Monday Links
Tugboat on the Newtown Creek. Photo by Dead Nancy. Mayor’s Housing Program on Track Amid Financing Concerns [NY Times] Developers Shunning Over-the-Top Amenities [NY Times] Banks Said to Agree on Credit Backup Fund [NY Times] Parents Don’t Want P.S. 135 Space for Park [NY Daily News] Bed-Stuy Affordable Homes Called Shoddy [NY Daily News] Dealing…
Tugboat on the Newtown Creek. Photo by Dead Nancy.
Mayor’s Housing Program on Track Amid Financing Concerns [NY Times]
Developers Shunning Over-the-Top Amenities [NY Times]
Banks Said to Agree on Credit Backup Fund [NY Times]
Parents Don’t Want P.S. 135 Space for Park [NY Daily News]
Bed-Stuy Affordable Homes Called Shoddy [NY Daily News]
Dealing With Skyrocketing Oil Costs [NY Daily News]
Guide to Beep Candidates [Room 8]
Cuckoo Corcoran [Forgotten NY]
The price at which the Bed Suty homes were offered should have been a red flag that the construction was substandard. When the lowest bid was accepted, it should have been obvious that the developer would cut corners to turn a profit. Clearly, DOB definitely didn’t do their job to ensure that construction was done to code. In our clamor to make everyone a homeowner, we sometimes lose sight of the entire picture. The price of affordable housing is often not affordable. We need to explore other ownership concepts because everyone will not be able to buy a house. Are we all even entitled to home ownership? How about offering city owned apartments for sale as condo’s or cooperatives to lower and middle class families?
Pretty photo!
Never thought a tugboat in a canal could appear romantic, but it does.
Man, that Bed-Stuy story is heartbreaking! Even if the developer fixes major problems, it’s just so much more expensive to own a house that is always in need of major repairs than it is to rent.
What a double-fucking the city is giving its working poor and lower-middle class! Scraping together $13K is no mean feat for most of NYC, and to then be constantly throwing more money at a crappy investment… criminal.
The developer should be ashamed of himself, so should the politicians and bureaucrats whose job it is to keep the developer honest. Iam writing a letter to Mike Bloomberg and Marty Moskowitz and the folks on the CB board in Bed Stuy and anyone else I can think of. That kind of shameless grubbing cannot be allowed to continue in this fine neighborhood!!
Yeah Montrose, that is the future that the politicians who oppose both the MTA fare increase and Congestion Pricing while favoring down-zoning envision for us. Love me, love me, love me I’m a Liberal.
Also loved Kevin Walsh’s answer to Barbara Corcoran regarding the paving of Queens. They build those same houses here in Brooklyn, too, and more and more rowhouse owners are trying to turn their front yards into parking lots with curb cuts. Blechhh!
Hey Mr. B! Why all the real stories of the Real Estate bust is on one page? Are you trying to bury these stories? They should be in there own space. Dealing With Skyrocketing Oil Costs is very important story! If it gets cold this winter then, Homeowners will have to sacrifice their Mortgage payment for heat. But don’t worry I will be here to remind you!
Read This Folks
Clusterfuck Nation by Jim Kunstler
PEAK MONEY
http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2007/11/peak-money.html
The What
Someday this war will end……
Bed Stuy article makes me see red. I feel no pity that the developer is making no money, he doesn’t deserve to. This is a perfect example of much of the new construction that is going up on every empty lot in BS, Bushwick and elsewhere in poorer neighborhoods. We desperately need new affordable housing, but buildings like this are not the answer. Where is the oversight, where is the DOB?
For the developer and their lawyers to say that these houses have only small glitches in them – no connecting pipe is a SMALL glitch?????, and that the owners are sitting on gold???? Please!
Ah yes, I’d forgotten how beautiful Queens really was…
“Banks Said to Agree on Credit Backup Fund ” I posted this story in the other forum. I’m surprised Mr B, Maybe you are taking your cue from me. Serious the banks are just delaying the day of reckoning. Credit is drying up now, RIP Mutant Real Estate Bubble.
The What
Someday this war is gonna end