City Limits Magazine, January 1987 Issue

January 1987
$2
T H E C R o m I N T B I V I E W DH O M E S T E A D. DR O B B I N S O N H P DS H A K E U P
E M B i G E N C Y R E P A I R B U DG E T S L A S H B J DW E S T W A Y R E P L A C E M E N T
2 CITY LIMITS January 1987
Volume XU Number 1
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City Limits (ISSN 0199-0330)
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Editor: Annette Fuentes
Associate Editor: Doug Turetsky
Editorial Assistants: Bettina Cohen,
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Contributing Editors: Peter Marcuse,
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Production: Chip Cliffe
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FROM THE EDITOR
A Community Unplanned
There must be some sort of Johnny Appleseed of mega-development
projects who travels the city, looking for likely places on which to drop
little development packages and see them sprout. It doesn't seem like
much forethought goes into how and where these projects will grow,
Sure, the city has a planning department, but apparently it just reacts
to development plans rather than carefully and selectively nurturing
their growth.
Citicorp decided that Hunters Point, Queens would be a fine place
to construct a mammoth office tower. And the Department of City Plan-
ning jumped for joy - so much so that it paved the way for two more
towers to be built in the neighborhood. But Hunters Point is a community
of small residential buildings and manufacturing plants, not the kind
of place you'd necessarily want to plunk down central-business-district-
style development. City planners abdicated their role in guiding the
city's growth to the immediate needs of a large corporation.
Community residents are caught in the middle. While it may be good
for the city to spread its central business district eastward, it's not what
many Hunters Point residents are eager to see. Their reasons are many -
from the sheer size of the project to its effects on local parking and
traffic congestion to the eventual displacement of local residents and
businesses. Some members of the community do support the project,
but they tend to be those who won't live directly in its shadow.
The city's efforts to preserve its manufacturing base are also threatened
by the Citicorp project. Having spent millions of dollars to encourage
the continued growth of the area's healthy industrial community, the
city is now endangering the kind of low-density land use that makes
the area affordable to manufacturers.
With luxury development planned for the Hunters Point waterfront,
the recent opening of the International Design Center in nearby Long
Island City and a host of other projects sprinkled throughout the area,
city planning officials should be offering a clear picture of what is
intended for the neighborhood. Even residents and businesspeople who
support the project are concerned about what the future holds for their
community.
There are certainly times when the interests of a community must be
superceded by the best interests of the city. The Department of City
Planning should serve as the fulcrum, weighing these sometimes com-
peting interests and then moving ahead with clear cut plans for the
future. But no such planning is evident in Hunters Point. A cacophony
of voices are heard, and those with the most money and clout win
out.oD.T.
Cover photo by Beverly Cheuvront
.... X.523
INSIDE
FEATURES
The Taking of Hunters Point 12
Citicorp plans to build a 42-story office tower and
city planners have rezoned two adjacent sites for
additional commercial development in this tiny
Queens neighborhood. Many residents believe their
community is being dismantled.
Homesteading: New Reforms, Old Problems 18
While some homesteaders push for additional
changes in the program, others wonder if home-
steading is draining more energy than it's worth.
DEPARTMENTS
From the Editor
A Community Unplanned .... .......... . 2
Short Term Notes
Hoboken Anti-Warehousing Law Upheld .. . 4
Court Rules on Displacement Impact ...... 4
Grading State Senators .................. 5
Homeless Veterans ... . " ... ............. . 5
Neighborhood Notes
Bronx ................................ 6
Brooklyn .... , ............... .. ....... 6
Manhattan ........ . . . ....... .. ........ 7
Queens .................. . ............ 7
People "
Talking with the Commissioner of Housing 8
Pipeline "
Crotty Shakes up HPD-and is Shaken . . . 11
City Views
Replacing West Way ........ : ...... ... . 17
Program Focus
A Chilly Future for the City's Emergency Repair
Program . .. . .. . .... . . ... .. ... . .. .. ... 21
Letters ................................. 22
Workshop . .............................. 23
January 1987 CITY liMITS 3
Hunters Point/Page 12
Chilly Future/Page 21
4 CITY LIMITS Janaury 1987
SHORT TERM NOTES
HOBOKEN ANTI-
WAREHOUSING
LAW UPHELD
A Hoboken, New Jersey low
prohibiting landlords from
keeping apartments vacant
more than 60 days has been
upheld by a federal judge after
being challenged on
constiMional grounds by a
developers group. The case was
closely watched throughout
New Jersey's Hudson County
where four other towns and
cities have passed similar
anti-warehousing laws this year
to curb the sharp decline in
affordable rental apartments.
Ten percent of Hoboken's
private-market rental
apartments will "go condo this
year alone, according to a study
prepared at the city's request by
independent planner Allan
Mallach. The study found a
close link between warehousing
and the increasingly strong
demand by investors for
buildings to convert to
condominiums. Buildings that
are empty or nearly empty are
more profitable to convert and
thus have a higher resale value.
The Hoboken ordinance,
passed in June, imposes fines of
up to $500 for each day an
apartment is vacant more than
60 days and requires landlords
to register any apartment
vacant more than 30 days.
U.S. District Court Judge
Herbert J. Stem ruled Nov. 24
that developers' charges that
the law is unconstiMional are
"without merit" and claims it
conflicts with state low must be
heard in state court.
The judge's ruling confirms
"that an ordinance which
requires a landlord to rent out
vacant units is a constitutional
exercise of a municipality's
palicy soid Ira
Karasiclc, an attorney who
represented the Campaign for
Housing Justice, a tenants group
which was a defendant in the
case.
But Roger Sauer, the attorney
for Help Hoboken Housing, the
landlord and developers" group
that broughtthe suit against the
city, argued that "enforcement
of the ordinance will cause an
end to the development of
housing in Hoboken." He added
that the widespread practice of
"tenants being bought out [from
their apartments] for not
unsubstantial sums of money"
would come to a halt.
"There is no incentive now for
a landlord to enter this kind of
negotiation with his tenant
because as soon as they are
gone another will move in/
Sauer said.
Thousands of tenants in
buildings going condo in
Hudson County have been
bought out by their landlords for
some $1,500 to $5,000. The
practice is common despite the
fact that New Jersey tenants
have no right to vote to
determine whether their
building will be converted. All
tenants except low income
seniors and the handicapped
must leave their home within five
yeors once a plan to convert the
building is registered with the
state. Some 10,000 apartments
in Hudson County will be
registered for condominium
conversion this year.
Citizens are now entitled to
file a complaint with Hoboken's
municipal court if they know of
an apartment someone wishes
to rent has been vacant more
than 60 days.OJeffrey Hoff
COURT RULES ON
DISPLACEMENT
IMPACT
A case brought before the
Court of Appeals by the Asian-
American Legal Defense and
Education Fund has resulted in
a landmark decision passed on
November 18, 1986 by Judge
Fritz W. Alexander II. Judge
Alexander's decision expands
the definition of
in Environmental Impact
Statements.
Initially part of an action to
alter plans for construction of a
high-rise condominium on the
site of what is still a parking lot
on Henry Street, in the heort of
Chinatown, the ruling is seen by
Chinatown fights luxury development:
A landmark court ruling finds (Iisplacement an environmental impact.
other community groups as
ammunition in their fights
against unequal development
that ignores low income
peoples needs.
An EIS was always required
by the city's Planning
Commission and the Board of
Estimate before appraval could
be granted for new
development. Secondary
displacement of low income
residents and local small
businesses will also be
considered now, as a result of
the Court of Appeals ruling.
Previously, the scope of
environmental impact was
limited to direct effects on land,
air, water, and noise.
The legal Defense Fund first
brought its case before the
Supreme Court three years ago
"to invalidate the Henry Street
Tower Project," says attorney
Margaret Fong, the group's
executive director. The Supreme
Court, and subsequently its
Appellate Division, ruled
against AALDEF, but, "we
continued ourfight because we
were convinced we were right
on the low," Fong explains. She
says the ruling will the city
to change procedures" in
determining what measures are
taken to study potential ripple
effects on a community.
Fort Greene, in Brooklyn, is
one neighborhood expecting to
benefit from such a change. Fort
Greene is in the path of the
proposed Atlantic
Project. The Atlantic Terminal
Project developers, Rose
Associates, were recently
owarded a $10.8 million federal
Urban Development Action
Grant. South Brooklyn legal
Services, representing the
neighborhoods low income
families and tenants'
associations, has filed a suit to
block that grant, and is
questioning the validity of the
EIS that smoothed its way.
Raun Rasmussen, an attorney
atthe Legal Services, says in the
case of Rose Associates the EIS
was "totally inadequate" "
because it provided no
evidence of how the study was
conducted. He says that now the
developers will have to "go
back to square and do an
in-depth study.
"The Chinatown suit explicitly
called for developers to provide
a reasoned elaboration,"
Rasmussen says. "Now they
have to show they really made
an effort to examine the effects
of secondary displacement, and
not just give some bogus
conclusion without any
substantial evidence to back it
up."OBeHlna Cohen
GRADING STATE
SENATORS
New York States Republican
senators get failing grades in
passing tenant related
legislation in a report recently
released by Assembly Housing
Committee Chair Pete Grannis.
According to the Grannis
survey, 85 percent of all tenant
pratection bills that were
introduced by key Republican
senators never came up for
discussion in the Senate, much
less received approval thraugh
vote.
"The bills are introduced with
great fanfare," said Grannis,
"the press releases and
constituent newsletters go out,
but finding legislation that
actually passed the Senate is
like finding a needle in a
haystack."
Appropriately enough titled
"Needle in a Haystack," the
Grannis repart card on Senate
Republicans action in activating
measures to proted their
constituents in rental housing
looks at six senators who
introduced virtually all of the
landlord-tenant bills in the
1985-86 session in Albany. They
include Senate Housing and
Community Development
Committee Chair John Daly (R-
Niagra), Senator John Flynn
(R-Westchester), Senator Roy
Goodman (R-Manhattan),
Senator Martin Knorr (R-
Queens), Senator Christopher
Mega (R-Brooklyn) and Senator
Fronk Padavan (R- Queens).
Bills considered crucial
indicators of Senate Republicans
failure to move legislation,
which are cited in the Grannis
report, include a measure to
assure the right of succession to
immediate family members
when a tenant in a rent
stabilized apartment moves or
dies; an anti-warehousing
measure; increasing penalties
for landlord harassment and
failure to provide heat; and a
proposal to base rent increases
on actual owner income and
expenditures obtained from '
accounting records.
"Needle in a Haystack" not
only points to the failure of these
Senators to guide their bills
through to approval, but also
finds that the very process bills
must go through in the Senate
makes it difficult to attain
approval. "In the Assembly, any
bill introduced by a member
must be considered and voted
on by a standing committee if its
sponsor so requests ... the
Senate operates quite
differently. Bills are voted on or
not, depending on the unilateral
decision of the leadership or
committee chairperson,"
according to the report.
Said Grannis, ''You have
heard ofthe Tarzan myth of the
'elephant's graveyard' where
old elephants go to die. Well,
the Senate Majority has a
graveyard too, and it is littered
with the banes of their own
good and reasonable bills to
solve the everyday problems
tenants face."DA.F
HOMELESS
VETERANS
If you pass ten homeless men
on the street, chances are that
at least three of them have
served in the United States
military, according to findings of
the City Council's Select
Committee on the Homeless in
November. Various groups
estimate that as manyas 15,000
homeless veterans wander the
streets of New York. The Vietnam
Veterans of America believes
that at least 50 percent of these
men served in Vietnam.
Veterans are subject to a
number of factors that increase
their chances of becoming
homeless. They have higher
rates of unemployment than
non-veterans and many suffer
from Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder (PTSD), what used to
be called shell shock or battle
fatigue. But unlike World War I,
World War II, or Korean War
veterans, those who fought in
Vietnam were not welcomed
home and most came back
alone without their units. This
contributed to many veterans
going underground to forget
January 1987 CITY LIMITS 5
Home from the war?:
As many as J5,OOO home'ess Vietnam vets wander the city's streets.
and bury their war time
experiences. ''They were unable
to open up and years later it hit
them in the form of anxiety,
depression and self medication
with drugs and alcohol," said
Brian Matchett, director of the
Massachusetts Homeless
Veteran Program.
In 1979 the Veterans
Administration sponsored a
study on the readjustment of
Vietnam veterans. Known as the
Legacy Study, it revealed that at
least 850,000 Vietnam veterans
would need some form of
readjustment counseling. To
date, a little more than half that
number have sought help
through 200 storefront Vet
Centers set up especially for
Vietnam veterans. Less than a
year from now, these centers
will begin closing. Their activities
will be relocated to the nation's
VA hospitals, essentially
defeating the purpose of the
centers, which was to reach out
to veterans - especially many
Vietnam vets - who are wary
of the VA hospital system.
This move by the VA has
alarmed the Vietnam Veterans
of America (WA), which argues
there has already been a 40
percent reduction in the number
of outreach counselors. ''You're
really talking about chump
change. The Vet Centers are less
than 50/1,000 of 1 percent of
the Vl<s Department of
Medicine and Surgery budget.
Vietnam Veterans get very little
from the slice of the pie at a time
when they're cutting back on
other forms of outreach," said
Richard Weidman, director of
government relations for the
WA.
The VA operates 16 national
shelters for destitute veterans
but the closest one to New York
City is 250 miles away. These
shelters care for an average of
8,000 veterans daily. Federal
money supports the construction
of state veterans homes and
pays for some private homes to
administer community
residential care programs.
While advocates say this is not
enough, Bonner Day of the
Veterans Administration in
Washington D.C. says his
agency is helping the homeless
veteran. "Just because they're
homeless doesn't mean we're
not treating them. We have
established liaison throughout
the country with local homeless
groups so that VA people are
contacting these groups to find
out which homeless are
veterans and taking care of
them," said Day.
But an official at the Brooklyn
VA Medical Center concedes
the Graham, Rudman, Hollings
balanced budget law and the
prevailing climate in
Washington, D.C. is producing
severe VA staff cutbacks that will .
continue to limit outreach
services to the veterans who
need the most help.DAndy
Lanset
~ h e Bronx
Don't Demolish, Rebuild!
With that as their battle cry, a coal-
ition of some 50 churches and com-
munity organizations held a rally De-
cember 18 outside the Bronx County
Hall to call for the end to wasteful
building demolition and a productive
program of rehabilitation.
Spearheaded by the South Bronx
People for Change, the rally also
served as the public unveiling of a
new housing program for the South
Bronx. The plan has been endorsed
by the Coalition for thp. Homeless, the
Union of City Tenants and the Associ-
ation for Neighborhood and Housing
Development and it counters the
mayor's plan to stick two barrack-
style shelters in the Bronx. The alter-
native plan is a three-point proposal
encompassing 1,100 vacant, city-
owned residential buildings in Com-
munity Boards 1 and 6. It was formu-
lated in response to a wave of demol-
itions that just last summer vaporized
200 vacant buildings in the communi-
ty.
The coalition's plan calls for a one
year moratorium on further demoli-
tions, a financial and programatic
commitment by the city to rehab vac-
ant buildings for low and moderate
income families over the next five
years and an initial commitment to
rehab 25 buildings right away. The
rationale behind the coalition's pro-
posal is that the city's vacant build-
ings are an invaluable resource and
rehabbed, would be much cheaper
than building new housing in the
South Bronx. Demolishing those
buildings without replacing them is
not a housing program, say the coali-
tion organizers.
The coalition is now recruiting
community residents to join their ef-
fort to get the city to invest in the
South Bronx and build for low and
moderate income people. Financing
for their plan, the initial phase of
which would cost $45 million, could
be found in the city's capital budget
and monies from the Battery Park
City project that has been earmarked
by the state for low and moderate in-
come housing.
The Bumpurs Case
Two years after Eleanor Bumpurs
was killed by a city policeman during
an attempted eviction from her
SedgWick Houses apartment, the offi-
cer, Stephen Sullivan, has been or-
dered to stand trial for the crime. In
November, an appeals court reversed
an earlier decision by a grand jury
not to indict Sullivan in a 6-1 ruling
that determined enough evidence
exists to try him on the charge of man-
slaughter.
The Eleanor Bumpurs Justice Com-
mittee organized a demonstration at
Bronx Court House December 16 to
press for a speedy trial and firm ac-
tion by Bronx District Attorney Mario
Merola. Judge Eggert has been as-
signed to hear the trial but no date
had been set as of presstime. The
Committee is also calling on Police
Commissioner Ward to suspend Sulli-
van, who is still on active duty, with-
out pay until the completion of the
trial.OA.F.
Brooklyn
Luxury Housing for Crown
Heights?
The city announced awards three
weeks ago of development sites in the
Crown Heights neighborhood and
community developers are fuming.
"The city did everything to maintain
economic segregation," says Jasmin
Raffington, head of Crown Heights
Neighborhood Association. Her
group, in partnership with Phipps
Houses, the Urban Coalition and En-
terprise Foundation, sent in a Request
for Proposals seeking to develop for
affordable housing all of the 500 units
of housing being offered by the city.
But instead they got just 140 units in
what are among the most dilapidated
buildings.
Raffington says that HPD officials
made it clear that "groups that were
trying to do other than luxury hous-
ing would be turned down." The RFP
was first announced one year ago and
the Association was skeptical of
HPD's intent from the beginning be-
cause buildings west of Washington
Avenue were earmarked for market
rate development. Those designated
for low income housing were in the
worst shape, says Raffington, who de-
scribed one on Bedford Ave. that was
a mere facade, no back at all.
"We're not going to accept those
sites," states Raffington, "we're plan-
ning to mount a legal response be-
cause efforts to negotiate with the city
have met with a stalemate."
Atlantic Terminal Suits
Legal challenges are also on the
agenda of the community coalition
trying to change and scale down the
monster Atlantic Terminal develop-
ment. ATURA has filed suit in federal
court claiming that the Fair Housing
Act of 1968 is being violated by the
expenditure of Urban Development
Action Grant monies for the Terminal
project. Because there was no study
done of the secondary displacement
of low income residents that will be
triggered by the development, attor-
ney Raun Rasmussen says the federal
Housing and Urban Development
agency could not realistically have
made an informed decision on what
impact the UDAG monies will have
in the area.
Another legal attack will focus on
the environmental impact of the pro-
ject on the area, using the federal
Clean Air Act. The Environmental Im-
pact Statement done for the project
revealed several "hot spots" of air pol-
lution. The strategy of the ATURA co-
alition, according to spokesperson
Ted Glick, will be two-pronged:
"legal action to give us leverage in
the housing area, and scaling down
the size of the project." He feels hope-
ful that the coalition can significantly
change the project for the better and
points to a court victory by
Chinatown community groups that
halted a luxury housing project be-
cause it did not include low income
housing.DA.F.
r
Manhattan
City as Slumlord
In what may weH be a precedent-
setting decision, Manhattan Housing
Court Judge Lewis Friedman ap-
pointed a 7a administrator in two
city-owned, centrally-managed
buildings. Tenants of 2094 Amster-
dam Avenue and 250 Manhattan Av-
enue initiated the action due to what
Judge Friedman characterized as "the
lack of consistent, adequate hot
water, the presence of rodents and
roaches, leaks from ceilings, broken
doorways and a myriad of unrepaired
conditions. "
Vested by the city for back taxes,
2094 Amsterdam Avenue has been
managed by the Department of Hous-
ing Preservation and Development for
one year, 250 Manhattan Avenue for
six years. Judge Friedman deter-
mined that the city's assertion that
the properties were "no worse" than
other "newly vested" buildings to be
contrary to public policy and and in-
consistent with the facts. If these
buildings were similar to others
owned by the city, Friedman charged
"the management or more precisely
mismanagement and neglect in these
cases may also be typical."
Friedman contended that it was
"outrageous and an affront to a sense
of human dignity that the city be-
lieved the buildings to be in accept-
able condition." The city had argued
that some repairs had been made and
that HPD had been prepared to au-
thorize $6,000 per unit to upgrade the
the buildings and remove dangerous
conditions. In his decision, however,
Friedman stated that "good inten-
tions" were not a satisfactory defense
against the appointment of a 7a ad-
ministrator.
HPD was determined to be as culp-
able for maintenance and building re-
pair as a private owner. If the city
allows a building to become a slum
" [it] should be treated in the same
manner it treats other slumlords," de-
clared Friedman. In his conclusion,
the Judge wrote that the city's tenants
were "essentially homeless even
though they have a roof and four
walls."
The judge's ruling reasserts fWD's
dual role in enforcing housing
maintenance standards and provid-
ing services under its Central Man-
agement Program for in rem build-
ings. Likewise, HPD is not exempt
from penalty for its failure to meet
maintnenance standard. The broader
implications of the decision on pre-
venting homelessness and the dispos-
ition of city-owned buildings in
neighborhoods throughout the city
remains to be seen.OMary Breen
Queens
Hotel Life
flomeless families residing in 15
hotels in Queens have strong advo-
cates in the Queens Coalition for the
Homeless. Residents in the Queens
hotels-the ones with the largest
populations include the Travelers
Inn, the Mets Motor Inn, Lincoln
Court and the Jamaica Arms-have
all the problems of hotel residents in
Brooklyn and Manhattan with a few
extras added in. Because the home-
less population in Queens hotels is
smaller and more spread out and the
borough generally lacks social ser-
vices, these homeless families have
fewer support programs available to
them. Transportation is a problem
when those services and programs
that do exist are not close to the
hotels. There is also the perception
among some residents that the home-
less in Queens don't come from the
borough so "they're not our prob-
lem."
The Northwest Queens Task Force
on the Homeless, part of the Queens
Coalition, has been addressing the
problem of services by coordinating
a group to provide help for residents
of nOrthwest Queens hotels. This
group spent several sessions during
the summer identifying program
needs in their area hotels and began
working on filling the most serious
gaps.
Members of the groups providing
services soon realized that sharing
concerns and pooling resources
would enable them to provide more
and improved services. The South!
Central Queens Task Force for the
Homeless is focusing some of its ef-
forts on affecting policy issues.
They're meeting with Queens legis-
lators to discuss conditions in the
hotels and the need for more services
for families, development of perma-
nent low income housing and home-
lesssness prevention strategies. Mem-
bers of the task force have studied the
recommendations of other housing
advocate groups, met with Queens
Borough President Claire Shulman
and presented a legislative agenda to
borough lawmakers at a meeting held
December 17 at York College.
Housing Court Info
Preventing homelessness is a con-
cern of the Queens Task Force on
Housing Court, too. The task force,
which coordinates the Information
Table at Queens Housing Court, is
sponsoring a training session for or-
ganizers and volunteers on January
26. Among the topics that will be dis-
cussed are illegal evictions, motions
for counsel and the how-to's of staf-
fing an information table. Interested
organizers in Queens should contact
Ann McHugh at the Forest Hills Com-
munity House for more details. The
task force is also considering a
borough-wide conference on Hous-
ing Court to be held sometime in
early spring.oIrma Rodriguez
THE
NEIGHBORHOOD
WORKS ...
a monthly infonnation service
covering:
hoUSing
eO<lperatlves
energy conservation
economic polley
recycling
communily development
energy policy
_ $18 for a one year subscnption
__ $2 for sample copy and most recent inde.
SE/OIO FOR FREE BROCHURE.
NAME _ ______________________ _
ORGANIZA nON
A D D R ~ ____________________ ___
CITY STATE. ZIP __________________ _
PHONE ( I __________________ _
PEOPLE
Talking Vtfith
the COn1n1issioner
of Housing
When Paul Crotty was asked by
Mayor Koch to head the city's Depart-
ment of Housing Preservation and
Development back in Apri11986, the
former finance department head ad-
mits he was surprised. But after
thinking it over for 24 hours, Crotty
agreed to take the new post. He brings
a wealth of expertise in tax policy
and balancing budgets but not so
much experience in housing de-
velopment and the many nuances of
maintaining New York's sizable
stock of residential units. With Crotty
in control, the emphasis at HPD
clearly is on the economics of hous-
ing production in keeping with
Mayor Koch's many pronounce-
ments about new housing creation ef-
forts. Crotty himself sees his main
role as implementing the $4.2 billion
new and rehabilitated housing prog-
ram Koch announced a year ago. He
spoke with City Limits about his
plans for the city's housing agency
and how he will attempt to meet the
challenge of providing for the grow-
ing housing needs of the city.
CL: If it was up to you, what federal
programs would you like to see re-
stored in New Y o r ~ City?
PC: Section 8 produced tremendous
amounts of housing for those who
needed it. We just do not have the
resource base that the federal govern-
ment has. They were subsidizing not
only construction, but the rent stream
of the apartments. We can't do that.
We can subsidize new construction,
we can put in money in terms of long
term low interest loans. But we do
not have the money to continue to
provide an operating subsidy for
these buildings.
CL: How will the Mayor's $4.2 billon
plan take root?
PC: You're probably seeing a lot take
root now because there's a certain
component of the program which just
reflects a continuation of effort, with
the loss of CD (federal Community
Development) dollars, what we've
done is replace those CD dollars with
capital dollars. That allows us to con-
tinue to make loans through PLP (Par-
ticipation Loan Program), grants for
the (New York City) Partnership, the
Nehemiah. We have a very active
program for the improvement of in
rem stock which we're now funding
out of capital dollars that used to be
funded by CD money.
CL: How far will that go towards eas-
ing the city's housing crisis?
PC: We're supposed to effect 252,000
units of housing over a 10 year
period. According to the statistics
I've seen ... that addresses just a half
of the need and perhaps a third of
the need going into the 90's and the
year 2000.
CL: We understand there's a Request
for Proposals out dealing with vacant
city-owned buildings. What kind of
housing will that call for?
PC: It's not out because it involves a
committment of a substantial level of
expenditures per unit. The plan calls
for disposing of these buildings for a
dollar and putting a substantial block
of funds generally of $30-40,000 per
unit, and then getting the Community
Preservation Corp. to lend the ba-
lance. There'd be long term tax
exemption for these buildings and
we're going to do it in neighborhoods
that would support rents in the area
of $450-650 a month and this housing
generally would be affordable to
people earning less than $25,000 a
year.
CL: Where will this program be fo-
cused?
PC: It's targeted in three places: South
Bronx, Central Harlem and Central
Brooklyn, where we have the major-
ity of the vacant buildings.
CL: How many units will this encom-
pass?
PC: About 3,800 units so that would
be roughly 175-180 houses. We have
to make sure that our engineering
costs are right, we want to have the
rehab costs no more than $60,000 and
the area is strong enough we'll have
private sector involvement.
CL: In the Manhattan neighborhood
of Clinton, tenants are trying to buy
apartments for $250 in the Tenant In-
terim Lease Program. Do you know
what is happening?
PC: I'm not particularly familiar with
that one in Clinton, but I know we've
sold them on the Lower East Side and
on 14th street for $250 a unit, I mean
if they're in the program.
CL: So you like the program?
PC: Not withstanding the high market
forces, I am not in favor of taking a
building like that and auctioning it
off to some developer who would try
to get people out so he could convert
it. .
CL: The New York City Partnership
has had problems with their con-
struction - only some 500 of their
units are occupied. Do you think
their experience undermines the idea
that the private sector can always per-
form better than nonprofit develop-
ers?
PC: I don't know any nonprofit de-
velopers with a comparable track re-
cord.
CL: Well, you could look at the
private sector doesn't want to build
for people like this and the not-for-
profits do. .
Nehemiah project and consider that CL: What HPD programs do you think
a nonprofit development. are effective?
pc: When we make clear sites avail-
able anybody can build. Nehemiah is
not really nonprofit, because they
have 1.0.. Robbins in there, a very pro-
fessional developer who has a long
and distinguished record of de-
velopement. And Nehemiah had the
wisdom to associate itself with a guy
who does make a profit. Not-for-
profits ... don't necessarily have the
greatest skills that are needed for the
financing and development work.
We're trying to work with LISC (Local
Initiatives Support Corp.) and the
New Enterprise Foundation, the so-
called intermediaries who have the
skill and can work with the not-for-
profits. Not-for-profits are not quite
as successful as we would like.
CL: What do you think are the
strengths of nonprofit housing de-
velopers?
PC: Their strong community involve-
ments. These are groups that stayed
in some terribly devestated com-
munities and have provided a con-
tinuing focus for communities and I
think they're terribly important in
terms of neighborhood preservation.
Not all not-for-profits come to the
table with the same credentials.
CL: Not all private developers have
uniformly good records either,
though.
PC: Whether it's private or not-for-
profit, these are very thinly financed
deals and your costs have to be right
here given this level of subsidy so
you can afford to rent it or sell it to
a particular income target and if you
miss by a litle bit everything goes
haywire. And the sites we're dispos-
ing are not the best sites in New York
City. So when you say to a developer
you have to sell to this kind of income
group . .. and he's not able to do it
because his costs have gone up, then
you're bound to have problems. And
I think the private sector in general
has a better track record at this than
the not-for-profits. Conversely, the
PC: I think DAMP (Division of Alter-
native Management Programs) prog-
rams in general are effective and our
Participating Loan and 8a programs
were very effective in their times. I
think the Nehemiah has created a lot
of housing, except I'd like the units
to be a little bigger than they are. And
I have great hopes for this new vacant
building plan.
CL: What do you think of the
shopsteading program? Do you think
it works?
PC: No, I don't. The concept of having
a small business man taking over a
building because he wanted to run a
flower shop or a grocery store and be
capable as a developer to do the 4 or
5 stories above him is probably not
an idea that works. We have to figure
the best way to make sure we get re-
development of shops and get hous-
ing on top of the shops.
CL: What about the auction program?
It has a 30-50 percent default rate.
PC: There is a high default rate. I
don't think it's as high as 50 percent.
I don't quarrel with 30 percent. I like
the auction program becal,se it al-
lows buildings to start moving and
lets the market find its own way. We
started offering this training program,
what you should know before you
buy a house ... and we find from the
surveys we've taken that not many
people have taken our course and
many people who bid on our houses
haven't even visited the house to
know what kind of money they're
going to have to spend to get the unit
rehabilitated. So we're thinking of
imposing some training require-
ments before you can bid or some
kind of certification that you under-
stand certain things.
CL: What do you think of sweat-
equity programs?
PC: Sweat equity takes far too long.
It can work in certain situations. If
you're truly concerned about hous-
ing, you have to move to a production
program that has more scale to it. And
that's what I'm hoping for with the
vacant building treatment plan.
CL: What about the Homesteading
Program - would you expand it?
PC: No, I don't think so. We put out
an RFP not long ago for some homes-
teading sites and it's popular in cer-
tain areas of Manhattan but not at all
popular in Brooklyn or the Bronx. If
we could develop a market for it in
other places, I wouldn't mind trying
it. But in East New York and the
Lower East Side there are better ways
of dealing with maintaining the
neighborhoods and providing low
and moderate income housing.
CL: What is HPD's repsonsibility re-
garding displaced tenants?
PC: We are ~ e t with charges that in
out 8a and PLP programs we displace
people because we do restructure
rents. But none of the groups that
make that claim have ever been able
to substantiate that claim that people
have been displaced by our prog-
rams.
CL: Do you think displacement is a
trend?
PC: Depends on the neighborhood
you look at. If you look at people en-
tering the homeless system, most ...
are being displaced in Harlem, the
South Bronx and Central Brooklyn
and from so-called gentrifying
neighborhoods. What you're really
dealing with here is social problems
almost equal to the problems con-
fronting housing alone. Social prob-
lems plus housing problems make it
very difficult to deal with.
CL: You mention market forces fre-
quently. How do you put a rein on
those?
CL: I've tried. Given the cost of con-
struction and reconstruction, the pri-
vate sector is not going to participate
because 50 percent of households in
the city make less than $15,000 a year
and ... they can't make any money.
We are trying to produce housing for
that end. I have a sense that some of
the homelessness is caused because
people with moderate incomes, in
the $15-30,000 range who can afford
rents $550, $650, $700 are displacing
people who can't afford that. I wish
somebody would tell me how you
stop market forces from operating in
that kind of environment.
CL: Will you consider inclusionary
zoning or trust funds like in San Fran-
cisco or Boston?
pc: We've been looking at inclusio-
nary zoning. In (those cities) it's a
different dynamic and the tributes
they exact are not of the scale or size
that would help ameliorate our situ-
ation. They don't produce the kind
of dollars in terms of housing needs.
CL: In Jersey City, they ask develop-
ers to allocate a percentage of resi-
dential units to low income people.
What do you think of that?
PC: I'm not adverse to that at all. I'd
like to see us have more of the cross-
subsidy programs which is another
way of saying inclusionary zoning -
and you have that on the Lower East
Side and Williamsburg - where
what ever monies you capture fro"m
sale of c i t ~ , buildings and city lots
goes into a program that's used to pro-
duce low income housing.
CL: How would Y9U improve HPD's
building code enforcement efforts?
We recently learned that the city col-
lects only 10 percent of all fines
levied against landlords.
PC: The enforcement effort is there.
It's the ajudication mechanism that's
substantially lacking because we
don't have any way of clearing these
violations. We're asking for an ad-
ministrative tribunal to take care of
the A and B code violations leaving
the C's for housing court. But you
know its all a question of priorities.
We have an awful lot of judges
(who've been) removed from housing
and put over to drugs.
CL: The mayor recently asked for
$100 million for homeless shelters.
Does that indicate to you that money
is there for low income housing and
there's been a lack of political moti-
vation to push ahead?
pc: I don't think so. Most people are
unaware of what the city has ac-
complished with providing housing
for homeless people ... that we have
produced 7,BOO units of homeless
housing during the same time the
population in our shelters and wel-
fare hotels has gone from 2,500 to
4,500. If you go out and work in the
communities where we have lots of
occupied in rem buildings and re-
habilitate them and install homeless
families , the communities ob-
ject . .. very vociferously and I think
the people that stay there should be
rewarded for staying there. They
don't care too much for homeless
families.
CL: But if it's hard for the city to
finance permanent low income hous-
ing, isn't it a contradiction to take
that money and put it into barrack
style shelters?
PC: I don't think it is. I think you
have to do both. Before your active
rehabilitation programs are in place
so you can start producing units in
the volume necessary to address this
problem, you're going to have to do
something with these transitional
facilities.
CL: Some people feel the city's plan
for residents of SRO hotels - remov-
ing them to replacement housing in
outer borough neighborhoods - will
only ghettoize a marginal population
and encourage a segregated city.
What do you think?
pc: I think a lot of the pressure you
get on the Upper West Side to keep
SRO units in place is an anti -develop-
ment reaction and they know if
they're successful in making sure
SRO's are replaced within the
neighborhood, you're going to retard
development. That's the motivation
for some of the argument.
I believe in economic integration
wherever it is possible. When you
talk to advocates in those com-
munities, they want to maintain
those neighborhoods only for low in-
come people. If there's going to be
integration of neighborhoods, there
has to be a mix. Nothing would help
Harlem more than having some
people who have earning power up
there. That would lend a commercial
stability to the neighborhood.
CL: But how do you make sure the
integration doesn't tip all the way to
the other, affluent side?
pc: You have to have lending prog-
rams where the loans you make are
to provide housing resources for low
and moderate income New Yorkers
because there are other sites that the
market will take care of.D
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PIPELINE
Crotty Shakes Up HPD - and ;s Shaken
BY TOM ROBBINS
WHEN PAUL CROTTY WAS
handed the reins of the city's depart-
ment of Housing Preservation and De-
velopment more than eight months
ago, the number one item on City
Hall's agenda was a quick start-up for
the mayor's la-year $4.2 billion hous-
ing program. Since that time, the
agency's 100 Gold Street headquar-
ters has seen two major shakeups, the
first by Crotty himself as he sought
to bring his own people into key
agency positions, and the second by
City Hall which was concerned by
the slow pace of development.
Although the most recent changes,
which made a veteran department
official the first top deputy commis-
sioner the agency has had, are sup-
posed to be the last, insiders expect
other major departures and appoint-
ments before the dust has settled.
Crotty replaced Anthony Gliedman
who had served for over six years as
housing commissioner and left to
join the staff of Donald Trump. Crotty,
a Koch administration veteran who
had earned high marks as a budget
analyst, was brought on after a
number of private sector developers
declined the mayor's offer of the post.
Crotty's first major appointment
was Mark Willis, who had served
with him at the finance department,
as Deputy Commissioner for Develop-
ment. Nominally the second in com-
mand at the agency, Willis's influence
has declined since the appointment
last month of Felice Michetti to a new
position as First Deputy for Policy,
Planning and Production.
According to administration offi-
cials, City Hall was increasingly con-
cerned that Crotty and Willis's lack
of housing experience was slowing
down the first phase of the mayor's
housing program. Michetti, a former
loan coordinator in the Bronx and
most recently, head of the city's in
rem management programs, is to pro-
vide the missing housing expertise at
the top of the HPD command struc-
ture. All other Deputy Commission-
ers will now report to Michetti.
Within the development unit, a sig-
nificant reorganization . has been
made, with three new assistant com-
missioners appointed. Severql cur-
rent HPD aides have changed chairs
and a number of new officials brought
in. Two new posts have been carved
out of the old Community Develop-
ment and Neighborhood Preservation
office.
Dena Spillman, formerly a vice
president for development of a
Florida real estate firm, will head the
newly created Production and Plan-
ning unit. Spillman will oversee de-
velopment plans in each borough as
well as coordination of the New
Homes program, which includes the
New York City Housing Partnership's
efforts and the city's Section 235 de-
velopments. Another ex-private sec-
tor worker, Meredith Kane, who was
an attorney with the prominent city
firm of Paul , Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton
and Garrison, directs the agency's
homeownership programs.
The other new unit will be headed
by Elliot Yablon, who earned high
marks for his directorship of the
Bushwick Neighborhood Preserva-
tion Office. Yablon is the new chief
of Neighborhood Pres.ervation Ser-
vices, which will oversee the 12
neighborhood preservation units
around the city that shape local de-
velopment plans, in addition to
citywide community programs and
the neighborhood resources office.
Directing the neighborhood preserva-
tion offices is Kathleen Dunn who ran
the Washington Heights office previ-
ously.
To direct the agency's major loan
and tax programs, Crotty reached out
to a major nonprofit housing rehabili-
tation group to hire Jefferson Armis-
tead, formerly head of the federally-
funded Neighborhood Housing Ser-
vices of New York. Armistead is the
new Assistant Commissioner for Fi-
nancial Services. That unit was for-
merly the Division of Rehabilitation.
Armistead will oversee administra-
tion of the city's tax exemption prog-
rams, as well as the loan programs
for large multi-family buildings,
using Partici pation Loans and small
homes. Marc Jahr, who formerly
worked under Armistead at Neighbor-
hood Housing Services, will direct
the loan programs for multi-family
buildings. Rose Browne, an HPD vet-
eran, continues to head up the small
buildings programs.
In other areas of HPD, Ken Lowens-
tein has been named both General
Counsel and head of Inter-Gov-
ernmental Relations and Policy. Low-
enstein has played an increasingly
prominent role at the agency, assist-
ing Crotty in legislative negotiations
in the City Council. Another Crotty
casualty is Robert Trobe, who was
brought over from the city's Human
Resources Administration shortly be-
fore Gliedman's departure to manage
policy considerations. Trobe has
made another inter-government shift,
this time to the department of En-
vironmental Protection.
With Michetti's elevation to first de-
puty, Robert Moncrief, who previ-
ously had overall responsibility for
those in rem buildings the city man-
ages itself, has been made acting de-
puty in charge of property manage-
ment. While other directors within
the in rem office remain unchanged,
Crotty has engineered a swap be-
tween property management and the
development office. The office of
housing supervision, which, under
the longtime directorship of Ruth
Lerner, is charged with monitoring
city-sponsored Mitchell-Lama pro-
jects, has been shipped wholesale to
the Office of Property Manage-
ment. At the same time, the in rem
sales unit under Lori Fierstein, which
has long coordinated its auctions of
small buildings closer with the de-
velopment office than the manage-
ment unit, will now be located there
in name as well as fact.O
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FEATURE
C
iticorp's plan to build a 42-story
office tower in the tiny community
of Hunters Point, Queens has led to a
clash between local concerns, borough
interests and city goals. The neighbor-
hood of small homes and factories will
never be the same.
BY DOUG TURETSKY
W
hen Arthur Nathanson first
heard of the plan to build a
42-story tower in Hunters
Point, Queens he says it made him
think of the film "2001: A Space Odys-
sey." He recalled the opening scene
where a huge monolith comes hurtl-
ing down on the savages below. The
green glass tower Citicorp plans to
erect in the midst of this community
of two-and three-story homes and
manufacturing plants gives Nathan-
son a similar sense of omnipotent
forces unleashed.
Nathanson can hardly be charac-
terized as naive. The owner of a local
industrial supply company and vice
president of the Hunters Point Com-
munity Development Corporation, he
has long been aware that major de-
velopment was in store for the com-
munity. Located just one subway stop
from midtown Manhattan, the com-
munity is a study in contrasts.
Walk down Vernon Boulevard with
its small family-owned, brick-faced
stores and the steeple of St. Mary's
rising in the background and you feel
as if you're in a small town, like
you've walked into a classic Edward
Hopper painting. But look to the west
and the corporate towers of midtown
rise extravagantly, commanding your
attention with their shimmering glass
and steel frames. Just a few hundred
feet of East River water separate these
two scenes, a boundary which even-
tually became the fulcrum for change
in Hunters Point. The announcement
in 1983 by the Port Authority of New
York and New Jersey of its plans for
major waterfront development along
a 97-acre site in Hunters Point
heralded a new era for this tiny com-
munity of 5,200 residents.
No matter who you talk to in Hun-
ters Point they'll tell you how unique
it is. A close-knit community where
newcomers are not always readily ac-
cepted, the neighborhood has re-
mained until recently something of a
refuge. Many, like Judy Jackson-
Wiener who moved to Hunters Point
from Tennessee 16 years ago, find it
remarkable that a place with such
small-town sensibilities can exist
within New York City. For manufac-
turing companies - an endangered
species in the city - Hunters Point
has also been a haven. Along with
Sal Saraceno at the Citicorp site: "City planning is shameless in its
neighboring Long Island City the area
comprises what is probably the heal-
thiest industrial community in the
city.
Many of the conditions that give
Hunters Point its special character
are what also make it ripe for the
Citicorp plan. Land is relatively
cheap and the community inexperi-
enced in confronting major develop-
ment plans. When a huge corporation
moves to a small town - in this case
the largest banking giant in the
world - it invariably alters the com-
munity, often pitting neighbor
against neighbor in a battle where
some are eager to preserve what cur-
rently exists while others look at the
impending changes with an eye to-
wards personal profit. For Hunters
Point the drama is even more com-
plex because it is not an entity within
itself but rather a single neighbor-
hood that is part of several broader
weaves: a community board, the
borough of Queens, and the City of
New York.
City Goals
City officials have made no secret
of their desire to see office develop-
ment spread from Manhattan to the
outer boroughs. John Maloney, a
Citicorp spokesperson, acknow-
ledges that the financial conglomer-
ate was well aware of the city's eager-
ness to see development spread from
Manhattan's central business district
to Queens. A similar pattern of decen-
tralization had already begun with
Wall Street corporations spreading
into downtown Brooklyn. So when
Citicorp executives first approached
Kenneth Lipper, former deputy
mayor for economic development,
they knew they were proposing a plan
to a very receptive audience.
Citicorp had found a large parking
lot, the site of the long-since de-
molished St. John's Hospital,
bounded by Jackson Avenue and 23rd
Street. One subway stop away from
Citicorp Center on Lexington Av-
enue, the site offered easy accessabil-
ity as well as a location bordering the
Hunters Point Historic District -just
one of two such landmark districts
in the borough. But more impor-
tantly, it was a parcel of land easily
assembled for large-scale develop-
ment.
What. pleased city officials even
more was that Citicorp was not talk-
ing about constructing back office
space - from the outset the plan cal-
led for relocating many of their execu-
tives to Hunters Point. There was just
one catch. The size of the bUilding
was so immense - the tallest struc-
ture outside of Manhattan between
Boston and Baltimore -that Citicorp
needed special zoning waivers.
In 1981 the Department of City
Planning created the Special Hunters
Point Mixed Use District to protect
and encourage the growth of the resi-
dential section of the community.
The new zoning regulation also
sought to protect the community's
manufacturing base, limiting the con-
version of properties for commercial
uses. Despite these measures Citicorp
would have had as-of-right develop-
ment on the vacant lot if not for the
size of the project. With over one mill-
ion square feet of office space plus
lobby, two stories of mechanical
space and five-story annex, the com-
plex is gargantuan even by mid-Man-
hattan standards.
"It is because they needed a height
and setback waiver we had to look at
the building," explains Syrette Dym,
a Queens project manager for the De-
partment of City Planning. This
meant opening uj) the project to com-
munity review through the Uniform
Land Use Review Procedure.
While spelling potential delays for
Citicorp in getting the project going,
development of the 42-story building
promised huge savings to the corpora-
tion. By moving many of their execu-
tives to Hunters Point, Citicorp could
rent out a good portion of their prime
midtown buildings and still have
enough space in the new tower to rent
half of it. In addition, nearly half the
cost of constructing the office tower
(estimated to be between $.300-$350
million)will be covered by Industrial
and Commerical Incentive Program
tax abatements. Citicorp executives
saw Hunters Point as a lucrative real-
estate opportunity.
The Department of City Planning
saw a different kind of opportunity
in the Citicorp plan - a chance to
send a message that Queens is ripe
for commercial development. As Real
Estate Weekly declared this past July,
"By approving the Citicorp office
tower, the City Planning Commission
is sending a clear land use policy sig-
nal that it favors the establishment of
a new high-density office develop-
ment district in the immediatevicin-
ity of the site."
City planners chose to rezone not
just the Citicorp site, but to make two
neighboring sites available for office
towers as well. The planners logic
hinged on the confluence of three
subway lines - the E and F, G and
#7 - around the sites. In order to
build, developers would have to make
subway connections.
"From a planning point of view we
thought it would make.sense because
of the three subway lines," says Peter
Magnani, director of planning for
Queens until July 1986, when he be-
came deputy borough president. "It
was an opportunity to develop an
office core in Long Island City and
improve subway connections." Adds
Syrette Dym, '''The three blocks were
done basically as a comprehensive
planning approach." But some view
the planning as anything but com-
prehensive.
Spot Zoning
Many Hunters Point residents are
disturbed by the way city planners
carved a chunk out of the special
mixed use district. Roger Hart, a pro-
fessor of evironmental psychology at
the City University of New York
Graduate Center and eight-year resi-
dent of Hunters Point declares,
"Urban design students would have
a ball with this one. They'd laugh it
out of class." Adds architect Harry
van Dyke, a 15-year resident of the
neighborhood, "Spot zoning has al-
ways been frowned on by planners."
Many residents and planning ex-
perts believe the city's planning de-
partment abdicated their role to
Citicorp. "You just don't do it because
a corporation decides it wants a
building someplace," says Hart.
"This decision is allowing where
downtown Queens will be." But Mag-
nani defends the planning depart-
ment's actions. "I don't think it's a
question of Citicorp dictating. It's a
question of them coming up with an
appropriate site."
There's no question the Citicorp
project - with or without the addi-
tional rezoning of the neighburing
sites - will have a tremendous im-
pact on Hunters Point. Susan Weeks,
a Citicorp spokesperson, says, "It will
change the community ... But we
hope to be a positive change."
M CITY LIMITS January 1987
Not everyone believes, however,
that the effects of massive develop-
ment should be left to hope. "Before
we went forward with this we should
have had a broader scope," says Mar-
tin Gallent, former vice chairman of
the planning commission. "I don't
understand their vision. Are they
doing something significant or are
they just chipping away?" He adds,
"In approving the Citicorp project
they didn't define where the com-
munity was going to go."
To some, the handwriting is al-
ready on the wall. Real estate values,
which escalated with the announce-
ment of the waterfront project several
years ago, climbed even further with
the approval of the Citicorp plan and
the zoning changes. Some real estate
ads now list proximity to Citicorp as
a prime selling point. As real estate
speculation intensifies, the Hunters
Point residential and industrial com-
munities will feel the pinch. Me-
dian family income in Hunters Point,
according to the 1980 census, is ap-
proximately $14,000. The vast major-
ity of apartments in the community
are occupied by renters, and only 55
percent of these apartments are pro-
tected by rent regulations. As the
Citicorp tower rises, apartments in
the nearby historic district will be-
come particularly desir(!,ble, pushing
rents in unregulated apartments sky-
ward.
tion, which has played a large role in
promoting the Citicorp plan, com-
ments, "I don't think that the intro-
duction of this type of commercial
project will strain the manufacturing
base." He and Michael Spies, a PDC
vice president for commercial de-
velopment, claim the speculative
value of land in the immediate area
is greatly limited by zoning regula-
tions. But the planning department
has already proven their willingness
to rezone at least part of the area, a
move Arthur Nathanson describes as
"opening a Pandora's box."
To Peter Magnani , the question
comes down to "having to do what's
best for the city and borough while
mitigating effects on the immediate
community. "
or Woodside and Sunnyside, too-
the neighborhoods that together com-
prise the Community Board. McCaf-
frey headed the committee that
negotiated an amenities package for
the area with Citicorp, a process that
was kept secret even from other Com-
munity board members.
The amenities package includes a
library built and furnished by
Citicorp on the tower site, commun-
ity meeting space in the building, up-
grading of nearby roads and small
parks and contributions of $100,000
to a homeowner's improvement prog-
ram and $250,000 to senior citizen
and youth programs throughout CB2.
Altogether, McCaffrey estimates the
amenities package is worth from $9
to $14 million. "I'm satisfied with
Hunters Point manufacturers will
also be squeezed by rising rents. Ac-
cording to a 1984 Department of City
Planning study, over 65 percent of
Hunters Point industrial firms rented
their space. The cost of this space will
escalate as landlords look to the more
profitable option of converting their
buildings to commercial offices. And
companies that own their buildings
will also eye profitable conversion
plans - taking the money and mov-
ing their operations to less valuable
sites, possibly out of the city. Many
are worried that the result will be the
destabilization of the local industrial
base, currently one of the strongest
in the city. The potential for such a
rupture flies in the face of previously
stated city goals of promoting blue-
collar industry.
Arthur Nathanson, vice president of Hunters Point CDC:
He believes 'he community is being dismantled.
John Livingston, an executive vice
president for development in the
city's Public Development Corpora-
A Community Divided
It wasn't until the fall of 1985 that
community members began to realize
that Citicorp was coming. "We had a
locomotive coming down the the
track and we knew we couldn't direct
it, " says Walter McCaffrey, who at the
time was chairman of the local Com-
munity Board (CB2) and was later
elected to the city council. But
McCaffrey adds, "I think the com-
munity will benefit in the long-run. "
When McCaffrey speaks of the com-
munity, though, it is unclear whether
he is referring to just H u n ~ e r s Point
what Citicorp is giving the commun-
ity, " he says. "I think they acted in
good faith."
But Salvatore Saraceno, a Hunters
Point resident and member of the
negotiations committee, sees it diffe-
rently. "The amenities package is a
farce, " he declares, noting that most
of the benefits of the Citicorp project
will go to the Community Board at-
large. Saraceno, the largest landlord
in the Hunters Point historic district,
stands to see the value of his property
go way up. But he is opposed to the
current deal. "Citicorp and the politi-
Businesswomon Judy Jockson-Wiener:
Hunters Point will still be a small town "even with
a few hi-rises."
cians are very tight and we're being
delivered right into their hands."
Tom Sobczak, a nine-year Hunters
Point resident and chair of the Com-
munity Board's land use committee,
takes a more ameliorative view. "The
fact of life in a situation like this is
that you can't please anyone." And
he believes the Community Board
had a responsibility to negotiate a
package that would benefit all the
neighbrohoods in CB2. Looking
ahead to negotiations that will arise .
from the long-delayed waterfront pro-
ject, Sobczak sees Citicorp as some-
thing of a learning experience. "We
never before had a project this big
come at us."
Aside from the sheer size of the
building, which is the primary issue
to many of the project's opponents,
the underground subway connection
Citicorp is mandated to make in ex-
change for the zoning waiver may be
the biggest source of disgruntlement.
McCaffrey describes the new subway
statiun that will link the E and F to
the G as something that may benefit
Queens but will add nothing to Hun-
ters Point. "It's still something that
sticks in our throats," he says: Resi-
dents have long complained of city
neglect in providing basic services to
.. -
"Citicorp and the politicians are very tight and we're being
delivered right .into their hands."
Hunters Point, and they feel espe-
cially burned by this expenditure.
"The close to $10 million this is going
to cost could have been done for $2
million and the rest of the money
could have been put to much better
use," comments an angry Saraceno.
Borough Views
Some Hunters Point residents be-
lieve they've been sold for more than
just a subway station. Bill O'Sullivan,
district manager of CB2, charges the
planning department with acting
"like the handmaiden of Citicorp."
And Subczak is quick to point out,
"It just seems strange that Peter Mag-
nani, who was head of city planning
in Queens, soon became deputy
borough president."
But Magnani was not the only one
involved in promoting the project
who soon gained office in Queens'
borough hall. Community Board
member Elenor Denker was named
executive assistant to Borough Presi-
dent Claire Shulman not long after
voting in favor of the Citicorp project
and the rezoning.
Around the same time the Com-
munity Board was grappling with the
Citicorp plan, Denker was chairing a
committee studying displacement.
The committee issued a report enti-
tled "Toward a NYC Anti-Displace-
ment Policy: 81 Pieces of the Puzzle,"
which was adopted by the Commun-
ity Board on April 3, 1986. Among
the recommendations in the report is
the creation of a Displacement Protec-
tion Thust Fund requiring developer
contributions. But Denker apparently
didn't push for any such contribu-
tions even though development on
the sites adjoining Citicorp would re-
sult in the displacement of families
in 40 apartments as well as busines-
ses employing some 180 people. And
as Arthur Nathanson points out, the
rezoning paves the way for a lot of
secondary displacement throughout
the community.
Just several months after voting for
the project, Denker contends she
can't remember many of the details.
But Community Board members re-
port that she was already being consi-
dered for the borough hall job when
she voted for the Citicorp plan and
that she privately acknowledged the
project was good for the borough but
not the community.
Another strong backer of the plan
is the Queens Chamber of Commerce.
Peg Swezey, the president of the or-
ganization since 1983, also happens
to be Citicorp's vice president for
community relations in Queens.
Speaking from her Citicorp office,
Swezey comments, "When we at the
Chamber first heard of the Citicorp
proposal we were very enthusiastic."
She adds, "Progress is progress. We
can't hold things back because a
minority opposes a development."
Swezey, who insists she's only
speaking for the Chamber, believes
Hunters Point will benefit from the
project. The type of benefits
evisioned by Chamber members
might best be reflected in the tes-
timony given before the Board of Esti-
mate by Chamber vice president Al
Bruchac, who spoke of the "better
class of higher spending people"
Citicorp will attract to the area. In her
own testimony before the board of Es-
timate, Swezey neglected to mention
that she's a Citicorp vice president.
Many Hunters Point
businesspeople are vocal supporters
of the project, perhaps none more so
than Swezey's good friend Judy
Jackson-Wiener. Jackson-Wiener,
who treasures the small-town feeling
of Hunters Point, owns a restaurant
and two small apartment buildings
directly opposite the Citicorp site
and heads the Jackson Avenue Busi-
ness Association. "The local busines-
ses will profit greatly from the project
for years to come," she says.
But others think local
businesspeople are fooling them-
selves. The Citicorp tower includes
10,000 square feet of street level retail
space, which many say will siphon
off business from local merchants.
And the jobs the project is touted to
bring may also be ephemeral. Besides
the construction jobs, business lead-
ers talk about some 4,200 jobs created
by the Citicorp tower. But Citicorp
itself is basically just transfering per-
sonnel. Citicorp spokesperson John
Maloney admits, "We won't be creat-
ing a lot of new jobs."
Despite the acrimony between
local opponents and proponents of
the project, almost everyone is
equally worried about the planning
department's decision to rezone the
additional sites. "City Planning has
not sat down and talked with us about
what they plan for the area," says
Jackson-Wiener. Marilyn Elseroad, a
Community Board member who lives
one block from the Citicorp site, com-
plains, "Two-thirds of what they've
taken out of the special district
doesn't even have a developer." Al-
though Citicorp has bought property
on the rezoned site to the north,
Maloney contends the corporation is
not interested in building there as
well.
Citicorp has yet to announce a date
for groundbreaking. In fact, the corpo-
ration has not even officially decided
to go ahead with the project. But PDC
officials indicate Citicorp will begin
erecting the new tower in a matter of
weeks.
No matter when construction be-
gins, the landscape of Hunters Point
has been irrevocably changed. "My
feeling is that the neighborhood as it
is is being dismantled," laments Ar-
thur Nathanson. With luxury de-
velopment along the waterfront com-
ing on one side and office towers ris-
ing on the other, small-town Hunters
Point will soon be a memory.D
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CITY VIEWS
Replacing
West\Yay
BY MARTIN GALLENT
AN EDITORIAL ON THE WESTWAY
Replacement Task Force in Newsday,
November 19, 1986, stated that an ac-
ceptable compromise would be
"about as easy as getting all sides to-
gether for a lasting peace in the Mid-
dle East." The editorial did not over-
state the difficulty.
Planning for the west side of Man-
hattan is obviously a complex and
difficult task and involves many
trade-offs in order to achieve a ra-
tional and coherent policy for orderly
development.
The elements for such a policy
should include and evaluate the fol-
lowing, among other issues:
The land-use of the area now
split between the state "(property sold
to the state by the city, primarily West
Street and the land west of West
Street) and the city (and the land east
of West Street);
The size and location of a high-
way;
Provision for mass transit right
of way:
- The easterly interconnects;
- The timing of such a transit
program;
- The type of mass transit: light
rail, bus, mono-rail, etc. ;
- Access to the waterfront;
- The size and location of the
right of way.
Landscaping of the highway.
Parks, active and passive recre-
ation including walking and bike
trails.
Use of the piers (or their re-
moval) .
Development areas for residen-
tial, manufacturing, commercial, and
entertainment.
Decking and/or land fill issues.
Accessibility of the river as a
transportation artery.
Type of development to the
west of the road, if any, vs. east of
West Street.
Delineate area of immediate im-
pact.
Vehicle by which development
will be carried out.
For the immediate future a level
road should be constructed and the
Slx lanes suggested seems approp-
riate. Any road built, however, will
be used to the maximum within six
months after it is completed no mat-
ter what the size unless other policy
criteria are adopted, such as restric-
tive access to Manhattan.
At least 30 feet should be set aside
for a transit right of way, probably
between the north and south roads.
There is no question that in the future
the transit right of way will be used,
either to widen the highway for bus
lanes, light rail , monorail , or even an
extension of a subway line.
A city/state public policy board
should mark the area of immediate
impact and offer possible zoning
proposals for the public and the vari-
ous interested and concerned groups
to evaluate and debate the issue soon.
The density for housing and industry
should be suggested including the
maximum and minimum proposals,
and the effect that might be expected
including building bulk and size of
population that can be expected or
desired under the various scenarios.
Policy questions should be debated
that include the placing of public re-
sources on the West Side vs. the use
of the resource in other less de-
veloped areas of the Bronx, Brooklyn,
Queens and Staten Island.
Lessons From Battery Park
The important lessons of Battery
Park City should not be overlooked,
such as the importance of a riverfront
promenade and the avoidance of the
city's expense budget as the means
to maintain the promenade and open
space. Zoning and mapping should
reflect the known and the understood
and desirable aspects of the city. The
social impact of future development,
such as economic integration, is also
a vital and important aspect of the
planning process. The urban design
of the waterfront should not be neg-
lected and, I believe, take the form of
scaling up, that is, having the lowest
buildings closest to the water and the
tallest behind. View corridors should
be maintained and not cut off as the
city permitted in the Washington
Market Urban Renewal area. Super
blocks should be avoided at all costs.
The vehicles for carrying out the
policy decisions and development
should confirm that the city's review
process (ULURP) will be maintained
and adhered to in fact and in spirit
so as to give the public maximum
realistic participation in the develop-
ment process.
The issue of the west side of the
highway deserves and, I suspect, will
receive close attention. The Open
Space and Parks Groups have
strongly and intelligently advocated
the entire area west of the highway
be dedicated to park use. Develop-
ment-minded planners, housing ad-
vocates, and developers have
suggested a mixed-use of housing,
parks and commercial activity. Ex-
panding the area into the water by
use of piling or land-fill will be vigor-
ously fought and may not be worth
the effort. Expansion of the area for
parks, in particular, by canterleving
15-30 feet over the water may provide
some solution, but paying for such
construction is clearly not in the pre- .
sent financial cards.
Postponing the construction of ad-
ditional space over the water along
with the construction of mass transit
while providing the right of way may
offer some acceptable solutions to the
current conundrum. 0
FEATURE
Homesteading: New
Reforms, Old Problems
BY ANGUS FINNEY
F
ew city programs generate as
much emotion as homestead-
ing. Homesteaders and city
officials have long wrangled over the
effectiveness of homesteading as a
means to create affordable housing.
But the Department of Housing Pre-
servation and Development is now re-
sponding to homesteaders' com-
seeing which sites we are going to
receive applications for," he said.
The second feature is that the
$10,000 per unit grant has been
changed to a $15,000 loan. The move
away from a grant has naturally raised
questions from community and
homesteading objectors. Kiefer's ans-
wer to the "now they have to pay it
back" criticism is that HPD has tried
to make it the most reasonable loan
T
he city has made some changes in its
Homesteading Program, but many
homesteaders and acti vists charge the
basic problems remain the same.
plaints with reforms the agency says
will help pick up the pieces of the
program and establish it as a viable
form of housing.
The reforms come at a time when
the city is being accused by local com-
munity groups of being "obstruc-
tionist" and following a policy of "in-
action" towards the Urban Homes-
teading Program. The two main
changes are in the structure of the
Request for Proposals (RFP) system,
the program application that in-
cludes eligibility requirements, selec-
tion criteria and instructions for
homesteading applicants. These
changes apply to the most current
RFP announced in December. It will
include 42 buildings over four
boroughs, and HPD is confident that
they spell good news for the program.
According to HPD spokesperson
Simon Kiefer, the first major change
is that RFPs are now designated for
specific sites. "Previously we had an
unwieldy process where groups
came to us with buildings from all
over the city. Now we can start off by
possible.
"lfs a one percent loan over 30
years. It works out at $48 a month in
repayments. We are really optimistic
that these changes will have a good
impact on the program," he said.
The city's policy is that it cannot
grant money unless a building is pri-
vately owned. As a consequence, a
building eligible for homesteadingre-
mains in city ownership until the
grant is processed, delaying the
homesteaders from taking over. By
using the loan system HPD argues
that it is possible to sell the buildings
earlier in the whole process.
Kiefer also pointed out that HPD
has been working closely with the
Urban Homesteading Assistance
Board (UHAB) on improving applica-
tions and enlarging the amount of
money available to homesteaders.
One proposal includes making
money available from the state's
Housing Trust Fund. If by
the city, it will create a $20,000 per
unit grant.
"Homesteaders will be facing a
situation where they have to raise a
much smaller piece of the pie," said
Kiefer. However, the precise financial
details and figures have not yet been
worked out with the Home Improve-
ment Program (HIP), the federally-
funded program which supplies
loans to supplement homesteading
funds.
The response from UHAB, com-
munity groups and homesteaders is
that HPD's new RFP changes don't go
far enough. They are calling for a
major overhaul of the program to
make it viable.
Here We Go Again
spokesperson Rebecca
Reich said there's nothing signifi-
cantly different in the changes from
what HPD has been doing all along.
"Our response is a here-we-go-again
feeling because there is still so much
wrong with the whole structure of the
program," she said. UHAB criticizes
the city housing agency for the man-
ner in which it makes the program
available to people. Reich argues that
the competitive system HPD uses for
RFPs and the criteria used for select-
ing one group over another are not
clear and should be made more pub-
licly explicit.
URAB feels that HPD is hoping that
the $3.8 million that is expected
through the Housing Trust Fund is
going to solve the problems facing the
program, and that UHAB is going to
start sorting out the competitive side
of the process.
"Basically HPD is looking for ways
of distributing this money and at the
same time passing the buck. The re-
sponsibility for the program being
workable is less attributable to HPD
if they tackle it this way," said Reich.
UHAB is also worried that the new
system of RFPs may mean that certain
neighborhoods, where there is a
stronger housing market, like the
Lower East Side, will turn into battle
grounds of even more intense in-
fighting and competition than there
is at present.
Other criticisms of the new RFP
system acknowledge the attractive-
ness of the one percent loan but still
claim that the whole process needs a
spring cleaning. Carol Watson,
spokesperson for the Lower East Side
Action Committee (LESAC) feels that
the city is just side-stepping the main
. task of a full reform. "The real stumbl-
ing block is that the city doesn't see
homesteading as a viable method of
producing housing. There's so much
more to helping the program than just
putting in a bit more money and hop-
Down on the Lower East Side:
Homesteaders believe they can reclaim the neighborhood.
ing, " she said.
HPD concedes that there's a lot of
hard work, difficult bureaucracy and
major obstacles facing homesteaders.
"Part of the problem is that many of
the buildings chosen need gut re-
habilitation. That takes a long time,
especially on the Lower East Side,
where the majority of them need
major structural work," said Kiefer.
However, there are some successes
on the Lower East Side which, de-
spite the obstacles, are now reaping
the benefits from Homesteading. Gab-
riel Boratgis, a founding member of
the RAIN homesteading group,
pointed out how quickly a group
could grow if it is really determined
to beat the city's system and come
out the other end.
Steady Growth
RAIN started off with two build-
ings six years ago, but over the past
two years has grown to 15 buildings,
and is optimistic about securing site
control of more buildings on the
Lower East Side.
Boratgis feels that RAIN has tried
successfully to develop an efficient
system of operations. "What I mean
by cooperative mechanism is the
need to put enough money aside for
a construction manager who is on site
and overseeing the project. Without
that the job is very hard and mistakes
are made," he said.
Basic architectural plans are essen-
tial. According to RAIN it's vital to
find an architect experienced with
tenement buildings and who knows
how to cut corners but still do things
according to building codes. "The
money for these essentials isn't really
the problem; it's making sure that
things are done properly the first time
that matters," said Boratgis.
Number 66, Avenue C is now a co-
operative owned by RAIN. It has
taken over five years to get this far,
but Boratgis feels it's been worth all
the effort. "Our goals are very reason-
able. We are working for a neighbor-
hood where affordable housing is
desperately needed. In 66 C we've set
aside units for senior citizens, home-
less families and really low-income
members of the community," he said.
Overall, RAIN is looking to create
a community land trust for the dis-
trict that goes beyond just buildings
here and there. A main objective is
to ensure that land on the Lower East
Side doesn't go to the speculative
market and gentrification.
Doug Pierre, another RAIN
member, is less optimistic about the
future of homesteading. "The city
program can hardly be called a prog-
ram right now, especially as it was
set up to fail in the first place," he
said.
Pierre thinks the city has too much
control over certain aspects of the
homesteading process, which results
in a mess for homesteaders. The city-'s
selection of contractors - usually
whoever gives the lowest bid - often
results in slip-shod work. "There are
cases where buildings have been
finished, with tenants in occupation,
but the homesteaders still don't own
the building because the contractor
hasn't signed off the job. They have
to sue the contractor due to shoddy
work, and the whole process is
botched up. It's another technique to
make the program not work," he said.
He feels the city places homesteaders
"in a Catch-22 situation where they
are always running after their own
tails."
Divide and Conquer
Shelly Haven, a homesteader only
six months away from completing
work on 702 East 5th Street, went
further than that. "Homesteading has
taken lots of energy from people that
have something to say about the city
and used it up on something very
small," she said. According to her
view, community activists in New
York who challenge the political
status quo have been diverted and
"burnt out" by trying to cope with
the Homesteading program .
. The city's. response to such percep-
tions, according to HPD spokesper-
son Charles Perkins, is that the city
was not the advocate who held the
program out as a kind of panacea.
"We aren't the ones who are deflect-
ing the energy. The press and advo-
cate groups are doing that, because
they are always pushing homestead-
ing as an issue."
Perkins agreed that homesteading
in: its present form isn't going to alter
the structure of New York's housing
crisis. "This is a program for a limited
number of people and it's never been
designed for low income people," he
said. .
Some feel that, nevertheless, the
city has managed to skim off its shar-
pest opponents and has placed them
in a 'restricted cage. Hyam Gross, a
homesteader on West l05th Street,
takes a broader stab at the program.
"In essence, what the Koch administ-
ration has done is just enough to
create the impression of a self-help
housing program, but basically it's all
Board of Education workers:
rltey've helped RAIN rebuild 66 Avenue C.
window dressing. The abuse lies
more in what the city isn't doing than
what it is. In this sense, homestead-
ing won't get any better until it gets
worse, as it takes critical mass of dis-
content to mobilize people anywhere
in New York," he said.
Whether the carrot on the end of
the stick has grown bigger, there are
some that still feel despair about a
stalemate situation. Changes or no
change to the current RFPs, local
community groups are fighting hard
for control, and HPD doesn't want to
give up control without shedding re-
sponsibility for the program. In the
words of one homesteader: "There is
something very ideological and right
being waged in Homesteading. The
concept is fine but the pay-back is all
to often zero. "0
Angus Finney is a freelance writer
for The Observer in England.
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A C h i ! ' ~ Future for the City's ElJ1ergency
RepaIr Program .
BY BEVERLY CHEUVRONT
NEW YORK CITY TENANTS AND
Housing Activists may be lukewarm
in their appraisal of the city's
Emergency Repair Program (ERP) ,
but a $1 million cut in the program's
budget is now sending chills down
their spines. With another winter
blasting through unheated apart-
ments they say the program, which
provides emergency repairs in pri-
vately-owned buildings, should be in-
creased, not decreased.
"Our experience with ERP has
been excellent, and its staff is very
dedicated," said Rev. Norman Eddy
of the East Harlem Churches and
Community Urban Center. "I feel per-
sonally and philosophically that it
should have twice the money and go
beyond emergency repairs."
While Eddy's assessment of ERP is
especially enthusiastic, other tenant
leaders said that unless a large organi-
zation is dealing with the Department
of Housing Preservation and Develop-
ment's program, response typically is
slow.
Tom Gogan, now with the Union of
City Tenants, often called on ERP
when he worked as a tenant organizer
in Washington Heights. "Sometimes,
ERP is the only thing that will get a
response, although they are fre-
quently very slow," he said. "They
are better with a heat situation, but
if you're dealing with a real cold snap,
they can get there too late."
Gogan stressed, however, that he
views ERP as a much-needed pro-
gram that should get more funding,
not less.
But according to HPD spokesper-
son Lynn Guggenheimer the slash
from $6.2 million to $5.2 million will
have no effect on the operation of ERP.
"It shouldn't be a very big problem.
We expect we can carry out the pro-
gram as it has been carried out," she
said. "HPD is still committed to insur-
ing the safety of tenants if the land-
lord is not making repairs." The de-
cline in fuel costs will allow the rrog-
ram to operate at the same leve , de-
spite the budget cuts, she added.
Repair in progress:
ERP puts a priority on boiler repairs and heat complaints.
Emergency Work
When a complaint is filed with
ERP, an inspector is dispatched to
check the situation, Guggenheimer
explained. If illegal conditions exist,
the inspector will issue violations,
and the landlord is given a deadline
to correct them. If he or she refuses,
or if the conditions are severe, ERP
will have the repairs made and billed
to the landlord.
"Providing heat is a big priority, or
repairing a condition that is threaten-
ing to the health and safety of ten-
ants, for example, if there are leaks,
or the electricity is out, or doorways
or stairwells are blocked," she con-
tinued.
ERP completed 22,332 emergency
repairs in Fiscal Year 1986. According
to the Mayor's Management Report,
ERP made 15,381 repairs in 1985;
13,384 were made in 1984, and 17,321
in 1983. The program's 1984 budget
was $8.2 million. That was cut to $6.2
million for both 1985 and '86.
Since the program deals only with
private and 7 A-administered resi-
dences, ERP's workload has been de-
creased by a surge in vacate orders in
substandard, privately-owned build-
ings, according to Eddy. When ten-
ants are forced to leave, there is no
longer a need for emergency repairs.
"The number of disaster buildings ~ n
private hands has declined," he said.
"ERP won't go in if there is a vacate
order," said Sue Reynolds of Pratt In-
stitute Center for Community and 'En-
vironmental Development. Since vac-
ate orders often are used in gentrify-
ing neighborhoods as a tactic to
empty buildings, this combination
can play into the hands of co-op-hun-
gry landlords.
On the other hand, ERP can be a
powerful tool for tenants, not only to
get basic services, but also to help
them remain in their homes despite
severe harassment. Lawyer Geoffrey
Smith at Clinton Housing Conserva-
tion Coordinators has several exam-
ples where ERP was used to keep ten-
ants in their buildings.
In one building at Ninth Avenue
and 51 Street "the landlord tried to
use vacate orders for repairs as a pre-
dicate for emptying the building,"
Smith claimed.
The landlord vacated one apart-
ment after a fire, then hired workers
to tear out plumbing, rip up floors
and cause other damage, the lawyer
alleged. ERP came in and repaired
leaks in the damaged area, fixed win-
dows, and worked on the partially-
destroyed apartment," he said. With
the serious problems corrected, ten-
ants were allowed to stay.
In another instance, tenants were
able to remain in a building where
the landlord had ripped out walls and
refused to repair leaks in the roof be-
cause ERP made critical repairs.
"ERP needs more funding," Smith
said. "Especially in areas such as
Clinton, where there has been a
hiatus of development, housing is
being preserved to remain affordable.
If we are serious about maintaining
affordable housing and not allowing
it to be lost, we can't afford cuts in
ERP - the one program the city is
dedicating to maintaining affordable
housing. "
Smith added that ERP also is essen-
tial because the city "has not done
active inspections to detect viola-
tions," which has resulted in seri-
ously deteriorated housing stock.
Asian Americans for Equality
(AAFE) , a Chinatown advocacy
agency, also has used ERP to em-
LETTERS
A Vote for the Union
To the Editor:
In your November issue, you ran a
story on Chris Sprowal, founder of
the PhiladelphialDelaware Valley
Union of the Homeless("Raising Hell:
Chris Sprowal and the Union of the
Homeless") . Your article states that
Mr. Sprowal has come to New York
to help organize a union among the
60,000 homeless men, women and
children who live in substandard and
temporary shelters here. The idea to
unite is a good one and should be
given all the help it can get from
Mayor Koch and other elected offi-
cials who squawk that the homeless
are not interested in anything of per-
manence.
With low income housing in a de-
cline for years in this city, it is now
time to make them aware that we, as
homeless people, do not need mil-
lions poured into temporary shelters.
Take that same million and make us
permanent housing.
power tenants. Initially, AAFE presi-
dent Sam Mui was pleased by ERP's
fast action, especially in restoring es-
sential services to a Bayard Street
apartment building where tenants,
many of them elderly, endured years
without heat. Many did not have
water or electricity.
"They (ERP) did come in quickly,
but they never finished," said or-
ganizer Lydia Tom. One tenant, a 97-
year-old man, still does not have heat.
"Usually, it takes forever for ERP to
come in," said Tom. "We figured it
was more efficient to go to court and
get the repair order in 10 days."
Nevertheless, Tom said she would
prefer to see ERP operating more ef-
fectively with a larger budget. "The
fact that they're doing something is
positive for the tenants. They are en-
couraged to continue fighting and it
puts pressure on landlords because
they know the city can come in." Tom
added, "At least the tenants have
something to fall back on."
One reason ERP works slowly is be-
cause most jobs have to be bidded
out, tenant activists say. "They go
through the bidding process for one
particular piece of work, for example,
The New York chapter of the Union
of the Homeless held its first meeting
November 29 at the Riverside Church.
1100 people were in attendance and
helped to elect 26 executive officers.
James Bond, the President of the New
York union, is looking toward N.Y.
area unions and the private sector in
an effort to get funding to rehabilitate
housing. I wish them much success . .
Patricia Whitfield
Manhattan
Incensed In Midvvood
To the Editor: .
I'm incensed at the innuendo noted
in your November issue concerning
the Midwood Development Corpora-
tion ("Consultant Contracts
Slashed"). Perhaps Midwood De-
velopment Corporation was another
favorite of former Commissioner
Gliedman's because in our exercise
of this as well as other contracts, we
performed superbly. .
Mrs. Gliedman did not sit on the
Board of Directors of this corporation.
a pipe is broken on a boiler. But while
it's being repaired, they find out that
a motor is broken, and they have to
bid on another contractor to fix the
motor," Gogan explained.
Even though he is pleased with the
operation of ERP - and confident
that it will continue to be efficient -
Eddy said the Harlem Urban Center
is pushing for "monitoring squads"
to act as general contractors.
"In buildings with multiple prob-
lems, contracts have to be let to many
different contractors. That can take
weeks and weeks," Eddy said. With
a monitor overseeing the work, the
time spent waiting for numerous bids
would be trimmed, he added.
Althou/ili he lobbied hard to keep
the ERP budget at the $6.2 million
level, Eddy said he has discussed the
cuts with HPD assistant commis-
sioner Frank Dell'Aira and. believes
the program will remain effective.
But others look at a budget slashed
by $3 million in the last three years -
well over one-third the total
Emergency Repair Program budget in
1984 - and see a valuable program
losing its ability to function.D
She contributed significantly to the
needs of her/our community via her
membership on the Community Plan-
ning Board 14, Brooklyn. She was a
dedicated knowledgeable and active
member of that Board. I should know,
I served with her.
I would hope that you share my
negative reaction with Michael
McKee of the city-wide Community
Training and Resource Center.
Perhaps he should utilize the Mid-
wood Development Corporation,
cited by many as a model for those
whom he seeks to train. "Removal of
dead wood"? How ignorant of the
facts can he and those who quote him
be?
Claire Silverman
President, MDC
Eds. Note: A sober reading of the ar-
ticle shows McKee was referring to
the Queens Presidents Council when
he made the "dead wood" comment.
The statement about Midwood De-
velopment Corp. was in the same
paragraph but was not made by
McKee.
WORKSHOP
SECRETARY/RECEPTIONIST. Part time, 20 hours. LES hous-
ing organization. Requirements: high school diploma or equiva-
lent, college preferred, 40 wpm., Bilingual Spanish/English, good
phone skills. Responsibilities: Initial intake interview, typing and
clerical. Work on special projects. Salary $8,000 plus Eexcellent
fringe. Resumes to: Executive Committee, Cooper Square Com-
mittee, 61 East 4th Street, New York, NY 10003.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR. Jamaica Apartment Improvement
Program seeks Executive Director to implement policy set by
the Board of Directors. Utilizing a partnership approach between
tenant/community representatives, lenders, owners and govern-
ment representatives, the Executive Director will market and
administer a program aimed at upgrading the multi-family hous-
ing stock through the provision of technical assistance services.
The Executive Director will coordinate AlP housing activities with
redevelopment work currently underway in Jamaica, Queens.
Specific duties include: Technical Services providing outreach to
owners, responding to tenant requests for assistance, and hand-
ling community housing issues. Organization - maintaining
working relationships with community organizations, building
owners, city agencies and lenders, as well as coordinating prog-
ram expansion and broadening Board representation in the new
project area. Research/Analysis-conducting extensive hous-
ing research in the new target area, identifying problems, and
developing tenant contacts, etc. Fund Raising-ensuring the
programs fiscal viability by identifying potential revenue sources
and preparing and submitting requests for funding. Administra-
tion - managing the day-to-day work program including organiz-
ing meetings and preparing reports. Knowledge of Jamaica and
housing finance helpful. Salary: In the 20's, commensurate with
experience. Send resume to: Andrew Kelman, Jamaica Apart-
ment Improvement Program, 90-04 161st St., Jamaica, N.V.
11432.
~ - - - - - - -
NYC LAND PROJECT MANAGER. Full time exempt; salary
range $28,000-32,000 depending on experience. Manage land
acquisition projects for public open space agencies in New York
City; provide technical assistance to neighborhood groups in-
terested in forming land trusts and working to secure control of
open space. Position will also involve NYC policy work regarding
City-owned land and some overall program fund raising, direction
and staff supervision for the NYC division. Qualifications: Ability
to assume responsibility, make decisions and work indepen-
dently. Knowledge of real estate, environmental planning, policy
analysis and nonprofit management. Minimum 3 years related
experience including management or supervising respon-
sibilities. Team player committed to preserving open space which
is accessible to urban populations. Submit resume and cover
letter to Trust for Public Land, 666 Broadway, New York, NY
10012, att: Lisa Cashdan.
ATTORNEY/LEGAL DIRECTOR. For tenant rights organization.
Experienced in housing court; strong administrative skills; re-
sponsible for 5 paralegal organizers, housing and other litigation.
Organizing experience helpful. Salary: $30,000. Send legal and
non-legal writing samples and resume to GOLES, PO Box 1003,
Cooper Station, NYC 10003.
TECHNICAL SERVICES DIRECTOR. City-wide non-profit hous-
ing organization seeks applicants for Director of Technical Ser-
vices. Position includes supervision of staff in architectural design
and construction rehabilitation, scoping, specification, cost es-
timating, bidding, contracting, 'and monitoring. Contact UHAB
(212) 749- 0602.
providing complete architectural and engineering services to
non-profit developers
NEW CONSTRUCTION, REHABILITATION AND CONVERSIONS
o Building Evaluation and Inspection
o Feasibility Studies
o Preliminary Design/Scope of Work Studies
DComplete Construction Drawings & Specifications
o Construction Supervision
HUD SECTION 202 SENIOR CITIZENS HOUSING, HOMESTEADING
PROJECTS, GROUP HOMES, HPD RFPS, DSS/HHAP RFPS
Call John Harris RA. for an evaluation of your project's needs
J.C. HARRIS ASSOCIATES ARCHITECTS
580A GATES AVENUE BROOKLYN, NEW YORK 11221 (718)453-2406

City Limits Magazine, January 1987 Issue

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City Limits Magazine, January 1987 Issue

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January 1987

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