Mayor Bill de Blasio. Image credit: CityLand

$466 million moved back into the 2021 Fiscal Year’s capital budget. On October 22, 2020, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the acceleration of capital funding within the City’s affordable housing plan by shifting $466 million to the current fiscal year’s capital budget to address urgent affordable housing needs. In March, the City moved $466 million from the Department of Housing Preservation and Developments Fiscal Year 2021 budget to the Fiscal Years 2022 through 2024. However, following the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to support the ongoing recovery efforts, the Department moved these funds back to Fiscal Year 2021. After this shift, the City would have invested $1.4 billion in affordable housing this year. This funding acceleration keeps the Housing New York project on track to create and preserve 300,000 affordable homes by 2026.

Rendering of 803 Rockaway Avenue, as seen from Newport Avenue. Image Credit: NYC CPC/Youtube

The project is a partnership between a mental health and housing non-profit and a manufacturing real estate non-profit. On October 7, 2020, the City Planning Commission held a public hearing for a mixed use-manufacturing and affordable housing development at 803 Rockaway Avenue in Brownsville, Brooklyn. The rezoning area covers nine lots on the block bounded by Riverdale Avenue to the north, Newport Avenue to the south, Rockaway Avenue to the west and Thatford Avenue to the east. The applicants of the project are the Bridge, a non-profit offering supportive housing and services for individuals with behavioral health needs, and the Greenpoint Manufacturing Design Center, a real estate non-profit developer of multi-tenant manufacturing buildings. The two applicants aim to build a mixed-use building that contains both manufacturing and residential spaces. The site is owned by the Bridge and currently features an old warehouse.

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CityLand tracks these applications through the review process to a final decision. The majority of these decisions are available on the Center for New York City Law’s CityAdmin database (found at http://www.cityadmin.org/).

Examples of freestanding gas heaters. Image Credit: NYC DOB

Three heating options were unveiled. On October 14, 2020, Mayor de Blasio on behalf of the Department of Buildings, Department of Transportation, and Fire Department of New York released guidelines for restaurants staying open for outdoor dining during the fall and winter. These new guidelines align with Mayor de Blasio’s recovery agenda to set New York City up to be the world’s capital for healthy outdoor living. This is not the first time New York City has reimagined its use of open spaces. In the 19^th century, following a Cholera outbreak, the City began a period of open space creation that lead to the development of Central Park.

Image Credit: NYC DOB.

The tracker helps members of the public understand expected timelines. On October 14, 2020, the Department of Buildings launched an online Service Levels Tracker which allows New Yorkers to see average wait times for Department of Buildings Services. This tracker centralizes information that had previously been available to New Yorkers while also clearly setting forth the different Department of Buildings metrics allowing the public to better understand expected timelines for projects both citywide and by borough. These metrics are quarterly tunning averages that are updated monthly. As the City continues to rebuild following the COVID-19 pandemic, this Service Level Tracker will help support safe development citywide.

Image Credit: New York City Department of Transportation

Three miles of new bike lanes will be created. On October 14, 2020, Mayor de Blasio announced that more than three miles of protected bike lanes have been completed in Midtown Manhattan and the Upper West Side, including uptown protected lanes on both Sixth Avenue and Central Park West.