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i heard they're turning Amsterdam Houses on the Upper West Side into co-ops. Apparently they offered existing occupants the opportunity to purchase for $60,000
Link?
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"The man who sleeps on the floor, can never fall out of bed." -Martin Lawrence
Best thing city can and should do is what nearly every other major urban area has done; empty the things out, build new from scratch along the lines of "80/20" housing. Anything else is just promoting the current status quo and doomed to failure.
Kinda contradicting yourself here. If you "empty the things out," then where do they go?
You set up a program where the tenants can transition, or you do a mix of rental and co-op based on income rates. I know people living in NYCHA paying $1400 now.
There's 2 major things wrong with most NYCHA buildings currently - the plumbing and the roofs. The buildings themselves are very structurally sound still. They're built like tanks, you will not see buildings even constructed like that anymore because they're too expensive. The walls within the apartments are not drywall, they're concrete and the hallway corridors are straight masonry units. Try to find an article about a NYCHA building (or partial building) collapse. Fix the bubbling walls and ceilings caused by plumbing or roof leaks, and the buildings are just fine.
Majority of other cities who disbanded their housing authority did so because they ran out of money to fix them up and the buildings were indeed collasping, about to be condemned. Or they were built crappy to begin with, and then they ran out of money. In some housing projects in Chicago, robberies were committed by a person removing their bathroom medicine cabinet to gain access to the adjoining apartment. The cabinets were connected. Thats just poor design, NYCHA is nowhere near that level.
In the case of Markham Gardens, they actually did what you're proposing, and it didn't work.
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"The man who sleeps on the floor, can never fall out of bed." -Martin Lawrence
Know Markham Gardens "didn't" work, that was my whole point.
MG didn't go right because the area surrounding is a straight up hood. From West Brighton Houses (just up the block on Broadway to Castleton) and east to North Burgher and increasingly Elm Street and now even Bement Avenue, and west towards Taylor; that whole area of West Brighton has gone down hill. As such no one was going to pay the market rates for rental or whatever housing the developers of Markham Gardens wants/wanted.
For the record Markham Housed were torn down largely because feds told New York they weren't going to give them any more money for the place, and it was failing apart.
Besides being a crime ridden housing development/hood, Markham Homes had originally been built as *temporary* housing during WWII for people working at the docks on Staten Island and their families. It then went onto become housing for returning WWII vets and their families .
In any event by the 1980's (if not 1970's) the place began going down hill just like West Brighton projects up the block.
There are more than a few NYCHA projects in other areas of NYC that wouldn't have any problems attracting market rate tenants if redeveloped; provided things were done right. All those housing estates below 125th street including on the LES and in EV come to mind.
Federal government long ago has admitted the "projects" model does not work and is a failure. Whatever goals there were fifty or whatever years ago just really hasn't happened. The housing projects have become bad or worse than some of the tenement slum areas they were meant to clean-up/replace.
The new model is one that should sound familiar to anyone on this board; forced "inclusion". That is putting poor, low and working class families in same housing as those who are better off. The idea is that wealthier households won't put up with the "ghetto" nonsense that often plagues the projects. Also since wealthier areas tend to have better services, those formerly shut out from same would gain access.
de Blasio needs to build more low-income housing to keep his promise. Meanwhile, the buildings from the 50's and 60's decay and rot. But he doesn't care because you get no publicity renovating existing structures. That is our wonderful mayor.
de Blasio needs to build more low-income housing to keep his promise. Meanwhile, the buildings from the 50's and 60's decay and rot. But he doesn't care because you get no publicity renovating existing structures. That is our wonderful mayor.
I am completely for attempting this with a few projects first to see how it goes. The co-ops should also have a sizable flip tax levied on the buyer. Part of that flip tax goes into the co-op and a small part goes into the city. The first sales of units must go through a city intermediaries who checks that buyer and seller understand the undertaking.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 11-16-2017 at 08:02 PM..
de Blasio needs to build more low-income housing to keep his promise. Meanwhile, the buildings from the 50's and 60's decay and rot. But he doesn't care because you get no publicity renovating existing structures. That is our wonderful mayor.
Never fear, ruby. The economy will tank and hundreds of financed luxury buildings will default on their taxes and mortgages and the City will become the owner. That's how buildings became Mitchell Lama middle income housing in the great recessions of the 1970's.
It will happen all over again the same way.
de Blasio needs to build more low-income housing to keep his promise. Meanwhile, the buildings from the 50's and 60's decay and rot. But he doesn't care because you get no publicity renovating existing structures. That is our wonderful mayor.
Offer them all conversion rights to become Mitchell Lama co-ops...lend the co-op the money to buy their building from the City at 1% or 2% 40 year mortgages and lower taxes to near zero.
When the mortgage is paid off, they can vote to go private, pay full taxes, or stay in Mitchell-Lama, much the same as current ML's operate.
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