Thompson calls on developers to hammer out housing plans.

At a meeting of the New York Building Congress this week, NYC Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. called on the city's developers to look beyond the immediate and devise a roadmap for success in meeting the city's housing needs.

"This is the beginning of a historic construction boom, our development continues to reach new heights of human achievement. It isn't enough to build, we have to build responsibly. We have to recognize that we are a city that is not just judged by the height of our skyscrapers, but by how we take care of our needs."

Highlighting the problems shrinking resources and skyrocketing costs have already caused the construction industry, he pointed out the issue will become more critical as the one million "New New Yorkers" Mayor Michael Bloomberg projected in his sustainability address last December arrive in the city by 2030.

"Our most vital need is affordable housing, a term which must be expanded to include middle class families as well," Thompson said.

Pointing out that 39% of New Yorkers renters pay more than half their monthly incomes for rent. "Our hardworking families, our policemen and firemen and teachers are all leaving the city because they can't afford to live here anymore. We can't afford to price out of New York our hard working families. We have vowed to build schools, at the same time, we have to consider if, when our young people grow up, they will even be able to live in New York City?" he said.

To this end, Thompson advocated more direct government investment in affordable housing. "The Mayor's new housing marketplace plan is momentous; 65,000 new units of affordable housing is a tot of housing, but it is not enough, it is definitely not enough. We need to do better," he said.

The comptroller also highlighted the need for new energy sources by reminding the audience of the power outage in Queens last summer, and how slow officials were to count the hundreds, then thousands, and finally tens of thousands of people left in the dark in Astoria.

Thompson called for new transmission lines, investigation of alternative sites for new plants and the utilization of alternative energy sources like wind power currently being planned for Randall's Island.

He acknowledged the fact that many of the members in the room were already sacrificing the kind of projects that could help alleviate some of the problems.

"Escalating construction costs have already discouraged some of you from engaging in the type of work that we need, and will sorely need in the future," he said. "We need to find a way to keep working on these projects."

In response to an audience question about the details the mayor left out of his plan, such as how we will be able to afford to pay for all this new growth, Thompson advocated beginning a dialogue about the economics of the problem on federal, state and local levels. "The housing boom that has driven the economy so significantly will slow eventually. When the economy slows, we are going to have a problem, we all know that.

"We have to identify where the potential problems lie and work out some kind of plan to address them."

In response to the bureaucratic problems lying within the Thompson's own offices, Thompson promised to establish a task force to help identify how they could help streamline procedures contractors must adhere to when building and address the industry's concerns more effectively.

He urged the NYBC members to continue to use their creativity and wisdom to come up with solutions to some of the problems.