My fiancee placed 7th in the same lottery and she is will soon close on a 3-family brownstone in Bed Stuy. The majority of the properties in this round of sales are on the eastern edge of Clinton Hill or the western edge of Bed Stuy. PACC's intent is not simply to benefit a few buyers, but to continue in the process of revitalizing the neighborhood by fixing up homes that were extremely dilapidated and sell them to folks who agree to live in the homes for at least 7 years, thereby introducing a measure of stability to the neighborhood while fixing blight.

While the houses have below-market selling prices, no one is going to become rich off these deals, nor will this program fix all of the neighborhood's problems. This program does benefit a neighborhood in need of improvement however. Whether the benefit justifies the cost in terms of federal housing subsidies is a matter of opinion. In my biased opinion this program is far better than most taxpayer-subsidized attempts to improve the City's housing stock, and clearly, those former crack dens and unsafe SRO's weren't going to fix themselves.

Posted by: kutterkan at March 24, 2008 4:29 PM in response to Winning the Housing Lottery

Amen, 8:28. I received a ticket a couple of weeks ago for rolling at about 2 mph onto a sidewalk at a gas station on Atlantic and Bedford because didn't want to be killed on Atlantic as I looked around for the nearby post office. At about the same time, a few blocks away, a kid was killed by a speeding teenage driver while crossing the street holding the hand of a crossing guard. Also, 20 yards away from where I was stopped were a few cars parked in the Bedford bike lane with no tickets on their windshields.

Posted by: kutterkan at June 5, 2008 9:22 PM in response to Closing Bell: New Bike Lane and Parking Cuts on Dekalb