It is good to elect, in this case, a councilman that has a completely different outlook on the same problem.

To this blogdiva and Eyore stan, the strategic foreclosure of Stuyvesant-Town & Peter Cooper is a sign of the coming affordable housing apocalypse. Yesterday on a quick conversation with Garodnick and his staff, I got a completely different outlook.

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Tishman-Speyers is walking away from the 56 residential buildings, 11,250 apartments, and over 25,000 residents that live in the properties it bought for $5.4 billion in 2006. Yes, they are walking away as in handing the keys to whomever and bidding adieu.

Strategic defaults are nothing new. Billionaires do it all the time. The issue here is that companies like Tishman-Speyer get to walk away from bad deals; whereas the regular family with a hefty mortgage and lost equity is made to believe they have a moral obligation to continue funding what is a bad financial proposition that no corporation would ever honor themselves. Which is why I absolutely agree with the tone of Michael Corkery's Tishman Speyer’s “Jingle Mail” on Stuyvesant Town outrage over at, of all places, the Wall Street Journal:

Where is the outrage?

[...]

Real-estate developer Tishman Speyer is handing control of the Manhattan apartment complex Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village to lenders that backed the $5.4 billion acquisition. With the massive property underwater and Tishman having put only $112 million of its own money into the deal, it makes more sense for the Speyers to walk away from the apartments.

Like residential home owners, Tishman Speyer Group calculated that it could take decades to regain the equity lost on its property.

Similarly, Tishman Speyer has calculated that complicated tenant laws in the New York could prevent the company from profiting on the development for many years. (The company’s strategy depended on being able to evict lower paying tenants and replace them with young professionals.)

Yet while residential homeowners are being attacked for not making good on their mortgages, Tishman Speyer has so far avoided such criticism.

As a Stuyvesant Town tenant I am not shocked with this bit of news. From years there had been rumors that Tishman-Speyers, which has helped New York University amass its real estate empire, was going to buy the place. Of course, the rumors started when MetLife entered into a housing agreement with the univeristy and literally slumlorded apartments into hipster fire hazards. Actually, it was thanks to New York University's business that MetLife and Tishman-Speyer got away with illegally vacating and renting at market prices rent-controlled apartments; especially in Stuyvesant Town (where we snarkily renamed the place NYU's dormtown)

Rent laws prevent Tishman-Speyer or any new owners to evict us, but it still feels surreally insecure to be in the middle of one of the biggest real estate failures in the history of the Unites States. Stuyvesant-Town & Peter Cooper were the third largest real estate sales in this country. It goes to show that when it comes to affordable housing for the grey collar working and middle classes of New York City, you cannot leave it to the vagaries of the mythical "free market". And this is why Tishman-Speyers epic failure is Michael Bloomberg's failure as well.

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Government should always try its best to avoid screwing the little man/woman. You know: the everyday people; the ordinary people like you and I. You see, without government we are left alone to the vagaries of greedy capitalists and unscrupulous speculators. Without government protections the strong and the wealthy will have too much power; much more than they already have. Much more than they already abuse.

Between the years 2001 and 2003, the residents of four dilapidated high rise towers in Brownsville, Brooklyn, were forced to relocate by the government of New York City. There were 368 apartment owners involved in this undertaking, and the lives of more than a thousand residents were possibly disrupted. The apartments were known as Prospect Plaza, in a nexus near Eastern Parkway, including small sections of Prospect Place and Saratoga Avenues.  read more »

Why am I posting this video? Not only is it a brilliant juxtaposition to The Hipster Olympics, there is an actual hipster sighting at 0:38 seconds.

Also, it was created by my "find of the day" Make The Road : "Make the Road New York* promotes economic justice, equity and opportunity for all New Yorkers through community and electoral organizing, strategic policy advocacy, leadership development, youth and adult education, and high quality legal and support services."  read more »

The Drum Major Institute's Marketplace of Ideas event this morning featured Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and his reforms to turn vacant buildings into affordable housing. Menino, who is now serving his fourth mayoral term, has reformed Boston's housing market in some pretty amazing ways. During the past decade, abandoned residential properties declined 77% as abandoned buildings were turned into viable housing.

The panel discussion featured Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, Pratt Community Development Center Director Brad Lander, and Executive Director of the Parodneck Foundation Carlton Collier. DMI Executive Director Andrea Batista Schlesinger moderated the panel.  read more »