BROOKLYN PAPER | Acting out: Locals accuse mayor of skipping armory meeting, say they will cast stand-in at event

http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/40/31/dtg-mayor-ditches-crown-heights-armory-meeting-2018-08-04-bk.html

Activists invited DeBlasio to this evening’s 6:30 pm town hall at Crown Heights’ Dr. Gladstone H. Atwell Middle School in response to comments reported last month by Crain’s, in which he suggested the city needs to do a better job of explaining the project’s benefits to the community.

Hizzoner’s remarks implied that locals are not smart enough to understand his grand plan, according to event hosts, who said that the mayor’s problem is not one of communication but of values in the written invitation they sent to city hall on July 25.

NY REVIEW OF BOOKS | Tenants Under Siege: Inside New York City’s Housing Crisis

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/08/17/tenants-under-siege-inside-new-york-city-housing-crisis/

New York City is in the throes of a humanitarian emergency, a term defined by the Humanitarian Coalition of large international aid organizations as “an event or series of events that represents a critical threat to the health, safety, security or wellbeing of a community or other large group of people.” New York’s is what aid groups would characterize as a “complex emergency”: man-made and shaped by a combination of forces that have led to a large-scale “displacement of populations” from their homes. What makes the crisis especially startling is that New York has the most progressive housing laws in the country and a mayor who has made tenants’ rights and affordable housing a central focus of his administration.

CRAIN’S | Housing advocates fact-check our fact-check

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20170726/OPINION/170729914/housing-advocates-fact-check-our-fact-check

“Fact-check: Can subsidies pay for community takeover of armory project?” misleads readers about how community land trusts work, and how housing finance works in order to shill for the real estate industry that is seeking to take over all of our public land at the Bedford-Union Armory.

The community land trust is a legitimate and viable option. Most models include housing experts, nonprofit developers, community residents and public officials working together to manage and steward the land. Community members have a say in the decision-making process and work alongside people with technical expertise to achieve shared goals.

KINGS COUNTY POLITICS | 35th District City Council Candidates Weigh In On Privatizing NYCHA Property

http://www.kingscountypolitics.com/35th-district-city-council-candidates-weigh-privatizing-nycha-property/

KCP asked the candidates running for the 35th District City Council seat covering Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Prospect Heights and Crown Heights to provide their stance on Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ongoing NextGen housing development program, which involves leasing NYCHA-owned properties to private developers.

The district has a particularly large stake in the issue. Their district is home to over 6,000 units worth of NYCHA housing, according to the latest data from the Institute for Children, Poverty and Homelessness (ICPH).

Our Time Press | Asbestos Suspected at Bedford-Union Armory

Asbestos Suspected at Bedford-Union Armory

Dr. Juan Blanco Ruiz, the architect and preservationist, read the Phase I Environmental Site Assessment (i.e., Brownfield Report) prepared by Sam Schwartz Engineering and Integral Consulting in March 2016 to find the scope of the assessment subjects did not include asbestos, lead-based paint, radon, lead in drinking water, mold and ten other services. Given the armory was built in 1906 when these substances were commonly used or the conditions existed, Dr. Blanco Ruiz has few good words for the project.

“The Drill Hall’s roof is 1.2 acres in area. The cost of asbestos remediation would be monumental. It would cost as much as $50 million to replace the roof and it is not what they (BFC Partners) budgeted,” explains Dr. Ruiz. He discovered the presence of asbestos in the building “upon reading a professional journal published in 1906 which announced the completion of the armory”. In that article, they placed special pride in the use of new “fireproof mineral roofing cement”.