Transfer of 75,000 sq.ft. of development rights from City property will increase Brooklyn residential tower. On June 27, 2007, the City Council approved a plan by DCAS to sell 75,000 sq.ft. of air rights from a City-owned property at 287 Gold Street in downtown Brooklyn, containing two, two-story buildings used by the FDNY and the NYPD. The sale of the air rights necessitated Council’s approval of a negative easement limiting the City’s future ability … <Read More>
Concerns over displacement of businesses dominated hearing. On June 13, 2007, the City Council’s Land Use Committee and its Economic Development Committee held a joint oversight hearing on the proposal by New York City’s Economic Development Corporation to redevelop 61 acres of Willets Point in Queens. The site, located directly east of Shea Stadium, is mostly privately owned and currently home to a mix of automobile related, light industrial and manufacturing businesses. EDC estimates that … <Read More>
First major revision of the City’s Building Code to take effect July 2008. On June 27, 2007, the City Council voted 47-0-1 to approve the Bloomberg Administration’s proposal to replace the City’s building code with a modified version of the International Building Code. The vote followed two public hearings before the City Council’s Committee on Housing & Buildings and culminated nearly five years of work led by the Department of Buildings. Over 400 volunteers, primarily … <Read More>
July public hearing notice lists $143 million in bond offerings and six straight leases. The New York City Industrial Development Agency, a component of the Economic Development Agency, held its monthly public hearing on July 19, 2007. The 14 project applications detailed in IDA’s public notice included over $143 million in bond offering and six straight leases.
The largest bond application on the July calendar was made by the Lycée Français de New York, an … <Read More>
For the past two decades, Ronay Menschel and Adam Weinstein have led the Phipps Houses Group, New York City’s oldest and largest affordable housing provider. Founded in 1905 by Carnegie Steel’s Henry Phipps, the organization has built over 6,000 units, and currently manages 12,500 apartments, as well as community service centers, Head Start locations, vocational centers, and afterschool programs.
In the mid-1970s Ronay Menschel worked in Edward I. Koch’s Washington Congressional office and moved to … <Read More>
Affordable housing programs controlled by federal and state law. After multiple hearings on the declining number of affordable housing units, the City Council passed Local Law 79 of 2005 over a mayoral veto. The law gave tenants the right of first refusal to purchase their buildings when the owners sought to remove the properties from certain assisted rental housing programs. The law also allowed tenants who did not purchase their building to stay in their … <Read More>