The Buzz

KISS MY RING: Hampshire Hotels, the international conglomerate that bought part of the Covenant House building early this year in hopes of turning it into a 300-plus-unit luxury hotel abutting the Maritime Hotel, had a special meeting with Community Board 4’s Chelsea Preservation & Planning Committee just prior to Wednesday’s general board meeting. The occasion: to get C.B. 4’s blessings on some building plan revisions before going back to the Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA) for a second try at a variance approval. On May 22, BSA told Hampshire that it should eliminate two floors (totaling approximately 30 units) from its renovation, along with any short-term apartments at what is otherwise slated to be a standard hotel. “Hampshire wanted a letter of approval for its revisions that it could bring back to BSA. They figured such a letter would increase their chances the second time around,” said C.B. 4 District Manager Bob Benfatto, who added that the committee and full board are on board with Hampshire’s revisions, after having issued a long list of conditions for approval back in March, which Hampshire agreed to. “The board doesn’t have to do anything when it comes to plan revisions, but Hampshire asked us if we could help, and since the board liked what it saw, we decided to go along with their request.”

IF YOU SELL OUT, GO BIG: When we interviewed Victor Bach, of the Community Service Society, for this week’s story about the overall New York City Housing Authority budget, he had a few choice words about NYCHA’s plans to sell some of its parking lots, including at the Elliot-Chelsea Houses, to the city for middle-income housing. Noting the $50 million of revenue from those lots included in the authority’s 2007 budget, he asked: “Is NYCHA getting good value for its property? It doesn’t sound like it. Wouldn’t putting the deal in the form of a lease bring a constant stream of revenue?” Bach, the co-author of numerous CSS reports documenting the toll that the real estate market is taking on low-income tenants, also suspected that the proposed developments were still too much of a mystery. “I don’t know if NYCHA’s residents have been informed about this housing,” said Bach, “or how much anyone at NYCHA even knows about what HPD [the Department of Housing, Preservation and Development] is planning. How much will be really available for low-income residents, if any?”

RAISING CAIN ON NYCHA: As noted in this week’s NYCHA story, the authority will hold a public forum at FIT on June 18, at which officials may hit a wall of resistance, if not outrage. C.B. 4 member and Fulton Houses public housing advocate Miguel Acevedo said a number of groups—including Housing Here and Now, Local 237 Teamsters (representing janitors who work at public housing complexes), ACORN and GOLES—will organize a coalition for the FIT forum. They may also rally at City Hall to voice their concerns about the NYCHA budget cuts and call for the federal government to give more money to the city, and for the city to give more money to NYCHA, especially given the city’s $5 billion surplus. “The mayor shouldn’t be giving tax cuts with that surplus when we need affordable housing,” said Acevedo.