Push to ID vacant city land for housing

By ISAAC MONTEROSE

In a tense City Council hearing, city housing officials opposed legislation introduced Thursday that would require them to compile annual lists of vacant properties.

The Council Committee on Housing and Buildings considered a group of bills aimed at better identifying and securing vacant buildings so that they will be available for affordable housing. The city Department of Housing Preservation and Development particularly rejected Intro. No. 1039, which would “require HPD to annually compile lists of vacant buildings and lots in the city that may be suitable for the development of affordable housing.”

Daniel Hernandez, deputy commissioner for neighborhood strategies at HPD, said that the bill would have “significant unintended consequences on the work we do.”

Hernandez said the new measure would interfere with the bidding process. “Publishing, possibly prematurely, our recommendation for particular lots and thus our plans for the development of each property would significantly impede the city’s ability to finance the preservation and creation of affordable housing,” he said. “[It could] potentially obstruct the city to procure the most competitive proposal to meet affordable housing and other community objectives.”

He said that, for example, developers would be able to take advantage of such a list by demanding high prices for the land near these properties, making it more difficult for the city agency to acquire land.

However, Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez (D-Manhattan) argued that rejection of the bill would allow landlords to get away with using underhanded methods. Rodriguez said that several of his constituents came to him about buildings in his own district, which includes Washington Heights and Inwood, that even he didn’t know were empty. These buildings only became vacant through the “bad tactics” of their landlords that the HPD was allowing to happen due to their oversight, he asserted.

“If we did an audit for the last 10 years led by the attorney general then a lot of these landlords would be behind bars because they’ve been using illegal bad tactics to make the buildings vacant in our city,” Rodriguez said. “You as a team, as an agency, did not have that information. We as a council did not have that information because I know that if you had it, you would be going after that landlord, that building owner because many of those apartments became empty by using illegal tactics.”

Tension then gave way to confusion when Council member Jumaane Williams (D-Brooklyn), chairman of the committee, started asking questions about the 670 vacant sites that were under HPD jurisdiction and 27 vacant properties that were said to be publicly owned by a variety of government agencies.

When asked about whether or not these 27 vacant properties were part of the 670 vacant sites, Hernandez and his staff were initially unprepared to answer. After several moments of paper shuffling, they were still unable to answer Williams’ question. “So you did not bring the data necessary on vacant lots for the vacant lot hearing?” asked a perplexed Williams, much to the apparent embarrassment of the HPD staff.

“How could you come to this hearing and not know the status of each and every one of these sites?” asked Council member Barry Grodenchik (D-Queens).. “We are dying for affordable housing in this city! I grew up in public housing, a lot of my colleagues did, I understand. But for you to come here and not be able to tell us the status of…It’s like me going to a realtor and saying, ‘I want to buy a house.’ And you telling me that you don’t know what [you] got for sale.”

After several more minutes of back-and-forth, the Council decided to adjourn the meeting and discuss the issue when HPD gets its data in order.