From left: Prudential Douglas Elliman Chairman Howard Lorber and a Helicopter landing in East Hampton

Residents of Floral Park on Long Island have scored a victory over wealthy New Yorkers who fly helicopters over their homes towards the Hamptons on summer weekends. According to the New York Times, the Federal Aviation Administration has acquiesced to Senator Charles Schumer’s long standing push on behalf of those constituents and intends to ban helicopters from flying directly over Long Island — except in emergencies. [more]

Sen. Chuck Schumer is one of two senators introducing a bipartisan bill aimed at improving the housing market by offering an incentive to foreign buyers, the Wall Street Journal reported. He and Sen. Mike Lee of Utah want to offer residence visas to any foreigner that spends at least $500,000 on residential real estate in the United States. The measure compliments existing rules that offer visas to foreign investors that create jobs in America.

“This is a way to create more demand without costing the federal government a nickel,” Schumer said. [more]

From left: Steven Spinola, president of the REBNY; Eric Anton, executive managing director at Eastern Consolidated; Debra Shultz, managing director at Manhattan Mortgage; David Heiden, a principal at W Financial and Barry Sternlicht, chairman and CEO of Starwood Capital Group

As the debt ceiling debate nears a critical juncture in Washington D.C., real estate executives in New
York are concerned that absent a final resolution, the fragile recovery will be short circuited by a sudden
spike in interest rates.

Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, the 12,000-member trade organization,
said the industry’s main concern is the impact a debt ceiling default could have on projects financed
with tax exempt bonds.

“If there is no agreement and our credit rating goes down, what will that do to interest rates?” Spinola
said. [more]

The Obama administration has set the stage for the development of new casinos by abolishing a Bush-era directive that said Indian tribes could develop casinos off their reservations only if they were within commuting distance. Instead, the administration is reverting back to a policy that considers off-reservation casinos on a case-by-case basis.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the shift in policy is likely to breathe life back into a number of off-reservation projects around the country, including in New York’s Catskill Mountains. Tribes interested in developing casinos in the Catskills include the St. Regis Mohawks, who at one point were looking at a site attached to a racetrack in Monticello, N.Y., 350 miles away from its reservation. The Wisconsin-based Stockbridge-Munsee tribe has also sought to build a casino in the Catskills. [more]

The last of East River State Park’s summer pool party concerts is back on track for next weekend — less than a week after being cancelled over unpaid bills — after two prominent real estate families chipped in to help shoulder the costs, according to the New York Times. The Williamsburg concert series — which will showcase Delorean and Dominique Young Unique, among other yet-to-be-announced performers next Sunday — is run and promoted by Jelly NYC. The Open Space Alliance for North Brooklyn, which helps operate the park, said Jelly had paid most of the money it owed as of last weekend and that the rest came from Norman and Elaine Brodsky, partial owners of CitiStorage, and Douglaston Development, which is building apartment complex the Edge nearby. This isn’t the first glitch for the Pool Parties, which began in 2006 at the McCarren Park Pool, now under renovation. Last summer, the Open Space Alliance threatened not to renew Jelly’s contract for 2010 because of safety concerns and only relented after Senator Charles Schumer intervened. [NYT]

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From left: sex offender William Barnason, Senator Charles Schumer, and state Assembly member Micah Kellner

William Barnason, an Upper West Side superintendent and a convicted level-three sex offender who spent almost 15 years in prison for assaulting underage girls, has been ousted from his job and no longer has access to the approximately 50 apartments he once oversaw since news broke about his criminal past. But his employment termination could have further-reaching consequences. The story galvanized New York politicians like state Assembly member Micah Kellner and U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, who are pitching legislation that would bar those convicted of serious sex crimes from working as supers. Schumer pointed to the Barnason case as a main catalyst for the proposal. “The aim of our legislation is to prevent a frightening and potentially dangerous situation like this from ever happening again,” Schumer said.
[more]

Amtrak has reached a preliminary agreement to move to the Pennsylvania Station annex planned for the James A. Farley Post Office Building, officials said yesterday. The agreement, reached after lengthy negotiations, would remove one of the most significant stumbling blocks for the Moynihan Station project: Amtrak remaining in its current location. The project aims to expand Penn Station with an annex in the post office building and create a more visible entrance to the station, which is below Madison Square Garden. In exchange for moving, Amtrak will receive some of the revenue from retail stores in the expanded station, though the details of the arrangement have not yet been fully decided. The project is likely to cost $1.1 billion to $1.5 billion, Senator Charles Schumer, an advocate of the renovations, said.

Senator Charles Schumer and Bronx tenants are urging Fannie Mae not to go forward with an online auction of 19 distressed Bronx buildings and instead to try to find a buyer who will maintain the properties. Fannie Mae purchased the mortgages on the buildings, which house 520 families in the Crotona neighborhood of the Bronx, for $29 million in 2007 and had planned to auction them through DebtX, an online auction site for distressed property. The city has spent close to $1 million on emergency repairs at the buildings, according to Alexa Sewell, chief of staff at the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Fannie Mae has already agreed that the department should monitor the online bidding on the properties, but Schumer and housing advocates say there should be a more formal preservation arrangement. [more]

The Kings County Mortgage Fraud and Real Estate Crimes Unit, which was launched in March, has indicted eight people and opened more than 80 mortgage fraud cases, Senator Charles Schumer and Kings County District Attorney Charles Hynes announced today. Among those indicted, according to a press release from the District Attorney’s office, were Lyndall Ingram, who allegedly had forged powers of attorney for 239 54th Street in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, that allowed him to sell the property to an innocent buyer; Nathaniel McLeon, who allegedly posed as an attorney and pretended he had the authority to sell 542 Hancock Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn; and Leonard Fedee, who allegedly told a prospective buyer that 146-03 133rd Avenue in Jamaica, Queens, was headed into foreclosure even though it was not in foreclosure or for sale. One of the eight defendants has not yet been apprehended. TRD [more]

Senator Charles Schumer (left), City Council Speaker Christine Quinn

New York Senator Charles Schumer introduced controversial legislation
Friday that would create a federal program in which the refinancing of
over-leveraged, multi-family buildings would be based on the
apartments’ current rent roll. The bill targets buildings that are delinquent, at risk of default or
already in foreclosure, by providing refinancing capped at a level that
can be supported by the building’s income. The bill also requires that
a sufficient operating reserve be maintained in the refinanced
buildings, and would also allow the building to be transferred to
another owner, as long as the government considers the new owner
responsible. [more]