Affordable housing construction in NYC
hits milestone despite pandemic: de Blasio
BY ARIAMA C. LONG
Mayor Bill de Blasio rejoiced
Tuesday over what appears to
be great strides in creating more
affordable housing for the city, as promised
by 2026.
Even with the pandemic turbulence, de
Blasio said, 2020 nevertheless marked the
creation of over 30,000 homes. It’s the
second highest one-year total in creation
for affordable housing in New York City’s
history.
“It’s something amazing and we plan
to keep that progress going,” the mayor
remarked during his briefi ng on Tuesday,
Feb. 9.
“Since 2014 we’ve been shattering production
records to serve more of the city’s
most vulnerable residents, our seniors, the
homeless, and New Yorkers barely getting
by,” said Commissioner of the New York
City Department of Housing Preservation
and Development (HPD) Louise Carroll.
“Then March hit and New Yorkers were
asked to stay at home to keep safe and we
knew that our work to provide safe, quality,
and affordable housing for New Yorkers to
learn and live and work was more urgent
than ever.”
Carroll said they’ve fi nanced almost
178,000 homes in total, with more
than 65% of newly constructed housing
for families of three earning less than
$52,000.
At the start of de Blasio’s administration
back in 2014, the Housing New York: A
Five-Borough plan outlined a 10 year goal
RENDERING VIA PROGRESSIVE MANAGEMENT
to create at least 20,000 affordable homes
per year for a total of 200,000. The city
started moving the construction and preservation
at an accelerated pace, combining
existing programs with new ones, and by
2017 updated the goals of 300,000 homes
total by 2026.
In January 2020, another updated plan
was relaunched as Your Home NYC, the
next phase of Housing New York that included
families, seniors, renters, and fi rst
time homeowners.
The general housing plan includes
programs like Senior Affordable Rental
Apartments (SARA), the Mitchell-Lama
Reinvestment Program, and the more controversial
Mandatory Inclusionary Housing
(MIH) program that local community
groups, politicians, and studies have heavily
criticized as “segregationist.”
MIH requires developers to set aside a
certain number of apartments for people
at a lower-income level. A family of three,
for example, can have an apartment with
a maximum annual income as low as
$31,000 and the developer will get city
subsidies for that unit and others like it in
the building.
According to a report from last January
by former New York City housing offi cial
Eric Kober, MIH was created to help but it
relies on developers focused on high-risers
and weak housing markets while at the
same time denying much-needed housing
from within the community.
Carroll said in the meeting the city has
been working to achieve greater equity and
inclusion in housing.
‘Open Culture’ program to bring NYC
performances to the streets amid pandemic
BY BEN VERDE
City streets will be packed with harmonious
musicals and tap dancing
theater troupes this summer, when
the city’s “Open Culture” program frees
the citys battered artisans to lay claim to
street space for open-air performances of
all types.
As the “Open Streets” and “Open
Restaurants” programs before it, the new
initiative aims to allow cooped-up New
Yorkers cautious of crowding indoors for
fear of contracting COVID to sprawl out
with ample space to social distance — this
time, while enjoying a show from a cadre
of local cultural craftsmen, Mayor Bill de
Blasio announced on Monday in Brooklyn.
“The idea is to make this simple, to make
it accessible, to bring cultural institutions
of all kinds, of all communities, out into the
streets to engage people, give them energy,
give them home,” Hizzoner said on Feb. 8
in Dumbo. “For that to work, we have to
clear the way, we have to cut the red tape
Streets will play host to open-air performances under a new city initiative.
and make it simple.”
The city’s Street Activity Permit Offi ce
will now have the authority to more easily
dole out licenses for live performances,
rehearsals, classes, and workshops. Venues
FILE PHOTO
will be able to host ticketed events in over
100 locations in order to bring in some
revenue after over a year of closure.
“This is a job creator, this is a motivator,”
said Queens Councilmember Jimmy Van
Bramer, chair of the Council’s Cultural
Affairs Committee.
The permits will be made available to
any recipients of funding from the Cultural
Development Fund, the borough arts council,
or members of the Cultural Institutions
Group. The reimagined permitting process
is based largely on the city’s “Open Restaurants”
program, which turned a oncelengthy
application into a much simpler and
faster process.
“We saw with ‘Open Restaurants,’ we
cut the red tape, we made it simple,” de
Blasio said. “If you build it, they will come.”
New York’s cultural sector is among
the hardest hit by the ongoing coronavirus
pandemic — as venues were the fi rst to
close when COVID-19 fi rst ravaged the city
last spring, and they will likely be among
the last to reopen once herd immunity is
reached.
Until then, local arts leaders are lauding
the city’s pivot into outdoor arts permitting.
Applications for Open Culture permits
open March 1 on the SAPO website.
12 February 11, 2021 Schneps Media