From Gotham Gazette:

This has been an ongoing, ever-present debacle for NYC’s Parks Department.

or

“Why does it take a decade to build a dang playground in my district?”

SDR Park’s promised return of the Stanton Building since 1994

“As the city grows, New York’s ability to effectively and efficiently deliver public capital projects is diminishing. This is no secret. Efforts to improve the system are not bearing fruit; all the while excuses for the delays, cost overruns, and errors become more commonplace.”

“A good place to start would be where agencies like the Parks Department often place the blame themselves: right at the doorstep of the Public Design Commission. In the age of data-driven results, it is unclear what the PDC points to as a quantifiable success. To many in city government, it is simply a mysterious all-delaying entity that occupies secluded office space in the rafters of City Hall’s cupola, like a project-killing Quasimodo. All Council members have at least one anecdote about construction being delayed by the PDC. But much like the Hunchback, there’s a belief that it, too, may be a fictitious tale, and one which the Parks Department conveniently uses to account for any postponement.”

It is long past time for the NYC Council and the Mayor to do something about it.

From City & State:

“the Tax Lien Sale affects those with the most to lose and the least ability to recover after the Sale inflates their debts. The system shackles residents into cycles of debt servitude in communities with the greatest need for social resiliency.”

NYC MUST PREVENT NONPROFIT PROPERTIES FROM FALLING TO PRIVATE CAPITAL

In less than two weeks, the New York City Department of Finance will bankrupt and destroy 349 nonprofit institutions, converting their properties into capital for private banks through a municipal policy tool called Tax Lien Sale – but city leaders still have a chance to save them.

On May 12, the agency will wrongfully include these properties and many others in the 2017 Tax Lien Sale. The move will condemn their owners to crippling financial burdens and then to foreclosure by a private bank — even though state law exempts these organizations from property taxes in the first place. Also on the chopping block: 1,155 vacant lots – spaces the city can develop as-of-right into permanently affordable housing, but will instead sell off for private development.

The ….solution is incredibly simple: the Department of Finance must categorically remove nonprofits and vacant lots from the Tax Lien Sale, starting now.

These properties are…free or nearly free parcels of land that the city can develop at cost and as-of-right for permanent social benefits and maintain in perpetuity. The 2017 Tax Lien Sale will kill every single one of them…

Nonprofit organizations are permanently tax-exempt under state law, but …the city …requires them to go through a byzantine annual process to maintain this status for their properties. Many don’t know that they need to do this, or don’t have the capacity to …. Debt and foreclosure by private banks follows.”

From the Lo-Down:

“The awards recognize community members who are “unsung” heroes, in spite of their meaningful contributions to the life of the neighborhood….as part of LES History Month…”

Neighbors to Save Rivington House is one of the ‘heroes’ being awarded (use the link to the Lo-Down above for the other terrific people/organizations being honored).

From N2SaveRH Facebook page:

“We accept in the name of all of the evicted residents, all the elders who are not able to find a place to live that could provide the care they need now, and on behalf of the staff who, with the residents, built a beautiful home here.”

‘Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good.‘ – Vaclav Havel

Last week Firday April 28th

Sent from University Settlement House: 

Yuh-Line Niou at Rivington House Forum

Friday, April 28^th at 12pm at University Settlement, 184 Eldridge Street (at Rivington and Eldridge Streets intersection)

 Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou will host a press conference marking her 100 days in elected office. Niou will provide updates on her work in the district and in Albany, and will be joined by lower Manhattan community members and advocates.

Who: Assemblymember Niou, community members and advocates.

What: Presser marking Niou’s 100 days in elected office

When: Friday, April 28^th at 12pm 

Where: University Settlement, 184 Eldridge Street (at Rivington and Eldridge Streets intersection).

With Senator Squadron at Convention

Contact: Mauricio Pazmino / mauricio@yuhlineniou.org / 212-312-1420

From Senator Daniel Squadron‘s Office:

Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou supported Rivington Acto.

Neighbors to Save Rivington House: “We are astonished that despite the efforts of Senator Squadron and others, the Senate Majority could not do right by those in need of our protection. Apparently the most vulnerable citizens do not have champions within the Senate Majority with the political will or the outrage to act on their behalf. This defies both common sense and common decency.”

Preserve our structures and the homes and businesses of the people that have built and maintained their neighborhoods over decades. Those who face continual harassment and eviction as neighborhoods go ‘upscale’. One without the other is no win for our friends, small businesses and neighbors.