Apartment Look

When Mayor de Blasio held a press conference in May 2014 to debut his new affordable housing plan , his full- color presentation touted a project called Spring Creek in Brooklyn. Spring Creek was flagged as a “case study” partnership between the city and developers to “create a strong, vibrant and self-sustaining neighborhood.” But on Friday, the bulk of that project remained a big, ugly vacant field of weeds and abandoned roadway in East New York. More than 1,500 of 1, 803 planned affordable units are now in a bureaucratic Twilight Zone — and may become less affordable as a result. “There is no progress from the progressive mayor ,” said the Rev. David Brawley, a leader of East Brooklyn Congregations , one of the groups sponsoring Spring Creek . Brawley said the delays to Spring Creek caused by the de Blasio administration are particularly ironic given that the mayor cited the project in his promise to build or preserve 200, 00...

Council Member Laurie Cumbo (@cmlauriecumbo) Hundreds of Crown Heights residents and community activists laughed and jeered at a recent community forum as a lanky man wearing a paper mask of Mayor Bill de Blasio joked about bringing affordable housing to their neighborhood. The event was punctuated by moments of levity but mostly dominated by anger from residents who feel their elected representatives have sold out their interests to the real estate industry , with a focus on the proposed redevelopment of the vacant Bedford Union Armory . The de Blasio administration , with a developer, is proposing a combination of affordable and market rate rental apartments , condominium units, and recreation space for the massive site. City Council Member Laurie Cumbo , who represents the district, did not attend the August 2 forum focused on the project -- she was just days from giving birth to a son -- and when representatives of her office tried to speak, they were shouted down. The ev...

08/25/2017 08:02 AM EDT By Rebecca Morin ( rmorin@politico.com ; @RebeccaMorin_) and Charlie Mahtesian ( cmahtesian@politico.com ; @PoliticoCharlie) TGIF, MASSACHUSETTS. Mostly cloudy with a high of 73 today. Story Continued Below I'm Rebecca Morin and I'm filling in along with Charlie Mahtesian this week while Lauren is on vacation in Minnesota. This is our last day, but Lauren will be back Sept. 5. WARREN'S NEXT TOWN HALL: Sen. Elizabeth Warren is heading to Rep. Niki Tsongas' district on Friday for a town hall in Concord, her 13th town hall of the year. The 3rd District isn ’t exactly Warren Country: The senator lost the district narrowly in 2012, Gov. Charlie Baker carried it in 2014 and so did Republican Senate candidate Gabriel Gomez in 2013. It's home to a rare open- seat congressional race in 2018, now that Tsongas has announced she will not seek reelection. Tsongas and Warren are allies: Tsongas was the first major political player to endorse Warre...

The city of East Palo Alto , a wedge of modest houses and light industrial sites in the heart of Silicon Valley , has been passed by in the great tech boom . A historically black area , it has seen a big Hispanic influx in the past two decades, with more than three out of four residents now coming from one of those two groups. It is still living down its reputation, gained a quarter of a century ago, as the murder capital of the US: one out of every 571 of its residents was the victim of a homicide in a single year. Things have improved since then. But over the same period, it has become the poor neighbour to some of the world's richest companies. In one of the ultimate signs of the divide between the haves and have-nots of the western US, the municipal government of East Palo Alto didn 't own the rights to draw more from the state's water reserves, which it would need in order to grow. In June this year, it took a gift of cash, from the private foundation set up by Mar...