HPD Commissioner Mathew Wambua and a rendering of Coney Island Commons

The city Department of Housing Preservation and Development will now offer up apartments in its new developments to Hurricane Sandy victims who lost their homes when the storm made landfall, Crain’s reported. Those eligible must fall within each project’s income restrictions; the low- and middle-income families whose homes were damaged will now get first call for up to one quarter of the units. [more]

From left: Jonathan Rose Cos. founder Jonathan Rose, Blesso Properties founder Matt Blesso, Gold Development founder Romy Goldman, L+M Development Partners co-founder Ron Moelis and Durst Organization President Douglas Durst

Thirty-three developers submitted applications before Friday’s deadline to develop 50 so-called “micro-unit” apartments on a city owned site in Kips Bay, the Wall Street Journal reported. Applicants were expected to devise their own financial terms, including acquisition costs, the mix of affordable and market-rate units and the rent.

“The financial side is really the big challenge here,” Jerilyn Perine, executive director of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council, told the Journal. “The city didn’t dictate that many things.” [more]

Nationwide sales of new single-family homes plummeted 8.4 percent in June, according to data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Homes were sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 350,000, which remains 15.1 percent above the rate during June 2011 (see video after the jump).

This month’s dramatic decline offsets a huge increase reported in May that ballooned by an additional 3.5 percent, to 382,000, in a revised estimate released today, exacerbating the sales declines…. [more]

From left: Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn

The City Council is expected to pass a new mandate that could slap companies competing for projects with the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development with millions in extra fees, the New York Post reported.

With the mandate comes the requirement for builders to submit quarterly reports on wages of all the workers on their projects. In addition, builders must also report all project-related complaints and post them to the firm’s website for a total of five years after the job is done. Each company must also publish the names and titles of all of its employees. [more]

Lincoln Restler

The management firm behind a Williamsburg affordable complex is trying to get approval for a 19 percent rent increase, according to the New York Daily News. Kraus Management wants to up the monthly costs for about a quarter of the tenants of its 639-unit Bedford Gardens complex on Ross Street to cover renovation costs.

But it first must obtain approval from the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, because many tenants are rent subsidized. [more]

Former Architectural Salvage Warehouse at 337 Berry Street (source: PropertyShark)

A developer willing to convert a Williamsburg warehouse that once held artifacts of old New York into 50 units of affordable housing is being sought by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, according to the New York Observer. The Landmarks Preservation Commission’s warehouse fell out of use last year and its contents were auctioned off. Now, as a part of the Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan to add 165,000 units of affordable housing by August 31st, the 15,000-square-foot lot will host commercial or community space on the ground floor and 1,200 square feet of open space for future residents. [more]

Six Bedford Stuyvesant homeowners are accusing developer Delight Construction and indicted Department of Housing Preservation and Development official Wendell Waters of demanding extra cash for their city-subsidized homes, they told the Daily News, and of leaving them with subpar construction on the buildings.

The homeowners, who won a housing lottery for homes along Lexington Avenue, made their down payments in 2005, the News said, but have since run into problems related to move-in delays, requests for more money to clean up suspected contamination, and plumbing and heating malfunctions.

“Either we paid the money or we could walk away from the contract,” said Onika McLean, one of the owners…. [more]

Sharif El-Gamal and 1835 Amsterdam AvenueIf Sharif El-Gamal doesn’t show up to court Thursday, he could be sent to jail over the $63,133 his company owes the city in fines, fees and taxes for a Washington Heights property, the New York Post reported.

El-Gamal, the man behind the notorious Islamic community center in Lower Manhattan, acquired the 14-unit apartment building at 1835 Amsterdam Avenue in 2008, public records show, although the price isn’t listed. Between July 2010 and May 2011, 150 complaints about rats, roaches, lack of heat and construction debris were filed for the building. … [more]

An official in the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development responsible for the construction of affordable housing was arrested early this morning on federal racketeering conspiracy and bribery charges with six developers, two of them lawyers, the New York Times reported.

According to the charges, Wendell Walters, assistant commissioner for new construction, transformed the agency into a racketeering enterprise along with developer Stevenson Dunn.

Walters is alleged to have taken approximately $600,000 in bribes and kickbacks on about $22 million in moderately priced housing projects overseen by HPD in the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn between 2002 and 2011, officials said. Walters had played a key role in Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s $8.5 billion housing plan to preserve and build 165,000 apartments for half a million middle-class and working-class New Yorkers by 2014. … [more]

The city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development is looking for a developer to build up to 225 affordable housing units and 68,000 square feet of retail space along a vacant strip on Livonia Avenue, between Pennsylvania and Williams avenues in the East New York area of Brooklyn, Crain’s reported, issuing a request for proposals today.
The request is the first phase in what the department has dubbed the Livonia Avenue Initiative, a plan to revamp the strip.
“This retail corridor has been defunct for a long time,” said RuthAnne Visnauskas, deputy commissioner for HPD. The site’s proximity to the elevated L train line meant there was a lot of noise, which discouraged developers in the past, but building materials can keep out noise, she said…. [more]