CITYWIDE

REPORT: REZONING MAY SOLVE HOUSING SHORTAGE

A few simple rezoning measures may be the answer to the city’s housing shortage, according to a new report by the Manhattan Institute.

The report, titled “Up From the Ruins: Why Rezoning New York City’s Manufacturing Areas for Housing Makes Sense,” was written by Regina Armstrong of Urbanomics, and states that rezoning one manufacturing area in each borough would also increase property-tax revenue, boost the gross city product, and increase temporary employment.

The suggested areas to be rezoned are: Sherman Creek/Inwood in Manhattan, the Bronx Terminal Market to Bruckner South Expansion in the Bronx, Dutch Kills in Queens, the Red Hook/Gowanus Canal Area in Brooklyn, and North Shore in Staten Island. New York City has space for 500,000 more manufacturing jobs than actually exist, the report states, and combined with the fact that the current amount of vacant residential land can only meet half the demand for housing, it is logical to convert M-zoned areas to R-zoned areas.The proposed rezoning measures, the report says, would yield capacity for 64,700 to 86,200 housing units, boost gross city product to 2.7% from 1.9%, and increase temporary employment by adding 39,000 to 55,000 jobs.

– Special to the Sun

COURT UPHOLDS MTA’S SALE OF AIR RIGHTS TO JETS

In a unanimous decision yesterday, the Appellate Division of the state Supreme Court voted to uphold the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s sale of air rights over the Hudson Yards rail yards to the New York Jets. The decision upholds that of Justice Herman Cahn, who issued a decision earlier this month that rejected the claims of four parties that said the $250 million sale was invalid.

Madison Square Garden, which bid $760 million for the air rights and claimed the MTA rigged the bidding in favor of the Jets,”was not treated unfairly,” the Appellate Division said in its ruling. “The MTA was not obligated to accept MSG’s proposal because it offered more cash up-front.” The Appellate Division also dismissed the other plaintiffs’ claims, including Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, community members, and the Straphangers Campaign. In a statement, the Straphangers Campaign said it was considering appealing the decision.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

POLL: NEW YORK VOTERS APPROVE OF KELLY’S JOB PERFORMANCE

New York City voters overwhelmingly approve of the work Police Commissioner Ray Kelly is doing, with 65% saying they approve of his job performance and only 17% saying they disapprove, according to a new poll released yesterday by the Quinnipiac University polling institute.The poll also found that a full 69% of voters said they approve of the job the city’s Police Department is doing and 73% said they approve of the work the department is doing in their own neighborhood. It’s the highest police approval since February 2002, when Quinnipiac found that 76% of New York City voters approved of the NYPD. More than 80% of New Yorkers said the city is “very safe” or “somewhat safe” and 85% said their own neighborhood is safe. Quinnipiac surveyed 1,780 New Yorkers between June 12 and June 19. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.3 percentage points.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

COUNCIL PASSES BILL TO ALLOW GROUPS OF TENANTS TO BUY THEIR BUILDINGS

The City Council passed a bill yesterday that sets the stage for another legal battle with the Bloomberg administration. The bill would allow tenants who live in government-subsidized Mitchell-Lama or Section 8 apartments the right to band together to buy their buildings from landlords who want to sell and opt out of the federal program.”Tenants should have the right for first refusal on the homes that they’ve lived in, in the communities that they’ve made strong,” the speaker of the council, Gifford Miller said. “This is a commonsense piece of legislation and it won’t cost the city anything.” Mr. Miller, one of four Democrats hoping to replace Mayor Bloomberg, said the mayor could not take credit for creating more affordable housing, but fail to preserve the existing stock. “To say the landlords are going to be hurt by this and that it is unconstitutional is hypocritical,” Council Member Margarita Lopez said.The law would give tenants the right to match any market-price offer a landlord received. Bloomberg officials said the legislation is unconstitutional because it restricts the rights of property owners. They also said requiring tenants to pay market rate could even end up displacing tenants because they would end up having to charge more for individual units so that they could afford debt service. In a statement, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, Carol Abrams, said the bill, Intro. 186-A, was “unlikely to withstand a court challenge.”

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

BROOKLYN

LOTTERY DECIDES WHICH STUDENTS WILL ATTEND UFT’S CHARTER SCHOOL

In September 2005, the United Federation of Teachers, New York City’s largest teacher’s union, will open its own charter school inside the Junior High School 292 building in Brooklyn. On Wednesday night, a lottery decided which students will fill the school’s first two classes. There were 99 kindergarten and 86 first-grade students entered in the lottery for 75 kindergarten and 75 first-grade slots. In five years, the school expects to have 450 students in kindergarten through fifth grade.

“We want to demonstrate that the educational ideas teachers have will manifest themselves well for children,” the UFT’s vice president for elementary schools, Michelle Bodden, said of the motivation driving the UFT Elementary Charter School. “We’re very proud of our design.”The president of the UFT, Randi Weingarten, will be one of the charter school’s trustees. Parents gathered inside the cafeteria of I.S. 292 for the lottery were attracted to the charter school for its small classes with two teachers to each class and the idea that their children would be in the school’s first or second class.

– Special to the Sun

ALBANY

BRUNO CO-SIGNED SON’S $50,000 LOAN; MONEY WENT TO SENATE LEADER

Joseph Bruno, the Republican leader of the state Senate, co-signed for a $50,000 loan last year to his lobbyist son Ken, who then gave the money to the powerful politician, according to a report published yesterday.

The elder Bruno’s spokesman, John McArdle, said the report in the Times Union newspaper of Albany involving the June 2004 transaction was simply a matter of the younger Bruno paying off a loan given to him by his father two years earlier to help build a family home. At the time of the $50,000 payment, the younger Bruno was going through a messy divorce and the Senate leader had been subpoenaed to testify as part of the court proceedings.

– Associated Press