Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Queens West's back door

An unorthodox financing scheme that would pay for the city's planned 6,400-unit development in Queens West is an end run around federal mandates for affordable housing, an advocacy group is charging.

Project's financing plan ripped for lack of affordable housing in Queens West

The scheme, which is based on a model used for a project under construction in Hawaii, would allow the city to pay developers with federal tax-exempt bonds that are typically designated for construction by nonprofit entities, or 501(c)(3) bonds.

Normally, such bonds would go toward the construction of a facility such as a hospital or a YMCA.

By obtaining status as a legitimate nonprofit, or 501(c)(3), the city avoids dipping into its limited supply of tax-exempt municipal bonds that finance the administration's other affordable housing developments.

But the city also wriggles out of certain development restrictions: The federal government mandates every project funded with municipal bonds must include at least 20% of housing for low-income residents.

"There's a million people in Queens who make less than the income required for Queens West," [Pratt's Brad] Lander said.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

They've demonstrated their continued contempt
for the classes of people vital to the stability of NYC !

These fat cat builders
couldn't find a roll of toilet paper on their own.

Show 'em how it's done "Crappy" !

georgetheatheist said...

Look. It's simple. They don't want "da po folk" in view.

Here's my solution: Sub-terranean housing. Underground apartments.

Out of sight. Out of mind.

Anonymous said...

We cliff-dwelling urbanites think of linear space as being measured in terms of "bedrooms." As in that's a two-bedroom apartment (big), this is a one-bedroom (small), and there's a studio (0-bedrooms, real small). "Acres" are a system of measurement used in Montana. Nonetheless, I think Queens County has more than 115 acres.

Queens Crapper said...

Good catch!

Anonymous said...

One thing's for sure....
we're all gettin' it up our back door!