New York City Outlines Plan to Increase Housing

April 20, 2004 - Saying that "affordable housing is fundamental to our long-term economic prosperity," Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York City outlined his strategy today for adding 65,000 housing units over the next five years.

Noting the substantial growth in Harlem's housing development, the mayor told the New York and National Housing Conference this afternoon that "today's challenge as we work on other parts of the city is to make scarce city dollars go further in an era when deep cuts to capital spending for housing are just unavoidable."

Making that challenge particularly daunting is the projected $3 billion deficit next year in the New York City budget.

The solution, Mr. Bloomberg said, "is doing the kind of strategic investment and groundwork that turns dreams into realities by using limited public funding to encourage private investment."

Mr. Bloomberg said his strategy would have two principal elements: encouraging private investment with creative use of public resources and changing regulations to cut the costs of land acquisition and building.

Between now and the fiscal year 2008, the city's Housing Development Corporation will double the amount of money available for affordable housing, compared with the amount spent over the last five years.

"We're going to put H.D.C.'s cash assets to work and borrow against the mortgages that H.D.C. holds," Mr. Bloomberg said, to generate of pool of $500 million. That money is expected to draw four times that amount in private investment.

In addition, Mr. Bloomberg said, the city would use the money for middle-income housing, as well as housing for the poor and low-income families.

The middle-class housing would be for families with incomes of $38,000 to $63,000 a year. "This includes teachers, police officers, firefighters, health care workers, the kind of people that make communities stronger," the mayor said.

In what Mr. Bloomberg called "a little financial magic of their own," the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development will redirect $555 million in city and federal money toward development in specific neighborhoods.

Some of the money will be used to provide low-interest loans for the purchase and cleanup of former industrial sites that have been contaminated.

Mr. Bloomberg said he was also committed to working with the City Council on "removing barriers to development and reducing costs of construction."

"I've asked our city planning commission to move forward aggressively with rezoning plans in communities throughout the city, including East Harlem, Jamaica, Long Island City, Port Morris, Morrisania, Park Slope, Greenpoint and Williamsburg," Mr. Bloomberg said.

On Thursday, Mr. Bloomberg plans to speak about his vision for Lower Manhattan in an address to the Association for a New York.