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Read Speech FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 10, 2002
PR 324-02
www.nyc.gov


MAYOR MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG ANNOUNCES HOUSING PLAN
FOR NEW YORK CITY'S 21ST CENTURY NEIGHBORHOODS

65,000 Homes and Apartments To Be Created or Preserved in Neighborhood Renewals While Inter-Agency Effort Will Remove Barriers to Private Investment

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg today announced a $3 billion plan to create and preserve more than 65,000 homes and apartments in neighborhoods over the next five years, which will increase production of new units by 25%, as well a stream of initiatives aimed at facilitating private investment in housing. The Mayor explained the need to make scarce City dollars go farther and increase private investment in an era when deep cuts to capital spending for housing are unavoidable. The Mayor made this announcement at the New York Housing Conference/National Housing Conference 29th Annual Awards Luncheon.

"We're the world's second home - the magnet for people from around the world who want to build better lives for themselves and their families," said Mayor Bloomberg. "That new generation of ambitious and hard-working New Yorkers deserve just what my parents struggled to achieve and what all parents want for their children: the security that only good homes in safe and stable neighborhoods can provide. Affordable housing is fundamental to our long-term economic prosperity and this commitment demonstrates that in these difficult budget times, the City has found innovative news ways of funding affordable housing."

The Mayor announced that the City will substantially offset the capital budget cuts in housing through financing strategies that will create more than $1 billion which will preserve or create 25,000 units of housing over the next five years. The more than $1 billion will consist of a $500 million pool which will be created by leveraging the assets of the City's Housing Development Corporation (HDC) and the redirection by Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) of more than $555 million in City and Federal funding to targeted neighborhood renewal. Much of that $555 million was originally intended for the rehabilitation and disposition of the City's in rem housing stock. Now that the vast majority of that housing has been rehabilitated and conveyed to new private owners, the City has the opportunity to redirect those funds to housing investments over the next five years.

Combined with the City's maintenance of effort commitment of $2 billion in capital and expense budget funds, which will create or preserve 40,000 units of housing, the plan will dedicate $3 billion in funds over the next five years, creating or preserving 65,000 units of housing; of these 27,000 units will be new and 38,000 units will be preserved. 25% more new units of housing will be constructed over the next five years when compared to the last five years.

A necessary and equally important component to public funding is jump-starting private investment in targeted communities by removing barriers to development and reducing costs of construction in order to encourage private sector participants to enter the marketplace. The Mayor's plan, "The New Marketplace: Creating Housing for the Next Generation," includes a range of policy tools toward that end including streamlining the regulatory burdens that add to the costs of residential development. It centralizes the planning for and disposition of City-owned land appropriate for residential development, and creates an employer-assisting housing program as a retention tool for large employers such as universities and hospitals and a means to make homeownership within the City more affordable for employees.

In conjunction with "The New Marketplace" plan, the City Planning Commission will move forward aggressively with rezoning plans in communities throughout the city in neighborhoods ripe for private development in housing, including West Harlem, Jamaica, Long Island City, Hunts Point, Morrisania, Park Slope, Greenpoint, and Williamsburg. Many of the neighborhoods have abandoned waterfronts and underutilized manufacturing areas that will be assessed with an eye toward beneficial reuse. As part of the plan, HPD will allocate funds for low-interest loans to acquire and clean up former "brownfields" for housing development. The plan also includes the following:

To help guide the housing initiatives, the Mayor has named a Neighborhood Investment Advisory Panel with members from the fields of real estate development, finance, community development, housing management, academia, and philanthropy. The Neighborhood Investment Advisory Panel will advise HPD on both the progress and barriers to successful program implementation.

Neighborhood Investment Advisory Panel Members
Mark Alexander, Hope Community
Frank Anelante, Lemle & Wolff
George Armstrong, New York City Housing Partnership
Victor Bach, Community Service Society of New York
Angela Battaglia, Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizen Council
Naomi Bayer, Fannie Mae
Ed Blakely, New School University
Frank Branconi, Citizens Housing and Planning Council
Bernard Carr, New York State Association for Affordable Housing
Joe Cicciu, Belmont Arthur LDC
Mary Dailey, Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition
Harold DeRienzo, Community Assisted Tenant Controlled Housing, Inc.

Elaine Dovas, GreenPoint Community Development
Kathleen Dunn, Community Preservation Corporation
Ramon Escobar, C.E. Property Management, Ltd.
Robert Ezrapour, Artimus Construction
William Frey, Enterprise Foundation
Marilyn Gelber, Independence Community Foundation
Sarah Gerecke, Neighborhood Housing Services of New York City, Inc.
Colvin Grannum, Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corp.
Gary Hattem, Deutsche Bank
Robert Horsford, Vision Builders, Inc.
Deborah Howard, Pratt Area Community Council
Marc Jahr, Citibank Center for Community Development & Enterprise
John Kelly, Nixon Peabody LLP
Christopher Kui, Asian Americans for Equality
Brad Lander, Fifth Avenue Committee
Deborah McCaffity, Allen AME Housing Corp.
Lucille McEwen, Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement, Inc.
Ronay Menschel, Phipps Houses
Felice Michetti, Grenadier Realty Corporation
Harry Oster, Astoria Federal Savings
Frank Ricci, Rent Stabilization Association
Monsignor Donald Sakano, Housing Development Institute
Michael Schill, New York University School of Law
Denise Scott, Local Initiatives Support Corporation
Jane Silverman, Washington Mutual
Pat Swann, New York Community Trust
Ray Velez Jr., South Bronx Community Management
Darren Walker, Rockefeller Foundation

"The New Marketplace" plan is available on HPD's website at www.nyc.gov/hpd

 

www.nyc.gov

Contact:

Ed Skyler / Jennifer Falk
(212) 788-2958

  Carol Abrams (HPD)
(212) 863-5176