Mayor Eric Adams is getting involved in a rezoning proposal in Midwood, Brooklyn that faces a tough path to approval due to opposition from the area’s City Council Member Kalman Yeger.
Adams spoke directly to Yeger about the project last week and expressed a desire to help get it over the finish line, according to a City Hall official familiar with the conversation. The project, at 1880-1888 Coney Island Ave. in Yeger’s district, would generate 191 new homes, 49 of them income-restricted, but Yeger has objected to its eight-story height.
Adams is framing the project as a potential affordable housing win in a neighborhood that hasn’t done its fair share to meet citywide housing goals. The Council district surrounding the project site produced just 116 income-restricted apartments between 2014 and 2021, among the lowest out of all districts, according to a report from the New York Housing Conference, an affordable housing nonprofit.
“To make New York more affordable, we need more housing in every part of the city — and especially in neighborhoods that have seen hardly no new homes built in the last decade,” Adams said in the statement to POLITICO. “The City Council and community members must work together to take another important step in addressing the affordability crisis by moving this project forward. It’s time to come together as a ‘City of Yes’ that is committed to building more affordable housing.”
Other elected officials are also making the case for the rezoning on equity grounds.
“This is an example of a community that can do more when it comes to building housing,” Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso said in an interview.
Adams has made a point of boosting private rezoning proposals for new housing. He vocally backed a hotly-contested plan in the Throggs Neck section of the Bronx last year, and another proposal in Astoria, Queens that ultimately got done with additional affordable housing commitments from his administration.
Yeger didn’t return a request for comment Friday. The Council typically defers to local members on land use proposals, and has bucked that unofficial policy only on rare occasions. The body is slated to vote on the plan later this month.
“We don’t build towers on top of people’s homes, we don’t do that anywhere in this city,” Yeger said at a zoning subcommittee hearing on the project last month.
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OFFICE LEASING AGAIN ON THE DECLINE — Crain’s Natalie Sachmechi: “At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Manhattan’s office leasing activity has declined month over month and from year-ago levels, according to a recent report from Colliers. After a banner first month of the year, when 4.4 million square feet of leases were recorded, the borough reported 1.3 million square feet of office leases during the month of February. In February 2022 there were 2.3 million square feet absorbed from the market.
“Midtown saw the largest decline in leasing activity last month, with deal volume falling from 3.2 million square feet of leases to just 533,061, according to the report. In February 2022 the submarket recorded 1.5 million square feet of leases.”
NEW LIRR SERVICE UPENDS SOME COMMUTES — The New York Times’ Ana Ley: “Shouts and expletives rang out at a station in Jamaica, Queens, on Thursday morning as commuters raced to catch connecting trains during the first week of a Long Island Rail Road schedule that has benefited some passengers but upended rush hour for those traveling to Brooklyn. The service changes offer some commuters who used to have to travel to Pennsylvania Station, on the West Side of Manhattan, a shortcut to a new station on the East Side, shaving travel times by as much as 40 minutes, according to transit officials. The project, known as East Side Access, is a long-awaited expansion of the region’s transit network and includes a gleaming new station on Madison Avenue, Grand Central Madison.
“But other frustrated travelers, most of them headed for Brooklyn, say that they now have longer and more stressful commutes because the hastily drawn-up new schedule includes a number of mismatched connections. The chaos in the days after the full kickoff on Monday of one of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s biggest and longest-running expansion efforts illustrates the challenges of changing the country’s most complex transit system.”
LEGISLATORS NOT SOLD ON 421A EXTENSION — POLITICO’s Janaki Chadha: As leading state lawmakers remain cool to the prospect of reviving the controversial 421-a tax break, Gov. Kathy Hochul is pushing to extend the completion deadline for projects covered by the expired program. But legislators aren’t too keen on that either.
“It’s a tragic mistake for New York State to allow an additional four years on a program we ended for very specific reasons,” state Sen. Liz Krueger, chair of the body’s finance committee, said at a budget hearing on housing Wednesday. The program, which offered a tax break to New York City apartment buildings while requiring a certain portion of units to be income-restricted, expired last June after state legislators declined to renew it…
James Whelan, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, called Krueger’s stance “unfortunate.” “With New York City facing a worsening housing crisis, it’s easy to see why pulling the rug out from under 33,000 new planned apartments, including 8,200 affordable ones, would be a disastrous public policy decision for New Yorkers struggling to stay here,” he said in a statement.
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REAL ESTATE SPENDS BIG ON LOBBYING — POLITICO’s Joe Anuta: Real estate and health care firms were among the biggest spenders on city lobbying in 2022, according to a report released Wednesday evening by the Office of the City Clerk…
Some of the biggest expenditures of the year were made by entities seeking favor in real estate and development. Vornado Realty Trust, which until recently was poised to develop the area around Penn Station and is currently pursuing a license for a Manhattan casino, forked over $730,000 to a handful of lobbyists including Kasirer. And New Green Willets, an entity created by Mets owners Steven Cohen to lobby for business ventures including a proposed casino near Citi Field, spent nearly $440,000.
LANDLORDS, TENANTS PUSH FOR VOUCHER PROGRAM — Gothamist’s Chau Lam: “The real estate industry and tenant advocates — usually at odds — are joining forces to push state lawmakers to establish a statewide rent voucher program for homeless people and those at risk of losing their homes. But Gov. Kathy Hochul says she’s wary of such a program’s price tag. ‘My position is that I want to relook at the numbers and see what the numbers would look like today in terms of the cost,’ Hochul said on Friday.”
CITY MISSES OUT ON FEDERAL FUNDING — Crain’s Caroline Spivack: “The city missed out on millions of dollars in federal infrastructure funding through a new U.S. Department of Transportation pilot program, with three unsuccessful proposals to enhance street safety. The DOT on Tuesday unveiled $185 million in grants for 45 projects through its new Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program, which essentially seeks to right wrongs from past transportation infrastructure decisions that have unduly burdened some communities.”
— The city’s public housing authoritytakes 290 days, on average, to address mold complaints from tenants.
— State lawmakers are looking to strengthen protections for homeowners at risk of foreclosure.
— The transit workers unionhas blocked a plan from the MTA that seeks to better align subway schedules with hybrid work patterns.
— Three elevators at the new Grand Central Madison station offer a sort of express route for LIRR commuters who otherwise face a lengthy walk to street level.
