The plan includes new tenant protections, repurposing government-owned land and isolated manufacturing parcels for housing, and a rezoning to generate both market-rate and income-targeted apartments.
What impact have the mayor’s moves had on East New York, Downtown Far Rockaway, East Harlem, Jerome Avenue and Inwood?
The recently passed budget shifted capital spending on housing to later years. But some in the housing world think good news from Washington could lead the city to change course.
Housing code violations, rent burdens and mortgage vulnerability were high in some of the areas that saw high coronavirus death rates.
The final fiscal 2021 spending plan staved off cuts to smaller housing programs, but retained a shift of roughly a billion dollars in capital spending on the mayor’s affordability plan.
Resisting budget cuts is just part of the plan, they say. Changing how the housing market works is the deeper goal.
Reacting to the drastic drop in city revenue, Mayor de Blasio has proposed shifting $1 billion in capital spending on his housing plan from this fiscal year and next to later years.
Residents, community groups and the borough president’s office are voicing their concerns over whether benefits promised to the neighborhood are being delivered–and how the COVID-19 budget crunch might affect the city’s ability to make good on the rest of the to-do list.
‘The COVID 19 pandemic boldly underscores the need for housing and health to be coordinated at the front end of planning a development project.’
‘Now is the time to double down on affordable housing, and build on the progress already made under the mayor’s ambitious housing plan. It is not the time to retreat.’