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Bloomberg's affordable housing program "not so affordable"
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In almost as many weeks, a new audit coming out of William Thompson's office, questions some of the most touted benchmarks of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's so called successes. The latest report from the Comptroller's office focused on NYC's Department of Housing Preservation & Development (HPD) "Corner Stone Project" first introduced in 2000 and billed as a way to expand the development of multifamily buildings for private housing, rentals and home ownership units. According to one report, the goal of the program was to sell off City land cheaply as a way to create private residential development and investment properties, and to create affordable units within reach as rental or sale properties for the City's working class. But far fewer affordable rentals have been built than what was being projected. In fact, far more market rate apartments have been created than affordable units.
As of March 2009 51 projects, equal to about 4,536 apartments, have been given the green light. So far only 20 of those projects have been completed. The DOB has certified 2,191 units at these 20 sites. But of all of the finished new living spaces, one third has been rented or sold at market rate, (2,191) while 475 units (22%) has been allotted as "affordable". In comparison, 1,035 units (or 47%) has been designated for Middle Income families.
To qualify for low income housing, a family of four cannot have income exceeding $61,450 dollars a year. Middle Income housing requires the renter or buyer to make between $88,320 and $192,000. For market rate apartments, no qualifications were specified.
According to the audit HPD has failed to maintain an accurate account of how many projects are actually in the Corner Stone Project. Furthermore there is no account of affordable rentals created during the first three Cornerstone projects. When asked for the records of the program's development list, HPD was able to give auditors 71 projects. But when staff from Thompson's office reviewed documents at the Department of Finance records, they found that several of the closings recorded by the agency had nothing to do with the Corner Stone Program. HPD later provided 51 sites which fell under the Corner Stone program. Bill Thompson blasted the agency for their lack of record keeping and failure to follow city procedures when evaluating developers to operate different projects. The Comptroller stated that these practices have created a serious lack of oversight.
Auditors found the application and interview process when determining potential tenants, has been manipulated in order to give preferential treatment to the wealthier clients over others. According to one report, "Auditors’ observations of two housing lottery selection processes revealed that developers manually selected applicant envelopes and manually logged their selection onto a log sheet." Because there is no random process when deciding who gets chosen for the units, developers can place whomever they want at the top or the bottom of the waiting list. Those that handle the lists can also add or subtract names from the list. In one case 200 applicants were denied apartments because the post office had filed names for one lottery in with applications for a later lottery. Staff from Thompson's office also found that both developers and HPD did little in evaluating the qualification process which meant that several applicants who did not belong in the Cornerstone program were chosen at the expense of those who were qualified. To see further information about the audit and recommendations checkout the link below.
Until next time…
http://www.comptroller.nyc.gov/
http://newyork.realestaterama.com/2009/08/06/thompson-audit-questions-affordable-housing-program-ID0781.html
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