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Q&A
Exploration of senior housing options for the development
0:35:29
·
131 sec
Council Member Susan Zhuang inquires about the possibility of including senior housing in the development. Ken Fisher explains why senior housing is not viable for this particular project but expresses willingness to explore alternatives.
- The project was not originally conceived with senior housing in mind.
- The apartment buildings are too small for HPD proposals, and land acquisition costs would exceed HPD subsidy limits.
- The need to build the platform all at once creates funding uncertainties for senior housing.
- The developers are open to working with the council member's office to identify alternative locations for senior housing.
Susan Zhuang
0:35:29
Okay.
0:35:29
Thank you.
0:35:30
And also second question, there are serious meeting about senior housing in my desk have you guys ever explore a senior option for this development?
Ken Fisher
0:35:44
The answer to that is yes.
0:35:48
I myself had direct conversations with Mister Carry on at HPD about it.
0:35:55
The reason we're not able to pursue that, there's a couple of couple of them.
0:36:00
The first of all, the project was not conceived with that in mind.
0:36:07
The apartment buildings are too small for HPD proposals and what would be the land acquisition cost, the cost of the development rights in the portion of the platform would create a land cost well in excess of what HVD would be prepared to subsidize.
0:36:30
There's also the additional unique condition of the fact that the platform has to be built all at once.
0:36:37
And funding for senior housing is uncertain at best.
0:36:41
So potentially, you have a situation where the other buildings would have to pay for that portion of the platform which would make that block probably unfinancable, or they would have to hold up that entire block in the hopes that HVD subsidies might come through at some point.
0:37:03
There are some additional reasons having to do with the size of the buildings.
0:37:07
We looked at how many smaller units we could potentially put in place there and some additional factors and ultimately came to the conclusion that that senior housing was not available.
0:37:21
I can tell you however that because our clients are in the real estate business in the area, they understand the need and would be happy to work with your office to see if they could identify an alternative location that might be viable without all of the complications that this site has.