How affordable is it?

From Crains:

The city has not released adequate information about how much money it has spent on affordable housing three years into the mayor's plan to build or preserve 200,000 subsidized units, a fiscal watchdog group said last week. While the administration has touted the number of units it has financed, the group said, the missing data make it difficult to tell how much has been spent to accomplish the goal and how much more cash might be needed to finish the job down the road.

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced his Housing New York plan in 2014 and pledged $41 billion in public and private money over 10 years to make it happen, including $6.7 billion in city capital dollars. However, since that time the administration has not revealed enough information about how it is spending the cash, according to the Citizens Budget Commission.

"Without this basic data, whether the mayor's Housing New York plan is deploying its capital in the most cost-effective way cannot be evaluated," Sean Campion, a senior research associate at the nonprofit, wrote Friday.

The city typically releases information about how many units it has financed twice a year and includes the total cost of those apartments. The commission, however, wants to see more granular figures to find out whether taxpayer dollars are being spent wisely, and which programs appear to be the most efficient.

Figures such as per-unit costs are not released publicly, City Hall said, since developers could use the data to their advantage when negotiating on projects.

De Blasio decides that water is not important

From the NY Times:

Mayor Bill de Blasio has postponed work to finish New York’s third water tunnel, a project that for more than half a century has been regarded as essential to the survival of the city if either of the two existing, and now aged, tunnels should fail.

The new tunnel has already been completed and is carrying water into Manhattan and the Bronx. But segments that would supply Brooklyn and Queens, home to five million people, though also virtually finished, still await the building of two deep shafts.

If calamity or age forced the shutdown of City Water Tunnel No. 2, which is 80 years old, the primary water supply to much of Brooklyn and Queens would be lost for at least three months, city engineers said, the time it would take for an emergency activation of the sections of Tunnel No. 3 in Brooklyn and Queens that have already been finished.

The entire Brooklyn-Queens leg of the new tunnel was scheduled to be finished by 2021, with $336 million included in the capital budget in 2013 by Mr. de Blasio’s predecessor, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, for whom completion of the third tunnel was the most urgent and expensive undertaking of his tenure.

But last year, Mr. de Blasio’s administration, eager to keep a lid on water and sewer rates that had grown by an average of 8 percent annually under Mr. Bloomberg, moved financing for the third tunnel to other projects, Amy Spitalnick, a de Blasio spokeswoman, said.

The city intends to finish the remaining portions of the tunnel sometime in the 2020s, but it has not set a date for completion nor allocated money in the budget to carry out the work. For the foreseeable future, the $6 billion tunnel will remain dry in the two largest boroughs, where well over half the city’s population lives.

Dog run in Astoria to cost $1M

From the NY Times:

Dog owners in Astoria, Queens, have for years suffered dog-run envy. As fancy new runs have popped up around New York, Astoria residents have wondered when they might get their own.

Now, through the participatory budgeting process and public largess, their moment appears to have arrived. Local officials recently announced that they had pooled enough money to convert a basketball court under the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge into a dog run.

But many residents, including some in the vanguard of the yearslong lobby for the run, were stunned by the estimated price tag: $1 million.

“I didn’t trust my ears initially,” Erin Kirby, media and marketing secretary for the Astoria Dog Owners Association, said. “We were shocked by that.”

City officials said the projected cost was in line with the budgets of other recently built dog runs. Still, for many Astorians the estimate has been a bittersweet introduction to the high costs of capital projects in the city.

Are better roads in our future?

From CBS 2:

Sometimes it’s the squeaky wheel that gets the oil, and in this case it’s nearly $250 million dollars’ worth.

CBS2 was the so-called squeaky wheel on behalf of angry New York drivers. And so, after demanding answers week after week, month after month this winter about why the roads are so bad, residents and commuters are hopefully on the highway to driver heaven.

“It’s going to be a big victory for the motorists of New York City,” Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg said. “Actually, I’ll give this mayor credit. This is going to be some of the most miles of resurfacing the city has done in many years.”

CBS2 has learned that the mayor has decided to add a hefty $242 million for road resurfacing to the capital budget, which is funded through borrowing.

What this means to you, the driver, is:
* 1,200 lane miles will be resurfaced starting July 1
* An additional 1,300 lane miles will be resurfaced starting on July 1, 2016

That should make a substantial difference in the quality of your ride throughout the five boroughs.

Spending to be coordinated with growth

From Crains:

The city's capital spending will be more "thoughtful and coordinated" than it was under the Bloomberg administration to ensure that neighborhoods grow "rationally," City Planning Commissioner Carl Weisbrod promised Thursday.

City agencies' capital budget requests are in and are being reviewed by the de Blasio administration through the lenses of "equity, growth, resiliency, sustainability and geographic coordination," Mr. Weisbrod added during a speech at a Citizens Budget Commission breakfast.

The idea is to accommodate the population growth that city planners will encourage in underutilized areas near mass transit. Capital spending will be coordinated with residential development so that any influx of residents does not strain schools, open space, sewers, the transportation network, libraries, the streetscape and other public infrastructure.

Does anyone truly believe this?

When will that project be done?

You may now look up the status of park construction projects by visiting the Capital Project Tracker.

Paul caught playing Pinocchio

From the Queens Gazette:

On June 27, the City Council passed the fiscal budget for 2015. This budget was significant on many fronts as our children, seniors, schools, cultural institutions and many new initiatives were included and protected in the $75 billion budget. However, for residents of District 19, history was made. Councilmember Paul Vallone secured more than $6.7 million for much needed capital and expense projects throughout his communities. To put this year’s budget in perspective, the amount is triple that was received from the previous Councilmember, Dan Halloran ($2.2 million). This increase in funding will allow Vallone to provide nearly $3 million for his district’s schools and more than $1 million each to both libraries and parks in his district.

So Vallone insults his constituents' intelligence by insinuating that it was his great skills as a negotiator that got him triple the funding of what Halloran had received, when, in fact, it was because of new council rules that divided the funding evenly between the council districts? And the Gazette goes along with this?

More school construction on the horizon

From the Daily News:

The city will create 39,500 new public school seats over the next five years with $4.4 billion in construction money, officials said Tuesday.

The budget includes $490 million to reduce class sizes and $480 million to scrap trailers used as temporary classrooms, Deputy Schools Chancellor Kathleen Grimm told the City Council.

Corona and Elmhurst in Queens will gain 2,376 new seats, Dyker Heights in Brooklyn will get 1,920 and lower Manhattan will get 1,928 seats.

That still leaves demand for 16,685 more seats citywide that aren’t funded in the budget.

Cash for cleaner choo-choos

From the Daily News:

A Queens lawmaker is pushing the state to set aside money to alleviate the problem of train pollution that stretches across four counties.

Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi will call on the legislature to allocate $17 million to swap out the engines on ten of the Long Island Rail Road’s freight locomotives.

Rail has become the preferred method to hauling waste across Suffolk, Nassau, Queens and Brooklyn in the past few years, but that has resulted in increased pollution along the track lines, the lawmaker said.

Residents in the four counties “suffer from high levels of noxious gas emissions from these locomotives’ outdated technology,” Hevesi (D-Forest Hills) wrote in a letter to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, to be delivered Monday.

The current fleet of trains are owned by the LIRR and leased to a private firm that operates them along the New York and Atlantic Railway.

Those train engines, Hevesi said, fall under the lowest possible U.S. Environmental Protection Agency emissions standard, Tier 0, which means they were manufactured at least two decades ago.

Fort Totten ecodock on hold

From the Times Ledger:

Plans to build an eco-friendly dock at Fort Totten Park will have to wait another year due to a lack of funding in the city’s capital budget, according to the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance.

While the MWA continues working to build community eco docks in every borough, appropriate for different vessels, community events and educational opportunities, President and CEO Roland Lewis said the Bayside project will not move forward until at least next year due to budget constraints.

Eco docks are wooden barges that rise and fall with the tides and can accommodate different kinds of vessels, Lewis said. The multi-purpose docks, which cost around $700,000, will also have a human-powered boating platform so kayakers and rowers can visit, Lewis said.

What makes them eco-friendly, Lewis said, is the small footprint left behind in the water.

Flooding fix for Metro?

From the Forum:

Metropolitan Avenue in Middle Village will be less of a water hazard thanks to a new sewer line being installed to help alleviate flooding between Cooper Avenue and 80th Street.

The Department of Environmental Protection started work Monday to install more than 400 feet of piping.

Cutting through St. John’s Cemetery, the area doesn’t need a sewer line—except when it rains, Gary Giordano, district manager of Community Board 5, said.

“When there is even moderate rain there can be anywhere from a pond to a lake on Metropolitan Avenue just west of Cooper Avenue at the entrance, exit of St. John’s Cemetery,” Giordano said.

That’s because the catch basin that filters into the ground in the area can’t keep up with the intake.

The project is starting after prodding from Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley (D-Middle Village).

In April 2010, the Councilwoman wrote a letter to the DEP requesting the department investigate the area.

When the DEP completed the study, it added the area as a capital project.

A news release from Crowley said work then started after continual follow-ups from her office.

City ready to pay for playground developer destroyed

From the Queens Chronicle:

After a long fight with the city Department of Education, parents, students and community leaders are finally going to get their wish — a new playground at PS 251 in Springfield Gardens.

The DOE recently completed the design for the area and the project will be going out to bid in April, department spokeswoman Marge Feinberg said Monday.

Once a developer is selected it will take approximately six months to complete the project. The cost is estimated to be about $400,000 and will come from the capital budget, Feinberg said.

Early last year, developer Our Conduit Ltd. of Great Neck, LI, purchased several homes along the South Conduit and got permission from the city to run a sewer line under the playground and dug it up.

School officials claimed there wasn’t any money to repair the area and stated that the original playground equipment could not be reinstalled because it didn’t meet current safety standards, according to parent Michael Pinckney.

Why doesn't the developer get the bill?

City short $70K for St. Saviour's acquisition

From the Times Ledger:

The city is less than $100,000 away from beginning to acquire the land for a park at the site of the old St. Saviour’s church in Maspeth.

The city Parks Department said that between $50,000 to $70,000 is needed to begin the legal process by which the city purchases land, called the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure. If the city gets the money, it will begin the process, a spokeswoman said.

The funds to actually buy the land, at 57-40 58th St., are still incomplete, but since the ULURP process can take months or in some cases over a year to run its course, Maspeth activists have repeatedly asked Parks to begin the process now while the other funds trickle in.

Activists estimate that between Borough President Helen Marshall and City Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley (D-Middle Village) there is $5.25 million allocated for the park.

In her discretionary spending for this year, Crowley allocated $1.1 million to build a new free-standing building onto the Ridgewood public library, but according to Lydon Sleeper, Crowley’s chief of staff, if some of the library money is needed to supplement the park, then it can be transferred.

Crowley’s office told TimesLedger Newspapers in early July that the entire $1.1 million sum would go toward the acquisition of the park.

So Crowley lied to a newspaper and, by extension, to her constituents? And the purpose of that was?

And yep, they're still building despite multiple stop work orders...

$620 million for new jail

From the IBO Blog:

Tough fiscal times have led the Mayor to propose a 20 percent reduction in planned city capital spending. That means less money for affordable housing construction, building new schools, or rehabbing city parks. Because of this, some New Yorkers may be surprised to learn that the Bloomberg Administration is still planning to commit more than $620 million in 2011 through 2015 to the construction of a new jail on Rikers Island, the renovation of jails in Brooklyn and Queens, and the closing of other facilities. What may make this even more surprising is that when the changes are complete, the system will have less capacity than it does now.

While the jail proposal has also been cut back—by nearly $115 million or 16 percent in the May 2011 Capital Commitment Plan compared with the September 2010 plan —some may question the need for it at all. Part of what’s driving the initiative is dilapidated conditions. Some of the structures being used on Rikers were only meant to be temporary. Another reason is to reverse a Giuliani Administration initiative that closed the jails near the borough courthouses and placed all inmates on Rikers Island. That proved to be a costly decision, ratcheting up overtime and other expenses in order to transport inmates to court dates.

As a result, the Department of Correction is going ahead with a jail renovation initiative which includes the construction of a new 1,500 bed jail on Rikers Island and reopening detention facilities in Brooklyn and Queens, in conjunction with reductions in the capacity of a number of other facilities. Because the initiative would remove more beds than are being added from the new construction, the city’s overall jail capacity would be reduced by nearly 3,000 beds.

Bridge repair fund looted

From the Times-Union:

Here in New York, the state "lockbox" created to pay for rebuilding aging bridges and roads -- a fund that's augmented every time you buy gas, renew a driver's license or rent a car -- has been raided for cash by state leaders during the last decade to such an extent that it will need $3 billion in taxpayer bailouts over the next five years.

And those added billions won't fuel a massive rebuilding, but will rather simply let a state with more than 2,000 structurally deficient bridges -- more than one span in every 10 -- keep chipping away at the problem.

Some highway advocates are questioning whether the Dedicated Highway and Bridge Trust Fund, created in 1991 as a reliable source of cash, may be too depleted to handle the job.

For every dollar that the fund will spend on roads and bridges over the next five years, it will spend almost $3 to cover rising debts and help run the state Transportation and Motor Vehicle departments, according to figures in Gov. Andrew Cuomo's capital plan in the just-completed state budget for the 2011-12 fiscal year.

Subway station overhauls announced

From the Daily News:

NYC Transit is spending $700 million on a blitz to fix up subway stations, officials said Monday.

In a new program stretching over the next five years, 150 stations will get upgrades: new lighting, fresh coats of paint and sturdier platform edges, officials said.

Transit officials aim to improve more stations with limited funds by being more selective about what repairs to make, said Fred Smith, acting vice president of capital plan management.

About two dozen stations are slated for "renewal," or major overhauls, costing an average of $15 million, officials said.

An additional 130 stations will get more limited upgrades, focusing on fixing their most defective components, railings and leaking ceilings.

One of the first stations slated for a multimillion-dollar renewal is the A train stop at 104th St. and Liberty Ave. in eastern Queens.

Other affected stations are Seneca, Central and Forest Aves. and Fresh Pond Road on the M line; Pennsylvania, Van Siclen, Saratoga and Rockaway Aves. on the 3, and Hunters Point Ave. on the 7.

City pushing forward with Governors Island takeover

From the Villager:

The city and state now share control of the island and also share responsibility for funding it, an arrangement that often results in a tug of war during budget season and perpetual uncertainty over the island’s future.

The city wants to end that uncertainty by committing a larger chunk of money to the island over several years — but only if the city gains complete political control over the island as well. The Mayor’s Office is shopping the idea around to politicians and won support from Community Board 1’s Waterfront Committee last month. The Governors Island Alliance is also cautiously backing the proposal.

Josh Wallack, a senior policy advisor for the city on economic development, attended the Dec. 21 Waterfront Committee meeting but did not make a presentation. He promised that the city would put both operating and capital funds into the island and agreed with the board’s requests for transparency and accountability.

Remember: The City ALWAYS comes up with money for tourist park projects while it rejects park projects geared toward its taxpayers by crying poverty. Even when the economy is in the toilet.

MTA shortchanged by Bloomberg

From Huffington Post:

In August, Mayor Bloomberg released his crowd-pleasing plan to "reform mass transit" as part of his third-term election push. The plan is full of good ideas that just about every New Yorker can support. Things like express train service to Coney Island, free cross-town buses, and countdown clocks in the subway would improve the commutes of millions of daily transit riders.

The only problem? The Mayor doesn't control any of that.

What the Mayor does control is the city's capital budget. The capital budget is huge--$60 billion dollars over ten years. It includes a wide range of different city capital needs, like school construction and rehabilitation, expansion and repair of the sewer and water systems, and housing preservation and development. It also includes money for mass transit, but not nearly enough.

The Mayor's capital budget allocates a measly $60 million a year toward mass transit. This equals about one percent of the MTA's capital budget, which is much less than the city has allocated to the MTA in the past. Historically, the city's contributions equaled about ten percent of the MTA's capital budget.

The MTA has said that it needs about $100 million every year from the city to support the transit system's program of rehabilitation and expansion. Why is the Mayor shortchanging the city's mass transit system? If the Mayor is keen to improve mass transit in New York City, he should begin by making a larger commitment from the city's huge capital budget.

From 2005-2009, the city was contributing much more to the MTA. But that money went towards the #7 line extension, a project that will be a huge boon for real estate developer Related Companies. The #7 line will be extended to the Hudson Yards on Manhattan's far west side, where Related Companies has plans to build office and condo towers. (This is the same Related Companies that refuses to pay living wages at the Kingsbridge Armory redevelopment in the Bronx). Meanwhile, communities in the outer boroughs continue to deal with rapid population increases and inadequate levels of service.

Cartoon from Cristian Fleming