City to ease regulations for some affordable developers

New York City plans to revise the regulatory process that some affordable housing developers face in a bid to shore up its stock of housing for low- and middle-income residents.

The changes would essentially end a design and architecture review that adds substantial time and costs to the development process, Capital New York reported.

While the Department of Housing Preservation and Development would conduct a short review, it will transition to a self-certification process and perform random audits.

Department commissioner Vicki Been made the announcement at an event held by the Citizens Budget Commission on Wednesday and said the agency would provide more details soon.

Been also teased a number of other changes, including a new division that will take over HPD’s analytics, planning and neighborhood outreach; a series of “experiments” based on feedback from stakeholders and a restructuring of the department’s loan programs. [Capital NY] – Tom DiChristopher