By Patrick Hedlund
Post-bust planning
The city unveiled a pilot program this week that would convert unsold or unoccupied market-rate apartments into affordable housing to help counteract the slumping post-bust economy.
Introduced by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn during her State of the City Address, the Housing Asset Renewal Program seeks to capitalize on the building crisis by working with developers and banks to lower the cost of certain projects to below market rates.
The $20 million program would turn unsold condo units, market-rate rental buildings and stalled construction sites into affordable housing opportunities for moderate- and middle-income residents.
The program will focus on two types of developments — finished projects with a large number of vacancies and stalled construction sites — which will be selected based on their ability to keep specific communities stable, the amount of public assistance required to achieve maximum affordability, and the developers and banks offering the deepest discounts below market rates.
The city will not own the units, but instead provide financing and work with current building owners to negotiate the lowest possible price.
“Private developments that sit vacant or unfinished could have a destabilizing effect on our neighborhoods, but we’re not about to let that happen,” said Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who joined Quinn at the July 8 announcement at City Hall. “This program holds out the promise of addressing the unintended blight caused by vacant sites, while transforming what would have been market-rate buildings into affordable housing for working class New Yorkers.”
N.Y.C. retail leads way
Despite a 10 percent decline over the last year, New York City’s prime retail rents remain the most expensive in the world, according to report by brokerage CB Richard Ellis.
The city’s typical open-market rental price of $1,800 per square foot nearly doubled the next-closest market, Hong Kong, which had an average price of $975 per square foot in its top-quality retail locations. Moscow ranked third overall on the list, followed by Paris, Tokyo and London.
America’s next most-expensive markets, Los Angeles and San Francisco, came in at the ninth and 10th positions worldwide, the report added, with San Francisco showing an increase of 20 percent since last year.
The figures represent typical headline rents that an international retail chain can expect to pay for a ground-floor property of the highest quality space in the best location in a given market.
Planning’s new commish
Borough President Scott Stringer tapped housing advocate and community board force Anna Hayes Levin as his first-ever appointee to the City Planning Commission.
Levin, a land-use expert who recently stepped down from Community Board 4 (covering Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen), has remained active as chairperson of the Hudson Yards Community Advisory Committee.
While her paid, part-time position on the 13-member commission is still subject to approval by the City Council, Levin’s likely appointment marks the culmination of nearly a decade of work on the West Side.
“The experience of having seen the process from beginning to end, and that land-use expertise that I acquired in the process, I believe was very relevant to Scott and his decision,” Levin said, noting her contributions to more than 60 ULURP (Uniform Land Use Review Procedure) applications during her eight-year tenure with the board. “Obviously I’m going to remain true to where I came from as someone who’s keenly attuned to the importance of understanding all aspects of the application. What I certainly learned through the community board process is ensuring that the legitimate concerns of the local community are taken into account. It’s got to make sense from the land-use perspective overall, but it also has to make sense locally.”
A Yale grad with a law degree from N.Y.U., Levin’s career as a corporate lawyer instilled an attention to detail she will no doubt need to pore over intricate land-use applications. That’s one reason Stringer seems so tickled by his selection.
“The more I thought about what I wanted our appointment to be about, it became clear to me that she was just the obvious choice,” he said, citing his office’s commitment to engaging the community on citywide planning issues and his relationship with Levin as a former state assemblyman. “She’s a blockbuster choice,” Stringer added. “If this was the N.F.L. draft, she was the first pick in the draft.”
For her part, Levin never imagined she would arrive at a perch like the City Planning Commission. “This is not anything that I could have ever predicted when I got into community board work eight years ago, knowing nothing about land use work,” she said. “Life takes some interesting twists and turns. … Who would have guessed?”
Levin will take the place of Angela Cavaluzzi, an appointee of former Borough President C. Virginia Fields, whose term is expiring. Levin will assume her position in September after a transfer of leadership at HYCAC and the Council’s confirmation.
“Before I selected Anna, I called Speaker Quinn, and she was absolutely thrilled,” Stringer said. “This is a very forward-thinking appointment.”
mixeduse@communitymediallc.com
