Pratt Center eNews, Winter 2006
In this Issue:
- New Hope for New York's Future
- High-Quality Transportation for All
- Exit from Poverty Found in Building Booms
- Community Planning in Queens
- Queens West or Manhattan East?
- Breaking News @ The Pratt Center
- Upcoming Events
- Support Pratt Center
New Hope for New York's Future
A message from Pratt Center Director Brad Lander
For the first time in 12 years, New York State will have a new Governor, and representatives of NYC will have their voices heard in the U.S. Congress. This political sea-change opens the door to policy that could strengthen communities and promote equality, justice, and sustainability in New York City, New York State, and around the country.
I am honored to have been appointed to Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer's housing policy transition team. In this role, I hope to help New York State grow smarter and fairer in the face of the critical affordable housing issues facing New York State. We need increased investment in housing, stronger rent regulations, and leadership on innovative new land use policies. To read our July report "Time for a Gut Rehab: How the Next Governor Can Rebuild New York State's Affordable Housing Legacy," click here.
During the transition period, we should be ambitious, but also grounded. We must be optimistic that positive change can happen, while continuing with our day-to-day organizing, planning, and community-building efforts to create more affordable housing, good jobs, open space, schools, child care... the list goes on... With concrete action by communities on the ground, and real leadership from our elected officials, we can create more equitable and sustainable places for all New Yorkers.
Sincerely,
Brad Lander
Director, Pratt Center
High-Quality Transportation for All
The Pratt Center's new "Transportation Equity" project will examine ways that New York's transportation systems can help to create a city that offers opportunity and a high quality of life to all of its residents. During the next two years, Pratt Center staff will work with community and civic organizations to analyze our transportation systems from an equity perspective, and help maximize their benefits to all New Yorkers.
The project is timely. Transportation initiatives now being debated will shape our city and region for the next century, but the voices of low-income residents, immigrants, and communities of color -- those with much at stake -- are too rarely heard in the discussions. The Transportation Equity project will develop tools to enable social and environmental justice advocates to participate effectively in decisions that will have far-reaching impacts on the communities that they represent.
For more information, click here.
Exit from Poverty Found in Building Booms
In cities around the country, private sector development and public sector support have combined to create building booms in places that only a few decades ago were in seemingly irreversible decline. However, both working poverty and chronic unemployment in central cities remain disturbingly high.
Workforce "linkage" policies present an opportunity to help people make a lasting exit from poverty by tying economic development projects directly to the creation of quality jobs and training opportunities for people struggling to get ahead.
A new report from the Pratt Center, "Building in Good Jobs: Linking Economic and Workforce Development with Real Estate-Led Economic Development" by Laura Wolf-Powers, provides analysis of workforce linkage policies from cities around the country. The report recommends five measures that municipal governments are taking to leverage the value of urban redevelopment activity in order to address unemployment and poverty.
For more information, click here.
Community Planning in Queens
Creating Opportunity, Preserving Livable Communities: A Planning Study of Northwest Queens
Growth is occurring at a rapid pace in Woodside, Sunnyside, Elmhurst and Jackson Heights. Increasingly, families are finding it difficult to find affordable housing. School classrooms and community facilities are often overcrowded. A thoughtful, balanced approach to development -- one that both creates opportunity and preserves livable communities -- is a high priority for local residents.
Over the past year the Pratt Center has been working with Asian Americans for Equality, the Forest Hills Community House, and a coalition of other community groups in Northwest Queens to guide development in ways that will benefit the borough and its communities. Throughout the area, the organizations hosted community meetings and workshops at which a widely diverse set of local residents articulated their vision for the area's future. The report recommends strategies for achieving four primary goals: more affordable housing, improved access to open space, additional community facilities, and transportation infrastructure improvements.
For more information, click here.
Queens West or Manhattan East?
In October, the City of New York announced that it was buying the 24-acre "Queens West" site in Long Island City from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Queens for Affordable Housing, a coalition of community, immigrant, religious, and housing advocacy organizations, had been calling for the development of affordable housing on this site.
So the city's plan -- to develop 5,000 units of affordable housing in a mixed-income community -- was initially hailed as a victory. Queens has not generally seen its share of affordable housing programs.
However, upon further analysis, Queens for Affordable Housing and the Pratt Center discovered that all of the proposed affordable housing units would be priced out of range for more than 60% of Queens residents.
We subsequently provided data on the need for affordable housing in Queens, reviewed the Administration's proposal, and made recommendations to better reconcile the two. Queens for Affordable Housing is calling for half of the units to be affordable at below the median income for the borough, with at least 20% reserved for low-income families.
For more information, click here.
Breaking News @ The Pratt Center
South Bronx Greenway
On November 20th, Mayor Bloomberg unveiled the South Bronx Greenway Plan, which will ultimately create 1.5 miles of new waterfront greenway, 8.5 miles of new green streets, and nearly 12 acres of new waterfront open space in Hunts Point and Port Morris.
The plan represents a next-generation approach to Greenway design that emphasizes linkages between upland residential communities and industrial waterfronts. It was developed by Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects, working with the Sustainable South Bronx, the Point Community Development Corporation, the New York City Economic Development Corporation, and the Pratt Center.
The Pratt Center supports the work of these grassroots organizations to reclaim the southern Bronx River watershed as a model community characterized by environmental and economic justice.
For more information, click here.
Luxury Tax Break: Dueling 421-a Reform Bills
For too long, NYC's "421-a" property tax exemption program has unnecessarily subsidized luxury development -- wasting taxpayer dollars while creating little affordable housing and fueling gentrification. Back in February, Mayor Bloomberg announced that the City would seek to reform the program to create affordable housing and save taxpayer money.
The Mayor has now proposed legislation that addresses some of the problems with the program -- but it does not go nearly far enough. Developers would continue to receive a substantial tax break for luxury development in most neighborhoods throughout the city, including Downtown Brooklyn, Park Slope, East Harlem, Forest Hills, Flushing and Riverdale. The recommendations also fail to require any stronger affordability requirements, or address long-term preservation of affordable units.
The Pratt Center has joined with allies -- including Housing Here and Now, ACORN, Habitat for Humanity NYC, Queens Congregations United for Action and SEIU 32BJ -- to push for comprehensive reform that will create more affordable housing, offer good jobs and save taxpayer dollars. Assemblyman Vito Lopez and Councilmember Annabel Palma have introduced legislation that would require -- in all parts of the city -- that developers who receive a tax break include a more significant portion of affordable housing on-site, and that these units be permanently affordable. We hope the City will adopt this more comprehensive and aggressive approach to targeting tax subsidies to create the affordable housing we need.
For more information, click here.
Upcoming Events
- December 7th "Affordable Housing, Not Luxury Tax Breaks" Town Hall Meeting 7 PM. For more information call (718) 246-7900 ext. 250 or email [Sorry, display of this email address requires a Javascript-aware browser, in order to deter spam. Please use the general contact page instead.].
- December 9th The Brooklyn's Bounty Forum: Farms, Food & Healthy Communities, 9 AM to 3 PM with registration beginning at 8:30 AM at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 1000 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn. RSVP required, call 212-645-9880 ext 228.
- December 11th & 12th Black Church Means Business Conference, Brooklyn Museum. Call (718) 638-6397 for more information or visit www.BlackChurchMeansBusiness.com.
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Support the Pratt Center
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