Lexington Gardens II. Image Credit: Manhattan Community Board 11

UPDATE: On November 29, 2016, the City Council voted 49-0 to approve the Lexington Gardens II project. The approval will allow Tahl Propp Equities and L+M Development Partners to proceed with the proposed development which will provide 400 new affordable units. One quarter of the affordable units will be permanently affordable under the Mandatory Inclusionary Housing law, and the remainder will be affordable for 40 years under a regulatory agreement with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. “The Lexington Gardens development will advance the goals of the East Harlem Neighborhood Plan by making sure that hundreds of existing local community members can benefit from affordable units,” said City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito in a statement. (read more…)

Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi. Image Credit: NYAssembly.gov

State Assemblymember may have answer to finally reverse the homelessness trend. Recently, the de Blasio Administration heralded that its efforts to prevent homelessness in New York City have had some success. On September 29, 2016, City Hall announced that thanks to its “unprecedented array of programs” some 7,000 New Yorkers were able to avoid the City’s shelter system. The Department of Homeless Services now shelters 60,000 instead of the projected 67,000 (the projection was largely based on the rapid increase of homeless persons seen after the end of the Advantage program in 2011, approximately 5,000/year). While the population in the City’s shelter system may have been stunted, it continues to grow. (read more…)

From Left to Right: Keynote panelists Christie Peale, Colvin Grannum, Commissioner Vicki Been, and moderator Matthew Hassett. Image credit: Center for NYC Neighborhoods

The keynote panel focused on the issues and challenges raised by affordable housing creation and preservation in New York City.  On September 30, 2015, the Center for NYC Neighborhoods held its conference on the Future of Affordable Homeownership in NYC.  The event was hosted at New York Law School and sponsored by NYLS, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, the Center for Real Estate Studies, the Center for New York City Law, and several other public and private institutions.  The panel included Vicki Been, commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, Colvin Grannum, president and CEO of Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, Christie Peale, executive director of the Center for NYC Neighborhoods, and moderator Matthew Hassett, director of policy and communications at the Center for NYC Neighborhoods.

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NYCHA proposal would restore West 129th Street in the St. Nicholas Houses as part of Harlem Children’s Zone’s charter school plan. On March 30, 2011, the City Planning Commission approved the New York City Housing Authority’s proposal to re-connect West 129th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard in Harlem. The City in the 1950s closed a portion of West 129th Street by creating a cul-de-sac between Frederick Douglas Boulevard and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard to facilitate the development of NYCHA’s fourteen-acre St. Nicholas Houses apartment complex. The cul-de-sac intersects with Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and provides access to the tower-in-the-park housing development.

NYCHA requested that the City eliminate the cul-de-sac and reestablish West 129th Street as a through street as part of Harlem Children’s Zone’s plan to  build a 1,300-seat charter school. Harlem Children’s Zone has already broken ground on the five-story school, known as Promise Academy, on land northwest of the cul-de-sac. The school is scheduled to be completed by the 2012 school year. Rather than following the City’s land  use review process, NYCHA, as a state authority, was required by federal law to follow the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s public review requirements in order to transfer its land to Harlem Children’s Zone. (read more…)