Q&A
Factors influencing neighborhood selection for Open Door projects
0:40:15
·
146 sec
Deputy Commissioner Kim Darga and First Deputy Commissioner Ahmed Tagani explain the factors that influence HPD's decisions on where to build affordable housing units through the Open Door program.
- The program is open city-wide, but financial viability is a key determinant
- Higher land acquisition costs in certain areas can make projects more expensive
- Market conditions for homeownership in different neighborhoods affect pricing and feasibility
- Neighborhood plans and community feedback are considered in selecting locations and building types
Adrienne E. Adams
0:40:15
Okay.
0:40:16
Okay.
0:40:17
How does HPD decide in which neighborhoods to build affordable housing units through Opendoor?
Kim Darga
0:40:24
So the program is open city wide, and we're open to taking proposals across the city.
0:40:30
And as I mentioned, we have finance projects in every borough.
0:40:34
It is a large determinant of where we can build is the financial viability of the project.
0:40:40
So parts of the city that have higher land acquisition costs would be far more expense of so if the average cost of an open door project in 2024 was 410,000 per unit, land cost, let's say, downtown Manhattan, I would make that a much more expensive project for us to finance.
0:41:01
There are some parts of the city where the market for homeownership may not be as strong.
0:41:09
And so for us to finance a project, as I mentioned, we'd wanna make sure that we're actually providing affordability within that context, meaning if the market for homeownership is, let's say, 80 to 100 percent AMI, which would be on the lower end of New York City, we'd be having to price units much deeper than that to actually make sure that they could be leased up and sold.
0:41:35
That then, if we have to price much deeper than that, can also increase the cost dramatically.
0:41:41
So those are a couple of factors that can really drive financial feasibility.
0:41:46
There's also construction costs in any kind of, you know, those types of factors, but it is a program that's open city wide.
0:41:54
But like I said, the financial feasibility doesn't always work everywhere.
Ahmed Tagani
0:41:58
And if I could just add, so from a planning perspective, in our neighborhood plans, we charge for opportunities to create multiple building types and housing types.
0:42:07
So a good example is the bedside neighborhood plan that HPD started and 2016, 2017, and moved forward.
0:42:14
And out of that, we looked at public parcels that we had, and one of the projects that we're moving forward with soon is a 40 unit home ownership project called the Norma with Almond a MWA developer and Bedside Restoration.
0:42:29
So in those in that work, when we're looking at communities, looking at public and private land, we are taking the response and the feedback from that neighborhood in the visioning plan, and when looking for opportunities to build different building types.
