NYC HPD
New cooperative building will give first time home buyers affordable opportunity to own their home. On February 28, 2018, the Department of Housing Preservation & Development (HPD) announced plans to develop a 100 percent affordable seven-story co-op building in the Williamsbridge section of the Bronx. The building, named Sydney House, is the first affordable housing development to be financed under the HPD’s Open Door program. (read more…)
Coops created by an HPD sale of City-owned buildings engaged in dispute over an obligation to share commercial space income. In 2003, the City conveyed 14 buildings, located on the West Side of Manhattan on 87th, 88th, 89th and 95th Streets. The buildings were to be converted Housing Development Fund Corporations (HDFCs), which are low-income residential cooperatives owned by tenant-shareholders . Three of the 14 buildings contained commercial space. Under the City’s conveyance, the City and the 14 buildings entered into an agreement for a portion of the commercial rental income to be paid into a reserve fund, which would be used to the benefit of all 14 buildings. So far, only $5,000 from the commercial rental income has been deposited into the reserve fund.
New York City Council Member Inez Barron. Image credit: NYCC/William Alatriste
If enacted, the bills would mandate the Department of Housing Preservation and Development to provide legal assistance information to susceptible tenants. On May 4, 2016, the City Council Subcommittee on Housing and Buildings held a public hearing on two bills introduced to ensure seniors and disabled persons facing eviction have access to information about the legal services available to help them. The bills would mandate the Department of Housing Preservation and Development to provide such tenants with referrals to legal services organizations upon being notified of the initiation of eviction proceedings.
Rendering of the new Irish Arts Center on 11th Avenue. Image credit: Ciaran O’Connor, Office of Public Works, Ireland
Program will permit a new 30,000-square foot facility and expansion of community garden. On September 10, 2014, the City Council voted unanimously to approve an application which would facilitate the Irish Arts Center’s construction of a new facility and expand the existing Juan Alonso Community Garden. The application was proposed by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. The new Irish Arts Center will be located on 11th Avenue between West 51st Street and West 52nd Street. The Garden expansion will improve a 1,255-square foot paved driveway at 555 West 51st Street and incorporate the space into the existing public garden. (read more…)
Diagram of rezoning area in the Special Clinton District in Manhattan. Image credit: CPC.
Council-approved developments in Special Clinton District will achieve 39 percent affordability across a range of Area Median Incomes. On June 26, 2014, the City Council unanimously voted 48-0 to approve applications which would facilitate the development of two new mixed-use buildings, the rehabilitation of another building, and creation of three new community gardens in the Special Clinton District in Manhattan. The joint applications were proposed by the Clinton Housing Development Company, the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, Taconic Investment Partners and Ritterman Capital. The project area is generally bounded by West 51st Street and West 53rd Street between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues.
Twelve-story facility will house 263 former homeless and provide on-site supportive services. On June 29, 2006, HPD and Common Ground, a not-for-profit that provides housing services for the homeless, obtained City Council approval for a 12-story housing facility to be located on East Houston at Pitt Street in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The site contains the Milliken Clubhouse building, a former Boys’ Club of New York location, which has sat vacant since 2003.
Common Ground currently operates four housing facilities for the formerly homeless in Manhattan and has a fifth facility under construction in downtown Brooklyn. Its Times Square Hotel facility at West 43rd Street and Eighth Avenue houses 652 people and is the largest homeless housing facility in the country. All its facilities provide onsite social services, job training, and medical facilities, and target persons considered by Common Ground to be most at risk for homelessness, like children leaving foster care and substance abusers.
At the East Houston site, Common Ground proposed to demolish the Milliken Clubhouse and construct a 99,158-square-foot project for 263 persons, requiring a special permit to exceed the permitted floor area by 46,526 sq.ft. The 12- story facility will have 45 suites for formerly homeless youth and former foster care children on the second and third floors, and 207 individual rooms for adults with AIDS, mental illness and substance abuse problems on the fourth through twelfth stories. It will also house onsite job training, educational programs and physical and mental health medical facilities. (read more…)
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