Bloomberg explains details of affordable housing plan.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Department of Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Shaun Donovan announced details of the expansion of the Mayor's New Housing Marketplace Plan, which has grown to a $7.5 billion undertaking to build and preserve 165,000 units by 2013.

The plan includes new tools to spur private investment in affordable housing, initiatives to preserve existing affordable units and a new program to provide affordable housing for middle-class families. Mayor Bloomberg also announced the formation of a taskforce to examine modernization and reform of the 421-a tax incentive program.

Included in the details of the plan to build and preserve 165,000 units are innovative uses of City-owned land. With the end of the in-rem portfolio, HPD is focusing on maximizing the number of affordable housing units the City is creating on publicly-owned land through collaborations with other City agencies. HPD is working closely with partners such as the New York City Housing Authority, the Economic Development Corporation and the Department of Citywide Administrative Services to expand its affordable housing pipeline. In addition, relationships are being forged with agencies that are not typically associated with development, including the Department of Transportation, the Health and Hospitals Corporation and the Human Resources Administration. Most of the housing being developed will be co-located with other compatible uses, such as residential and commercial. For example, HPD will issue an RFP later this year seeking developers to build affordable housing and replacement parking on underutilized Department of Transportation properties. Altogether, these partnerships with City and State agencies are expected to generate over 20,000 units of new affordable housing by 2013.

Recognizing that the need for affordable housing is also felt by middle-class families, the Mayor announced the first developments in his middle-class housing initiative designed to encourage moderate- and middle-income families to stay in New York City. In the first developments, HPD and NYCHA will develop middle-class housing on NYCHA sites in West Chelsea and Hudson Yards. This development will generate 435 units of housing for New York's working families, which will be completed and occupied by 2009. The middle-class housing initiative which Mayor Bloomberg has described as a "Mitchell Lama program for the 21st Century" will generate up to 22,000 units of housing for New York households earning between $50,000 and $100,000.

The Housing Plan will also ensure that the tax incentive programs the City has developed to spur housing production are working for today's real estate market and are allowing the City to create the maximum possible amount of affordable housing.

An HPD-led taskforce will examine 421-a, the most utilized residential tax incentive program. The taskforce, which will issue recommendations in the Fall, will include members of the real estate, community development and advocacy communities, as well as representatives from City agencies and the City Council. The goal of this taskforce will be to realign the 421-a program with today's real estate market, which will provide upwards of $200 million in capital funding for the New Housing Marketplace Plan.

In detailing the New Housing Marketplace Plan, Mayor Bloomberg announced the awarding of 22 designations for Round IV of the Cornerstone program, which promotes development of mid-rise apartment buildings on City-owned land. A total of 4,525 Cornerstone units have already been started, and the 22 new sites will yield an additional 1,127 units, approximately half of which will be homeownership units, and half will be rental units. The RFP required that 20% of the units be reserved for low-income families, but for the first time, a preference in the RFP was given to developers who committed to building more affordable housing than the required minimum. As a result, nearly 66% of the units will be for low-income families and 18% will be for moderate- and middle-income families. The total number of affordable units will therefore be 84%.

The Plan also features other innovative ways to achieve the 165,000 unit goal, including targeted inclusionary rezonings, a $200 million fund--the New York City Acquisition Fund--that serves as a catalyst for the construction and preservation of more than 30,000 units of affordable housing citywide, New York/New York III, a $1 billion pact with New York State to finance and develop 9,000 new units of supportive housing in the City, and the New York Housing Trust Fund, which will use Battery Park City revenues to develop approximately 4,500 units of affordable housing. In addition, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the City will rehabilitate family homes taken in foreclosure by the federal government, where a 30% preference for Veterans will apply. A full description of the Plan is available at www.nyc.gov/hpd.

EDITOR'S NOTE: A January 25th article on the front page of Construction & Design, "Material costs to affect public project bidding," incorrectly identified a PinnacleOne executive. The executive's correct name is Joseph Seibold and he serves as vice president, not president, of PinnacleOne.