Alicia Glen on NYCHA’s ‘amazing’ development opportunities
Dana Rubinstein
Mayor Bill de Blasio's deputy mayor for housing and economic development thinks there are "some amazing opportunities to develop within existing NYCHA developments," particularly in the realm of housing for senior citizens.
According to Alicia Glen, the city's 334 public housing developments, home to some 400,000 New Yorkers, are basically just "an enormous NORC," planner-speak for "naturally occurring retirement communities," like those in the Upper West Side, where the populations of entire buildings are aging in place.
Glen argued that those senior citizens are occupying large apartments that might better be suited for families. If the city were to encourage the development of studio apartments for seniors alongside existing NYCHA properties, the apartments now occupied by those seniors could go to working families.
"You do have an interesting opportunity, for example, in the senior housing space, to identify sites that could accommodate really modern, fantastic senior housing that could then create a virtuous cycle allowing us to move more working families ... into the housing authority," she said this morning, at a breakfast in midtown hosted by Crain's New York Business.
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city-hall/2014/06/8547339/alicia-glen-nychas-amazing-development-opportunities?news-image