This evening, at the meeting of the Housing Trust Fund (HTF) Board, Jeffrey Dodson, executive director of the Hudson Housing Authority (HHA), who serves ex officio on the HTF Board along with two members of the HHA Board of Commissioners, Nick Zachos and Rebecca Wolff, who were appointed to the HTF Board, reported on the HHA redevelopment project. Dodson said there is currently a $23 million gap in funding for the project. He also indicated that the cost for each of the two phases of the project was $110 million, for a total cost of $22o million. The project is expected to create 300 housing units. By my calculations, that works out to a staggering $733,334 for each unit.
So far, no design for the buildings being proposed has been made public. Dodson announced at the HTF meeting that he would be at the Common Council meeting on Tuesday, April 16, to make a presentation about the redevelopment project.
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$733K! Go to Zillow and see what you can get in the 12534 for $200-300K LESS than that. Not for nothing, but I'm sure Galvan doesn't spend that kind of money on the projects they build/renovate. Granted, their work is shoddy, but still.
ReplyDeleteIt seems it would absolutely be more cost-effective for the housing authority to purchase one and two-family homes around the county and fix them up. It would save taxpayer dollars and fulfill the City's housing plan (which, if my recollection is correct, indicated that we should be working towards scattered, not clustered housing). If the shortfall is only $23 million, that means there's $197million available, which still puts the per unit cost at $656,666. That doesn't seem like a great deal for the taxpayers, particularly if this new structure has a 50-year lifespan.
ReplyDeleteIt's only a good deal for those invested in the political status quo, who have no concern for taxes and want to import a voting bloc to counter recent changes in Hudson. Scattered housing doesn't serve their interests or the rest of the county who has been happy to keep all assistance housing concentrated in Hudson.
DeleteI doubt they care about a voting bloc, I suspect most people run for city council jobs reluctantly because no one else wants to do it.
DeleteI'm not talking about the Council, they aren't spearheading these efforts. I'm talking about the Mayor's administration, the people he appoints to these boards, and the backers behind the scenes (like Galvan). As you rightly point out below, there are many who would prefer to swing the pendulum of Hudson's current momentum back in the other direction. Instead of a growing economy based on small business, private investment and entrepreneurship, some would like to restart the "industry of poverty" where large developers profit from increased property taxes, grants, and the misplaced empathy of an uninformed electorate.
Delete$733K - ridiculous. Why don't they just fix up the apartments in Bliss Towers. 300 units - crazy - with all the other proposals going on for affordable housing. Too many, they'll be bussing people in.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of spending $220 million or $197 million or anything remotely close to that to build a hideous, institutional Bliss 2.0 is simply nuts. And I have yet to hear a reasoned, evidence-based explanation for why the HHA should be trying to build 300 units of housing when it can barely fill and manage 100 units now.
ReplyDelete95,000 migrants came to NYC last year and over 90,000 people sleep in NYC homeless shelters each night, so they will have no problem filling 300 apartments. As to why they want to do it? I'd say the people backing this idea are generally resentful of Hudson's developing tourist economy and demographic shift towards more upscale transplants, weekenders and second homers. They would like to counter this by expanding the population of lower income residents.
DeleteI think replacing Bliss with some three story townhouses with gardens and private laundry to provide humane housing for it's residents would be a good idea, but doubling the size of the already hideously oversized apartment building is as you say, "simply nuts."