[BwayDems] A Holiday Gift from Bloomberg - Decision on Leasing Public Housing Land Will Be Left to de Blasio

[Paula Diamond Roman]

Decision on Leasing Public Housing Land Will Be Left to de Blasio
Mireya Navarro. The New York Times, December 20, 2013


The Bloomberg administration will not make any decision about a plan to 
lease public housing land to private developers and instead leave it to 
the new mayor — who has objected to the controversial initiative. 


New York City Housing Authority officials said this week that they “do 
not expect to move” on designating any construction project before the 
end of the year and will instead leave their plan, devised to generate 
revenue for badly needed repairs and renovations, as “a strong 
foundation” for Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio to pursue. 


The incoming mayor has voiced objections to the plan that allows 
developers to build mostly market-rate units, rather than just 
affordable ones. Both the City Council and public housing residents 
filed lawsuits to halt any deals before the inauguration. 
A spokeswoman for Mr. de Blasio, Lis Smith, said the new mayor had been 
clear in his opposition to the land-leasing plan as drafted and that 
“for any plan to be considered,” it must create affordable housing and 
jobs for public housing residents. 


John B. Rhea, the authority’s chairman, defended the land-leasing plan 
as a workable strategy to tackle the agency’s estimated $6 billion 
shortfall for capital improvements. 


“We’ve been working collaboratively with the de Blasio transition team 
to put them in the best possible position to move Nycha forward,” Mr. 
Rhea said. “We feel we’re giving this administration a jewel.” 


After soliciting construction proposals, officials said they had 
received viable ideas for leasing land at six housing projects that 
could yield the agency an average of $37 million a year – which could be leveraged, they said, to finance $700 million to $900 million for 
capital upgrades. 


Mr. Rhea said the proposals addressed many of the concerns raised by 
critics about the land-lease strategy, including the need for more 
public review and approval from the City Council. Mr. Rhea, who has led 
the financially troubled agency since 2009, said he would submit his 
resignation later this month. 


The proposals would build on 11 plots that are currently parking lots, 
sports fields and other open spaces, and would generate revenue for 
exterior and interior upgrades to buildings with more than 9,000 
apartments at the six sites, officials said. About 3,600 rental 
apartments would be built, including 720 permanently affordable ones, 
they said. 

“We hope that they do leave it to the next mayor, and that de Blasio 
will sit with us and talk with us,” said Ginger Lopez, an organizer with Good Old Lower East Side, one 
housing group which opposed the land-leasing plan. “We’d like to be at 
the decision-making table at the very beginning.” 
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