Will Union Demands Impede Affordable Housing?
The relationship between the city’s powerful labor unions and the real estate industry has been showing serious signs of strain lately, and one of Brooklyn’s biggest housing organizations says the rift could affect the creation of affordable housing even as it improves wages and, potentially, diversity in the industry. There’s been a spate of stories…
The relationship between the city’s powerful labor unions and the real estate industry has been showing serious signs of strain lately, and one of Brooklyn’s biggest housing organizations says the rift could affect the creation of affordable housing even as it improves wages and, potentially, diversity in the industry. There’s been a spate of stories over the past couple of weeks about how unions want livable wage clauses tied into projects that require rezoning or that benefit from city and state funding—projects, in other words, that often include affordable housing. The head of the Fifth Avenue Committee, which develops and manages affordable housing (the group’s current projects include Atlantic Terrace and the Red Hook Homes), says she supports the idea of using union labor—especially when unions commit to expanding and diversifying membership—but is wary of how it might impact the construction of affordable housing. We support unionization but we wouldn’t want it to negatively impact the number of affordable units being built, says Fifth Avenue Committee Executive Director Michelle de la Uz. De la Uz said the majority of the current government funding structures don’t include enough money to cover union wages for affordable housing and that government would have to commit to increasing funding for affordable housing projects by between 25 and 40 percent to ensure the use of union labor. Ironically, perhaps, the unions are also demanding that all redevelopment projects include affordable housing. Clusterf—!
Unions: Redevelopment Projects Should Have Affordable Housing Guarantees [NYDN]
Why do you hate Christmas so much, Benson?
“Why the heck do you think they buy these bonds in the first place.”
To deliver a killing blow when it suits them?
4.09 PM;
Thank you for anticipating my death.
Happy Holidays.
Benson
Hey, that’s cool you don’t want to reveal your age but prefer instead to offer more pontification. I was just interested in knowing how many more years we would have to put up with a selfish windbag like you on planet Earth.
2.54 PM;
I’m old enough to have lived through the 80’s, when all the doomsayers predicted that Japan, Inc. would clean our clocks. Didn’t quite work out that way, did it? I also personally lived through the dot-com bust of the early 2001 period, as I work for a high-tech company. Once again, the doomsayers were out in force during the collapse of that bubble. Well, here we are with the IPOD, UTUbe, Google, and the tech sector is back better than ever.
The biggest laugh is these know-nothings who predict the rise of China, overlooking the facts on the ground. A country ruled by thugs who grant no political freedom, and whose economic play consists of arbitrage on the low-cost manufacture of toys and socks for Wal-Mart, is not a recipe for mastery. Not a single Chinese brand name has emerged in the global market past twenty years. Japanese corporations are everywhere, and have mint brands associated with high quality. Care to mention one high-quality Chinese brand??? The recent product recalls have confirmed that the Chinese system places no emphasis on quality control and, for that matter, protection of intellectual property.
As for the doomsayers’ fears about the US bonds they hold: who is in the drivers’ seat in this situation?? What are the Chinese going to do: call in their chips on the country to whom they sell? Why the heck do you think they buy these bonds in the first place.
As I said at the beginning, I’m old enough to laugh at the Chicken Little’s, as I have seen them before.
Benson
Over under on Benson’s age?
12:51 – Don’t read the financial pages much, do you?
12.14 AM;
No, you are right. The ENTIRE banking system is “imploding”!! Why, I thought there was a winding down of one small sector of home mortgage financing (which in itself is a small segment of the entire financial industry). That’s what I thought. But no…you are right. The banks are IMPLODING!!! The SKY IS FALLING!!!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!!!! Our empire is failing!!!
Why, the next thing you know: the Chinese are going to buy Rockefeller Center from us !!!!
Hey, wait a minute…Haven’t I heard that before?????
Dream on, 12.14 AM….
Benson is right. The US has recently created all sorts of innovative new finance products that are causing the entire banking system as we know it to implode.
Bravo, America, bravo! Those aren’t the dying embers of a failing empire, but the glow of a new gilded age.