NYC housing departments vetted designs for "affordable housing" in vacant lots are just hideous and claustrophobic

PIX News

Some of the estimated 1,000 vacant lots across New York will be converted into affordable housing as part of a new NYC Housing Preservation and Development partnership with the American Institute of Architects.

Every square inch of real estate is premium in a place like New York. With that in mind, 23 lots across the city, many of which are small, oddly shaped eyesores, will be converted. Deputy Commissioner of 

Neighborhood Strategies Lelia Bozorg says the city is working on it because neighborhoods are changing and New Yorkers are being priced out of them.

“It’s one way to explore different models of housing, which is really important in a city like ours,” Bozorg said.

One lot being converted on West 136th Street is 17 feet wide. Design is difficult because the lots are often so small.

Four hundred designers from around the world competed to renovate the properties. Only five - all New York based - were chosen.

Future tenants will have to go through the housing lottery to live in these new buildings. The lists are not yet ready.

These buildings are not yet under construction.

Clearing the land for...what?

From George the Atheist:

All traces of the former owner, the late Armin Urban, now removed from the properties immediately south of the Steinway Mansion.

What next?

Z Hotel sold, may see tall building behind it

From the NY Post:

The Z NYC Hotel in Long Island City has been sold to Merchants Hospitality for $43 million.

The 7-year-old hotel at 11-01 43rd Ave. was developed in 2011 by former taxi magnate Henry Zilberman. He died in March 2014, and Merchants purchased the hotel from the estate.

The pricing was not just for the hotel but also included additional land behind the hotel that Merchants can use to add value through another building with 109 apartments.

Illegal demo leads to garage collapse

From PIX11:

The owner, 1771 Weeks LLC, was ordered to “repair or replace” the garage.

Unfortunately, the owner, according to DOB inspectors, “hired contractors to unsafely begin demolishing the … rear garage … without a permit.”

The allegedly illegal work went on for two weeks.

On June 15, the birthday party was planned to take place at backyard picnic tables not far from the garage at 1771 Meeks. That’s when nearby residents heard what one man described as “sounding like a gunshot.”

The garage had collapsed and bricks came raining down on an area close to those picnic tables.

“It could have been fatal,” resident Marcel Sukhlall said, if the collapse had occurred just one hour later, when the party was scheduled to begin.

FDNY and DOB inspectors rushed to the scene. A stop-work order was issued for 1771 Weeks Ave. and vacate notices were put up on three surrounding buildings.

Hey, we can't impede progress!

De Blasio may seek retail vacancy tax

From Curbed:

Mayor Bill de Blasio has been largely noncommittal on speaking about how the city can combat some of the blight that’s sweeping New York’s retail corridors, but that may soon change.

On his Friday spot on WNYC, the mayor alluded that retail vacancy has been on the brain (h/t NY Post). “I am very interested in fighting for a vacancy fee or a vacancy tax that would penalize landlords who leave their storefronts vacant for long periods of time in neighborhoods because they are looking for some top-dollar rent but they blight neighborhoods by doing it,” he said. “That is something we could get done through Albany.”

The mayor’s office said the initiative is in the planning phase.

Should pieds-à-terre be taxed more?

From Brick Underground:

The number of apartments being used as pieds-à-terre and short-term vacation rentals in New York City has spiked by over 20,000 in the last three years, and such apartments now make up 2.1 percent of all housing in New York City, according to census data recently released by the city.

The number of apartments listed on the most recent Housing and Vacancy Survey as vacant because of "seasonal, recreational, or occasional use" is now 74,945. This is the highest since the Regional Plan Association started keeping track in 1991 and, as the group's director of community planning Moses Gates notes, more than enough to house the city's entire homeless population. A Department of Housing Preservation and Development spokesman says that the agency can't parse from the data how many of these 75,000 apartments are being rented out on sites like Airbnb versus how many are being used as pieds-à-terre, and indeed there may be some overlap. Still, it's clear that the gain of 69,000 newly built apartments since 2014 is dampened by the simultaneous removal from of nearly a third of that number of apartments the sales and traditional rental markets.

Gates argues that the numbers show the urgent need for the city to create a pied-à-terre tax, so that wealthy people have incentives to sell their apartments or rent them to full-time tenants rather than keeping them empty or occasionally renting them to tourists.

"You're taking housing off the market during a housing emergency," he says. "That should be good enough" for the city to take action. Pied-à-terre owners, he adds, are "not paying city income taxes, but you're using city services to protect your tax investment."

Sad sight along the LIE

148th Street and Horace Harding. What a coincidence that every store in this strip decided to move.

Holliswood Hospital becoming a real problem

From the Queens Chronicle:

Fractured windows at the desultory Holliswood Hospital building and garbage strewn across its grounds starkly contrast with the neighborhood’s idyllic suburban homes.

Sixty-five thousand and five hundred dollars in Department of Buildings violations have been issued at the property, which is at 87-37 Palermo St. More than $600,000 in property taxes are owed.

Illegal trespassing inside the hospital, which closed in 2013, is shown in a YouTube video from last October. A young man throws an object at a hospital window from one of its rooms in the video; another part of the footage shows someone wielding a flame that does not appear to burn any of the structure, despite visible danger.

“We’re in the process of trying to find out who they are,” Linda Valentino of the Holliswood Civic Association told the Chronicle. “The 107th Precinct is working on it.”

The site is owned by Steve Cheung. “What he wants to do is build 20 homes,” the civic activist said. “We feel, and it’s just an opinion, that this guy is looking to sell the thing.”

Although a Queens civic activist familiar with the real estate transactions and development said that a developer he knows visited the site — and that it’s on the market —Cheung denied that.

“We’re planning to develop it,” he said.

A plan to divide the property into 22 separate lots was disapproved by the Department of Buildings.

Jamaica Estates house needs some TLC

From the Queens Chronicle:

A boarded-up, derelict house at 84-38 Charlecote Ridge in Jamaica Estates is concerning some in the neighborhood.

“I am so furious about this whole thing,” Community Board 8 Chairwoman Martha Taylor told the Chronicle. “It’s just crazy.”

Windows at the house are fragmented and trash can be found on the ground surrounding it. A vacate order was issued at the site earlier this year due to a lack of hot water, water supply and heat, missing windows and the building being in total disrepair, CB 8 said.

According to Taylor, the vacate order has likely been lifted — a hypothesis drawn from a Dec. 14 email sent from HPD to the Mayor’s Office of Community Affairs, and then to CB 8 — although it should not have been.

The email, which was provided to the Chronicle, says, “HPD was able to gain access to the above referenced property today. The building has essential services. For this reason we will not be vacating the building.”

Taylor is doubtful.

“The violations can’t be cured without them going to Buildings, getting a permit and then having master plumbers certify that they’re fixed,” she said. “As far as I know, all they have is electricity ... . They cannot cure those violations without a master plumber.”

Closed Holliswood Hospital remains "open and unguarded"

From the Queens Tribune:

The long-vacant Holliswood Hospital at 87-37 Palmero St. in Hollis is going through court hearings for two Department of Buildings “unsafe buildings” violations, according to the Department of Buildings.

The building received an “unsafe building” violation in November of 2015, when it was determined that the building was left open, vacant and unguarded. It received the second violation this past August, according to the DOB spokesperson.

Court documents filed on Sept. 20 with the Queens Civil Supreme Court show that the specific complaints are that “many of the windows, rear and side doors are broken/open and accessible,” and that the “equipment room door at rear of property is open and accessible.” The building has had two hearings so far—one on Nov. 23 and the other yesterday, Nov. 30. An unsafe-building violation can be dismissed if the work is done to correct the unsafe condition and a new DOB inspection finds no violating conditions, according to the DOB spokesperson.

The defunct hospital has been the center of controversy in the Hollis community for at least a year, and neighbors have repeatedly cited the building as a hazard. The former drug rehabilitation center shut down in 2013 and was purchased by Flushing-based developer Steve Cheung in July 2015. In that time, the hospital has sat vacant, often with wide-open doors and broken windows.

Linda Valentino, president of the Holliswood Civic Association, says that some neighbors have reported questionable people entering the unsecured hospital. She added that other neighbors have reported a serious mold problem—the consequence of severe flooding after the sprinklers in the building’s top floor burst and saturated the whole building with water.

Hotline for reporting zombie homes

From Crains:

New York state has created a new consumer hotline to help identify vacant properties.

Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the number—800-342-3736—on Tuesday. It's part of a larger effort by the state aimed at addressing the large number of vacant and abandoned properties known as zombie homes.

The hotline will allow local residents and officials to report vacant properties. The state is now compiling a list of all such homes and will require banks and lenders to ensure the property is maintained before foreclosure.

Abandoned corner house becomes a problem

Even the "nice" areas have problems with abandoned/vacant houses - this is on the corner of Union Turnpike and Commonwealth Blvd.

If you drive past it now, the front door is bent down and the front door is wide open. Since it's right next to both Creedmoor and the school complex on former Creedmoor land, I wonder if any kids hang out inside; or if squatters are living there. It's a disaster waiting to happen.

BTW, found a complaint made about it on 7/15/2015.

07/15/2015 - I AM CALLING BECAUSE THERE IS A VACANT BUILDING THAT HAS BROKEN WINDOWS AND IS NOT GUARDED.
07/16/2015 - I2 - NO VIOLATION WARRANTED FOR COMPLAINT AT TIME OF INSPECTION
Comments: 2- STORY FRAME BUILDING. SECURED. 5-0 CHAIN LINK FENCE INSTALLED.

Tiny Woodside lot on the market

From DNA Info:

An tiny triangular lot adjacent to Long Island Rail Road tracks has been listed at nearly $400,000, according to its broker.

A "for sale" sign was put inside the 45-by-20-foot vacant commercial lot at 57-01 39th Ave. last week.

Miguel Cabrera, who works with the agent Kathy Vasquez, says it's ideal for a commercial building up to three stories high.

The official listing price is $399,000, he said.

Why can't we do this here?

From NBC:

There's a new effort to clean the bushes and branches that have overgrown outside several abandoned homes in East Orange. The program not only makes the neighborhood look nicer, but also gives unemployment residents a chance to work. Brian Thompson reports.

Taking matters into their own hands

From Cleanup Jamaica Queens:

Fathers Day weekend and yet another Saturday where Jamaica residents who are fed up with inaction by local elected officials (like Senator Leroy Comrie) and unanswered calls by Queens Borough President Melinda Katz and staff, take matters in their own hands and take over the abandoned park/empty lot at 109th Ave & 171st Street in Jamaica, which has become an eyesore of overgrown weeds, garbage, broken down rusted playground equipment, remnants of what were once benches in the first phase of cleaning up this lot which is owned by a real estate company David Landau-Crown Realty of Brooklyn, who refuses to take care of this property.

So Jamaica resident & community advocate Pamela Hazel along with other activists like Gene Sassine, Larry Love, Lyle Braxton, a man who goes by OK and a couple other residents took matters into their own hands and did the first phase of this cleanup by cutting weeds and branches that are going out into the sidewalk. Other clean-up phases will follow.

Banks vs. blight

From the Epoch Times:

New York regulators said Monday that 11 lenders have agreed to monitor and maintain vacant properties in an effort to protect them and combat neighborhood blight.

The banks, mortgage companies and credit unions represent nearly 70 percent of the New York market and will adopt practices to limit the damage from so-called “zombie properties,” according to the Department of Financial Services. They agreed to best practices that include checking within 60 days any residential properties that are delinquent on loans to begin determining if they are abandoned, the department said.

The 11 lenders are Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citi Mortgage, Ocwen, Nationstar, PHH, Green Tree Servicing, Astoria Bank, Bethpage Federal Credit Union, M&T Bank and Ridgewood Savings Bank.

“The wave of zombie properties that arose in the wake of the financial crisis harms local communities and threatens the long-term health of the mortgage market,” department Superintendent Ben Lawsky said. Many homeowners defaulted on mortgages in the aftermath of the 2008 national financial crisis when the housing bubble burst. “These commonsense actions are an immediate and vital part of repairing that damage as we continue to pursue additional legislative reforms,” he said.

Zombie homes remain a problem

From the Times Ledger:

Property values in Queens are on the rebound from the housing crisis, but despite increases in median home values, the concern over the growing number of blighted, abandoned houses is very much real throughout the borough.

There are currently 172 properties in Queens that realtors call “zombie homes,” according to RealtyTrac, a national real estate tracking company. These are properties that remained vacant during New York’s nearly three-year-long foreclosure process, and in many cases have fallen into disrepair.

Lenders pay property taxes in instances when owners abandon homes and fail to complete the foreclosure process, but often don’t make an attempt to maintain or secure the properties.

There are an additional 110 houses in Queens, mostly in Jamaica, that have been abandoned for decades under the stewardship of the New York City Housing Authority. But that number is slowly shrinking as the housing authority partners with nonprofits like Habitat for Humanity to renovate and place low-income families in them, a NYCHA spokeswoman said.

Between March 2013 and now, more than 6,000 written notices of a lawsuit were filed in Queens, which are the first state filings that result from mortgage default, property tax delinquency or common unpaid charges. Over 20 percent of the properties are vacated upon the first filing, according to RealtyTrac.

So even if a property isn’t a “zombie,” eligible for demolition, there are often hundreds more properties that are left vacant for months at a time.

NYCHA selling off its open space to developers

From the Daily News:

The housing authority is quietly selling off parking lots, green space and playgrounds to developers — a spree that will create more affordable housing and help ease NYCHA’s budget woes.

NYCHA has sold small parcels here and there over the years, but in 2011 began to ratchet up its sales effort, a Daily News review found. Since 2013, they’ve sold off 54 plots with 441,000 square feet of public land to private developers, records show.

Most of these parcels are related to 12 projects where NYCHA has sold vacant or what it deems “underutilized” land to developers to build affordable or senior housing. On some parcels, the housing is now up; on others it’s in the works.

Recently, tenants say, NYCHA officials have visited their developments in search of more potential land to sell, with plans for more “For Sale” signs later this year.

Agency officials wouldn’t discuss details, promising to lay out their plans in May when Chairwoman Shola Olatoye unveils her “Next Generation NYCHA” plan.

Jamaica is focus of DeBlasio's affordable housing in Queens

From the Queens Courier:

In the de Blasio Administration’s latest effort to make a dent in the city’s housing crisis, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development is calling on developers to build housing on about 175 sites across the city.

The agency released a list of vacant, city-owned properties for the construction of affordable housing across the five boroughs last week, including 17 sites in Jamaica, which are the only Queens locations.

The agency is collecting applications from developers until Feb. 19 for the program.

More 4-family craphouses coming to Elmhurst

From DNA Info:

Developers are planning to build multi-family homes on an empty lot near new "luxury" apartments in the former St. John's Hospital, according to papers filed with the Department of Buildings.

The plot of land by Queens Boulevard sold in October 2014 to Hoffman Drive Realty LLC for $2.75 million, according to city records.

Tan Architects — who also built Elm East on Queens Boulevard, and are developing Elm West across the street — filed plans on Jan. 14 to build four homes at 57-34 Hoffman Dr. through 57-28 Hoffman Dr., off 57th Road, according to the Department of Buildings.

The homes will be four-family.

Those plans are awaiting approval by the DOB, according to an employee at Tan Architects who declined to give her name.