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May 11, 2010
4,000 new luxury condos sitting vacant
Units are in 138 buildings that owe city $3.8 million in back taxes; study recommends seizing and converting them to low-income or affordable housing.
Crain's NY Business
by Amanda Fung
Here's more evidence that the housing component of Atlantic Yards is a long, long way off.
There are more than 4,000 new luxury condominium apartments in the city that are sitting vacant and unused, according to a comprehensive new report due to be released Tuesday afternoon. What's more, the units are in 138 condo buildings that owe the city a total of $3.8 million in back taxes.
Right to the City-NYC, a coalition of community organizations, will unveil its detailed report, "People without Homes, & Homes without People" at a press conference Tuesday afternoon in Harlem with officials from the boroughs. The report identified and tallied units in completely and partially finished buildings in six neighborhoods with sizeable low-income populations: downtown Brooklyn, the Lower East Side, Harlem, Bushwick, the South Bronx and the West Village/Chelsea.
...Across the six surveyed neighborhoods, 74 buildings with 1,159 units were completely vacant, while 190 building with 2,933 units were partially vacant.
In the 72-page report, Right to the City recommends that the city convert the empty condos to public housing or community land trusts. It even suggests that the city seize the vacant condos through eminent domain. In addition, the group said the city should suspend tax breaks for developers and impose fees on building owners who warehouse their units for more than a year.
...“In a city where a record number of families are going homeless every night, this report shows us that there is an opportunity to turn some of these problematic buildings into real community benefits,” said Councilman Brad Lander of Brooklyn, who will be joined by Council members Melissa Mark Viverito and Leticia James at the press conference, in a statement.
NoLandGrab: And speaking of the homeless, we know Bruce Ratner's record when it comes to sheltering them.
Posted by eric at May 11, 2010 10:41 PM