Did De Blasio count affordable-housing funding twice?

The Bill de Blasio administration claims that, in the first six months of this year, 8,700 units of affordable housing received financing. The previous administration, however, had already counted those apartments as the last installment payment affiliated with the 2005 plan to construct 165,000 affordable-housing units in the city, according to Crain’s.

Then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg vowed he would meet the goal by June 30, the end of the 2014 fiscal year.

Both administrations acknowledged that the signing of an affordability agreement and the securing of financing renders a particular housing unit eligible to be counted as part of the total.

“We wouldn’t double count,” said Alicia Glen, deputy mayor for housing and economic development, said in a news conference late last month, as cited by Crain’s. “When people talk about the prior plan, that would be all [unit starts before] Jan. 1, 2014.” [Crain’s] — Mark Maurer