A match made in heaven.
When Michael Bloomberg found Christine Quinn as Speaker of the City Council, there was no limit to how much love wealthy developers could see. In the building boom the city had seen during the last few years, huge developments were green-lighted and long-term residents were screwed by the lack of planning for schools and infrastructure. Now that the economy has soured, beautiful brand-new and expensive apartments are sitting empty and the developers that had them built are not seeing any returns on their investments. How could they solve this problem? Easy, have New York City bail them out under the guise of affordable housing.
Of course, this is really what it is all about:
Deputy Mayor Slush Fund Queen Christine C. Quinn and king Michael R. Bloomberg today announced a $20 million commitment to fund a pilot program that will turn unsold condominiums, market-rate rental buildings and stalled construction sites into affordable housing opportunities for moderate and middle-income families.
First, that the city will overpay for the condos, making this into a developer bailout program.
And second, that too much scarce affordable housing funding will be diverted from the low-income people who need assistance most to higher-income people who can afford the subisidized condos.
Even if the condos are rented to homelessness, the city is paying about 2,700 a month for each apartment such as in Crown Heights luxury condos. What an ineffective use of scarce resources when 2,700 dollars can house more than one family. This plan is to bail out Bloomberg's rich friends.
Ain't that nice?
Is this the type of tactic that makes people approve of Bloomberg?
I get that the people at Related, Vornado and Tishman-Speyer want to re-elect the mayor. The wealthy have a friend in Mr. Bloomberg, he is of course, one of their own. Yet for the vast majority of us who aren't millionaires, it is time for a change so that our money does not go to waste on bailouts like this.
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