The migration back into cities and the after-effects of the recession, which constrained supply and pushed many former and would-be homeowners into the rental market, has made affordable housing an issue far from the coasts. Bloomberg looks at the Nashville mayor’s attempts to implement inclusionary zoning in a city where one in four residents now pays at least 50 percent of their income in rent.
And in New York, rent costs are projected to “devour” two-thirds of New Yorkers’ incomes this year, DNAinfo reports. Though the finding, supplied by Streeteasy, is somewhat dubious as it uses the median income and the median rent, which is not necessarily what many people pay. For example, few households with $49,000 annual income are paying $2,689 a month (the two Brooklyn medians).
The MTA approved a long-delayed capital plan on Wednesday, which restores funding for the next phase of the Second Avenue subway, allocating $1 billion to extend the line to East Harlem, The New York Times reports. “The $29.5 billion spending plan calls for hundreds of new train cars and buses and a new fare-payment system to replace the MetroCard. With ridership booming on New York City’s aging subway system, the authority also devoted funding for station improvements and updated signal systems to allow more trains to operate.”
The National Hockey League, which is currently in a 140,000 square-foot office building on Sixth Avenue, is in talks to move to Hudson Yards tower, 1 Manhattan West, being developed by Brookfield Properties, Crain’s reports. “The lease, if it gets done,” they note, “would be the second major deal at the tower. Skadden Arps, which will relocate from 4 Times Square, committed to 550,000 square feet at the 67-story spire for 20 years. That deal allowed Brookfield Properties to begin construction of the tower last year.”
Meanwhile, state and federal investigations are looking into Mayor Bill de Blasio’s fundraising operations are looking into the thus-far unsuccessful effort to ban horse carriages, The Wall Street Journal reports.
JDS and SHoP showed off the skybridge at their under-construction copper-clad towers on First Avenue yesterday morning and Yimby went to check it out. Conclusion: skybridges are cool.
And Brooklyn Heights home-owners are greedy: The Wall Street Journal reports that days after a Brooklyn Heights apartment building went on the market for $22 million, pitching itself as a single family home—we guess they didn’t get the memo on the super-prime market slump—another apartment building turned single family home is making an attempt at $18 million. Note that the neighborhood record remains $12 million, set by the Truman Capote house in 2012.
The Hotel Trades Council has clashed with SEIU 32BJ over an impending deal with Airbnb that would unionize apartment cleaners—a move the Hotel Trades Council takes issue with because it views Airbnb as an service that illegally diverts visitors away from the regulated hotels where its members work, Crain’s reports.
Finally, construction on the Amsterdam Avenue bike lane is expected to start next month, according to DNAinfo.
