NEW YORK | 5 World Trade Center | 920 FT | FLOORS

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Zapatan

Anyone else wondering why the f*ck they would want to put affordable housing at the WTC site?

There are places for affordable housing, sure, and we need more of it, but this is not one of them. This should be a building for global billionaires lol.

The reasoning is that this is technically public land, and people feel there should be some “gesture” towards the public. But the reality is that “affordable” housing just means below market rate. For lower Manhattan, you can imagine what that means. Even so, you can’t expect a developer to get a tower - especially one this large - at 100% affordable rates. This is a massive tower for residential, and would be a lot taller if not for the height restrictions placed on it.

[chris08876]

Live stream (need vimeo): https://vimeo.com/event/2656337

[Yackemflaber69]

How did it go?

[The New York Lion]

Originally Posted by Yackemflaber69

How did it go?

Nobody knows. The video never worked.

[Enigmatism415]

Originally Posted by The New York Lion

Nobody knows. The video never worked.

I can't find any news about the vote a day after...

[NYguy]

https://nypost.com/2023/06/25/vote-o...ute-roadblock/

Make-or-break’ vote on 5 WTC postponed after last-minute roadblock


By Steve Cuozzo
June 25, 2023

The “make-or-break” vote to approve plans for Five World Trade Center, which we wrote about last week, broke at the last minute.

The state Public Authorities Control Board vote that was scheduled for last Wednesday was “tabled,” in the vernacular of kick-the-can-down-the-road negotiations.

The culprit for the delay appears to be state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins.

The all-powerful PACB is comprised of only three people with voting rights: representatives for Gov. Kathy Hochul, Assembly speaker Carl Heastie and Stewart-Cousins.

While Hochul is squarely behind the mostly residential skyscraper to be built by Brookfield Properties and Silverstein Properties, the legislative leaders are under pressure by “activists” who want the tower to have more “affordable” apartments than the 30% previously agreed on.

Said a source: “Some elected officials intervened at the last minute to stall the vote. They want to try to come up with subsidies to pay for more affordable units.”

Assemblyman Ken Zebrowski, who is Heastie’s voting rep on the PACB, responded by email to our question as to who delayed the vote: “The Assembly did not vote to table WTC5. We did not request it to be tabled. It was tabled at the request of the Senate,” Zebrowski said.

State Sen. Leroy Comrie, the voting rep for Stewart-Cousins, didn’t respond to our email asking to confirm that.

Sources said that the developers and Hochul were seething over the last-minute roadblock but not surprised.

A spokesman for the Empire State Development Corporation, Matthew Gorton, said: “Our plan always envisioned expanding the current level of affordability if additional funds could be identified.

“There has been a renewed focus by our public partners to engage in that effort and we are encouraged by these informal, productive conversations. But the housing crisis is only getting worse, and Five World Trade, which already guarantees hundreds of permanently affordable units, is a critical part of the solution and needs to move forward.”

A source said that Hochul and ESDC would push for another vote “as soon as possible.”

The 900-foot-tall skyscraper designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox is to rise on the site of the demolished Deutsche Bank tower at the corner of Greenwich and Albany Streets, south of the 16-acre World Trade Center complex.

It’s to have 1.2 million square feet of apartments; 190,000 square feet of offices; a 12,000 square-foot community space operated by the nonprofit Educational Alliance; 55,000 square feet of public space; and 7,000 square feet of stores.

Some 30% of the apartments, or 360 of 1,325, would be affordable rentals – up from previously planned 25%.

[Zapatan]

That's shocking

[Enigmatism415]

the legislative leaders are under pressure by “activists”

I'd now like to become an activist against these activists.

It will never be 100% affordable and get built.

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Enigmatism415

I'd now like to become an activist against these activists.

It will never be 100% affordable and get built.

It sure won’t. These politicians don’t have a backbone. It’s going on two years now that Hochul herself scrapped the bids for Site K (Affirmation Tower) because they lacked affordable housing and she wanted to “listen to the community”. Meanwhile, the site sits empty with neither affordable housing nor development of any kind. Great. And now politicians want to hold up hundreds of units of affordable housing at tower 5 to try and squeeze out more. Nice. It’s a wonder anything gets done at all.

[NYguy]

https://tribecacitizen.com/2023/07/0...-trade-center/

Still pushing for more affordability at 5 World Trade Center





July 7, 2023

Local advocates are still pushing for more affordable housing at the future residential tower at 5 World Trade Center, being built soon by Silverstein Properties and Brookfield Properties. A vote on the topic at the Public Authorities Control Board was scheduled for late June, but was pulled off the agenda by local elected officials, giving folks more time to push the Port Authority, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and the Empire State Development agency to make a change to the plan for the tower.

Right now, it calls for 30 percent of the roughly 1,200 units to be permanently affordable at an average of 85 percent of the area median income. Local elected officials, Community Board 1 and community advocates still oppose that plan and consider it too little affordability for a building that is on public land. The balance would be luxury market-rate housing.

The board meets every month, but no date has been set for the next vote.

“It is reasonable to expect that public agencies that control a major development site in a community where affordable housing is so scarce would work to provide significantly greater levels of affordability than we might expect from the sorts of deals that have typically been done on private development sites,” said State Senator Brian Kavanagh.

Also weighing in was Congressman Dan Goldman, Councilman Chris Marte, Borough President Mark Levine and Assembly Member Charles Fall, which really makes you wonder how government works. If every elected in the area is on the same page, how is it that state agencies could be so unmoved?

“This community has fought for over two decades to build fully, deeply affordable housing that would promote diversity and give 9/11 survivors & first responders a home in the neighborhood they helped rebuild,” said The Coalition for a 100% Affordable 5WTC in a statement. “The proposed plan is unacceptable both in quantity of affordable units as well as the level of affordability. And it is unacceptable that the public agencies effectively wash their hands of any responsibility for the search for and provision of funding for this desperately needed affordable housing,”

[nlosborne1]

Affordable housing is great. Let’s build as much as we can, but railroading it through for this project only seems ridiculous. Let’s build hundreds of new projects all over the city. If affordable housing made just 20% of the units available, then that would be more than enough. Instead, advocates find one or two projects (5 WTC and affirmation tower) and demand that those developments (which are in office complexes) to be affordable housing.

[Enigmatism415]

“The proposed plan is unacceptable both in quantity of affordable units as well as the level of affordability. And it is unacceptable that the public agencies effectively wash their hands of any responsibility for the search for and provision of funding for this desperately needed affordable housing”

In other words:

"Make 5WTC 100% affordable!"

"How could we possibly find the funding for such a demand?"

"We don't care, that's your problem, do it or we'll block your project indefinitely."

This is a hostage situation. These folks don't care about rebuilding the WTC for its own sake—they're using it as a means to their own ends. The WTC deserves to be rebuilt even if for no other reason than having been wrongly destroyed.

[mrnyc]

this is not the first time at the rodeo, they will compromise and add a bit more affordable housing and it will get built.

[The New York Lion]

https://twitter.com/GovKathyHochul/s...79986844655617

APPROVED!

Go NYC go!

[BuildThemTaller]

Originally Posted by The New York Lion

https://twitter.com/GovKathyHochul/s...79986844655617

APPROVED!

Go NYC go!

Excellent news! I didn't understand the push to encourage families of victims to live here. It was such a macabre idea. I'm glad the Governor didn't bow to that pressure.

Now if we could just hear about construction starting at 2WTC...

[Busy Bee]

I have an ounce of understanding but overall, yes, it was a bizarre notion. I believe they thought the gesture was something that would be appreciated but the notion that someone would WANT to live there out of some sort of memorialization is definitely maudlin, and yes even macabre. If anything the recipients would be put in an uncomfortable position where they're weighing whether or not to accept based on how jazzed they are the city is offering them an amazing apartment and NOT because they really want to reside somewhere with a front row seat to the place their loved ones perished.

[NYguy]

https://commercialobserver.com/2023/...sing-at-5-wtc/

NY State Reaches Deal With Port Authority to Build Affordable Housing at 5 WTC


BY MARK HALLUM
JULY 27, 2023

New York reached a deal to start construction on a residential building at 5 World Trade Center with more affordable housing than previously proposed, but far less than advocates pushed for.

Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Thursday that the Public Authorities Control Board (PACB) approved the framework for the 1,200-unit multifamily building earlier in the day, with up to one-third of the units priced for “low- and moderate-income residents,” and with some set aside for victims of 9/11 and their families, Hochul said. Construction is expected to start in 2024.

“This is going to be a symbol of what we can do,” Hochul said on the 79th floor of 3 World Trade Center, where the announcement took place. “[It’s] going to bring new life here.”

Silverstein Properties, Brookfield Properties, Omni New York and Dabar Development Partners were selected as the developers of the project in February 2021, which at the time was slated to be about 900 feet tall, with 1,325 rental units spread across 1.2 million square feet.

It was clear that the PCAB wasn’t going to support a proposal that came before it at one of its last meetings,” Hochul said. “And I say that 1,200 units, one-third of them affordable, is better than no outcome at all.”

It appears the agency will be getting that funding, subsidized with $40 million from the Hochul administration, $20 million from the New York State Legislature and $5 million from the Battery Park City Authority, the governor said.

PANYNJ’s board still must approve the plan.

• Video Link

[Enigmatism415]

Originally Posted by NYguy

https://commercialobserver.com/2023/...sing-at-5-wtc/

Great news!

If the number of units went down from 1,325 to 1,200, was that to make the percentage of affordable units artificially higher, reallocating an extra 125 units for office or retail, or did the tower shrink?

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Enigmatism415

Great news!

If the number of units went down from 1,325 to 1,200, was that to make the percentage of affordable units artificially higher, reallocating an extra 125 units for office or retail, or did the tower shrink?

Remember it's a mixed-use tower, so that could be the result of a number of things, including size of the units. The tower itself won't shrink in size.




https://nypost.com/2023/07/27/nycs-5...-kathy-hochul/

5 World Trade Center to offer over 1K apartments, 80 set aside for 9/11 survivors, first responders: Hochul


By Nolan Hicks and Khristina Narizhnaya
July 27, 2023

It’s a done deal! Gov. Kathy Hochul announced she’d struck an agreement with lawmakers to develop an apartment-filled skyscraper at 5 World Trade Center on Thursday, ending a two-year fight over the building.

The Lower Manhattan tower will include 1200 new apartments, with roughly 400 units going to low-and moderate-income New Yorkers — 80 of which will be set aside for 9/11 survivors and first responders.

“It’s not just about the skyscrapers,” Hochul told a room full of dignitaries celebrating the deal’s announcement in Lower Manhattan on Thursday. “It’s about the people who inhabit them.”

Hochul said it would be the largest single housing project in the apartment-starved Financial District in decades.

The state’s obscure but powerful overseer of redevelopment projects, the Public Authorities Control Board — which has three voting members, appointed by Hochul, state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Westchester) and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-The Bronx) — blessed the project shortly before Hochul took the stage.

Under the deal, households of three making between $50,840 and $152,520 would be eligible for an income bracketed unit — with the bottom end of the spectrum paying $1,271 a month, while the top end would pay up to $3,813.

Officials said that nearly two-thirds of the affordable units would go to families making between $50,840 and $101,680.

The tower will be developed by a consortium of real estate powerhouses, including Silverstein Properties, Omni New York, Brookfield Properties and Dabar Development Partners.

“We figured out the formula, we didn’t walk away, we walked for each other, and that’s how we got to the right place,” said a triumphant Hochul.

https://www.thecity.nyc/2023/7/27/23...rdable-housing

WTC Housing Activists Hail Hochul’s Heightened Goals for Affordability
Governor announces more income-restricted units and set-aside for locals there on 9/11 — while acknowledging impact of ‘100% affordable’ agitators.


BY GABRIEL POBLETE
JUL 27, 2023

In announcing the project’s final approval by the state Public Authorities Control Board, Hochul highlighted the activists’ role in moving the needle.

“Coalition for the Affordable 5 World Trade Center, I don’t know where you’re going next, but let’s work together,” Hochul said from the 79th floor of 3 World Trade Center. “Because everyone should be able to call this place … a home, because they deserve it.”

Hochul added a new pledge Thursday: One in five of the affordable housing units will be reserved for individuals who had lived or worked in Lower Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001 when the original World Trade Center was destroyed by the terrorist attack that killed thousands and left many area workers suffering from environmental illnesses.

For Jill Goodkind, whose husband Tom passed away from what she described as 9/11-related cancer, Hochul’s announcement was heartening. She said the news acknowledges those survivors of the attack and responders who “paid a high price for rebuilding Lower Manhattan.”

While she said a 100% affordable tower would have been great, she applauds every low-cost housing unit coming. Goodkind added that the lower-income affordable housing will help diversify the neighborhood, which has become increasingly expensive to live in.

"This is a really special day and I think that my husband is very happy right now,” Goodkind said.

[mrnyc]

seems very wrong to use both public land and money and only get 1/3 public housing out of it, but the deal is done, lets get to building:



Affordable housing at 5 World Trade Center approved by state board

By Michelle Bocanegra
Published Jul 27, 2023


Nearly 400 units of a housing development planned at 5 World Trade Center will be available below market rate after the proposal was approved by state authorities, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced on Thursday.

A third of the 1,200 homes planned for 5 World Trade Center — the first housing built on the site since the 9/11 will be reserved for moderate- to low-income residents, Hochul said at a press conference in Lower Manhattan. The state owns a vacant parcel of land at the skyscraper complex, which is poised for development next year. Final approval from the state Public Authorities Control Board, which signs off on project financing for a slate of public authorities, came on Thursday morning.

Twenty percent of the affordable units will be designated with a preference for survivors of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks who lived or worked in the area — including first responders and people who assisted with cleanup in its aftermath.


more:
https://gothamist.com/news/affordabl...by-state-board