a way to digitize and streamline the process: “In a 21st century world—where you can do everything online—we still make people apply for housing using 18th century technology.”

Today is the day, as they say, and as of working hours, NYC Housing Connect should be live, the first one-stop shop for subsidized housing online. Read More

By Matt Chaban 5/29/12 3:55pm

Affordable Housing or Lack Thereof

Home sweet home. (Property Shark)

Who Wants to Turn This Old Architecture Graveyard in Williamsburg into Affordable Housing?

It used to house cast offs from some of the city’s oldest buildings, but soon it could house low-income New Yorkers.

The city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development is seeking a developer to turn a  Williamsburg warehouse that served as storage for the Landmarks Preservation Commission into an affordable housing development with 50 apartments. The development, at 337 Berry Street, sits on a 15,000-square-foot lot and calls for commercial or community space on the ground floor, as well as about 1,200 square feet of open space for residents.

The views are not too bad, looking out on the Williamsburg Bridge and Manhattan, though the rumble of the J-Train just might intrude on the apartments, as well, barring some good windows. Read More

By Kim Velsey 5/29/12 10:33am

Procrastination

Is affordable housing too hard for developers to handle?

Megaproject Developers Promise To Get Around To Affordable Housing Someday

In a move that should shock no one, the developers of Atlantic Yards and Willets Point are dragging their feet when it comes to building the affordable housing components of their projects, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Atlantic Yards, crying “bad market,” has repeatedly delayed breaking ground on the 2,250 low- and middle-income units that were a major part of pushing the project through.

And Willets Point, promising another 1,750 affordable units, may finally have a development deal, but it will be a long time before any housing goes up. Housing is scheduled for the third stage of construction, long after the large retail center and hotel are finished. Read More

By Matt Chaban 3/05/12 10:35am

Critical Condition

Section 8 it ain't. (FXFowle)

Rudins Making More St. Vincent’s Concession, Maybe Even an AIDS Park

Bill Rudin must be wondering if it was worth it in the end.

Given the price of prime Manhattan real estate, the answer is almost definitely yes, but that does not change the fact that the redevelopment of the St. Vincent’s hospital into condos in the heart of Greenwich Village has been a long and expensive enterprise. Lawsuits, landmarks reviews, a recession, demands for a new school: the Rudins have overcome them all. Now, it appears, the city wants more. Read More