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  April 30, 2003
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Good News - More Affordable Housing Is Coming To New York City

By Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg

There is no question about it - New York City needs more affordable housing. This past December, I outlined a plan - called The New Housing Marketplace - that makes the biggest commitment to new housing in our City in 15 years. Over the past five months, my administration has been busy working to create an environment in which affordable housing construction can flourish.

The New Housing Marketplace - a five-year, $3 billion plan -calls for preserving 38,000 housing units and building 27,000 more. How? By combining innovative public financing to encourage private housing investment along with legislative and administrative reforms that cut the costs and reduce the risks of building and land acquisition.

Since I announced the plan more than five months ago, we are off to a terrific start. Here are some of the accomplishments to date:

Last week our housing plan took another major step forward. The City Council voted to approve my Administration's proposed rezoning of sections of Park Slope in Brooklyn. Targeted rezoning of this mixed residential and commercial area will increase the supply of land and drive the cost of housing production down. The approval of this plan allows us to make available -- on a first-come, first-served basis -- $6 million in city incentives targeted at this neighborhood. We expect this will yield more than 100 affordable apartments and leverage an additional $16 million in private investment. This action should produce hundreds of much-needed apartments that are convenient to downtown Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan. The Council's action also sets the stage for other, similar rezonings planned throughout the City, from Greenpoint to Morrisania to the Far West Side of Midtown.

We are also going to aggressively make under-used New York City Housing Authority property available for new affordable housing. The first major project of this kind will be in the Bronx. Within three months, we'll select a developer who will rehabilitate and build more than 200 units of affordable housing in vacant buildings, and on vacant land the Housing Authority owns in Morris Heights.

The New Housing Marketplace plan is only five months old, but you can see that we have already made a lot of progress. Creating more affordable housing in New York City is a top priority for my administration and there is no doubt that we will accomplish this. The City, working together with private and nonprofit developers, will create and preserve over 65,000 homes. New York City is the greatest place to live. We have it all. And soon, we will have more affordable housing, making this City an even better place for people of all incomes to live and raise families.

 

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