Ronay Menschel and Adam Weinstein Talk About Affordable Housing

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>

Local Law to preserve housing preempted

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>

Challenge to Javits Center expansion rebuffed

Court finds environmental review for the Hudson Yards sufficient to cover changes to Javits plan. The plan to expand the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center underwent changes since the approval of the final environmental impact statement for the Hudson Yards rezoning plan in 2004. When in July 2006 the Empire State Development Corporation approved the changes without a supplemental EIS, four Hell’s Kitchen residents, the Municipal Art Society and the Hell’s Kitchen Neighborhood Association challenged … <Read More>

Developers chosen for warehouse conversion

Former Navy warehouse to be retail/light manufacturing. EDC chose a joint venture comprised of Time Equities Inc. and the Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation to convert a 1.1-millionsquare- foot former Navy warehouse between Second and Third Avenues and 30th and 32nd Streets in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. The details released by EDC state that under the conversion plan, the eight-story building would contain retail on its lower floors with light industrial uses above at a total development … <Read More>

Sites adjacent to Brooklyn jail offered for development

 

Proposed EDC and DOC plan encompassing former jail. Image: NYC EDC.

Developers must expand Brooklyn jail along with new development on adjacent sites. The New York City Economic Development Corporation and the Department of Correction issued a request to gauge interest in the potential development of two vacant parcels in downtown Brooklyn located next to the Brooklyn House of Detention, a 759-individual- cell detention center, which the City closed in 2003. DOC hopes to … <Read More>

Hearing approved for Domino Sugar building

Refinery buildings, just north of Williamsburg Bridge, were completed in 1884. On May 22, 2007, Landmarks voted to consider designation of the former Domino Sugar Processing Plant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Under consideration are three connected structures, the Pan House, Finishing House, and Filter House, which is the largest structure in the complex, standing 13 stories above the East River. Landmarks’ action did not include the nearby 1960s building hosting the yellow neon “Domino Sugar” sign.… <Read More>