A day after the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development announced the acquisition of two bedbug sniffing dogs, the agency's Gold Street headquarters was facing an infestation. According to the Post, around November 15 of last year the entire third floor was evacuated and 5,000 boxes were sent off for fumigation. more ›

President-elect Barack Obama has named NYC's Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Shaun Donovan to lead the cabinet position of Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Barbara Sard, director of housing policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, tells the NY Times, “Shaun is brilliant, really thoughtful and creative, and knowledgeable about a broad range of housing policies in ways that unfortunately is very unusual." more ›

The Gowanus Canal Conservancy held a public meeting in Carroll Gardens this week to unveil renderings for a park and esplanade that would run along the Gowanus canal. The project’s dubbed Sponge Park because planners hope it will help absorb some of the raw sewage that currently contaminates the canal during heavy rainfall. (Brownstoner believes oily runoff from the nearby Gowanus Expressway is another big problem.) The idea is that when the canal is finally cleaned up sometime after 2020, Sponge Park will help keep it clean, or at least clean-ish. more ›

The Department of Buildings commissioner admitted her agency knew a Harlem building was in danger of collapse but somehow it got lost in the shuffle and collapsed on its own. On Tuesday, bricks fell off 102 East 124th Street, a vacant building, and a few hours later, the roof and top floor collapsed. Its neighboring building was compromised and authorities moved to demolish it, asking the MTA to suspend all train activity near by in fear the trains' vibrations would cause more problems. more ›

Earlier in the week, the department of Housing Preservation and Development [HPD] revealed renderings for a proposed housing development and park on 5.8 acres of heavily polluted land by the toxic Gowanus canal. Located on the site of a former manufactured gas plant, the city has owned the land, which stretches from Smith Street to the canal, for two decades. National Grid, who took over the site from KeySpan Energy, would need at least two years to decontaminate the area, called Public Place. more ›

The Department of Housing Preservation and Development has compiled a list of the city's 200 most poorly maintained buildings and has told the owners they must be repaired in 4 months. Or else, the NY Times reports, the city will be able to overhaul them and force the owners to pay. On November 11, a Local Law No. 29, the Alternative Enforcement Program, went into affect to help the HPD to "enforce the correction of... more ›

Sometimes people just don't like dogs, and one of those people is Jeanne Farley. Farley is suing her apartment's management company to, as she tells the Daily News, "get rid of the dogs and play by the rules." Sixty-four year old Farley has a fear of dogs (cynophobia) points out that the rules at Penn South does have a ban on dogs and her lease says "no animals of any kind" (!!) are not allowed. She says, "I can't go in the elevator if there's a dog in there, and I'm afraid to go in some of the hallways. I've never been bitten, but the growling, the teeth and the jumping just scares me." more ›

In 1979 a collective of artists occupied a vacant city- owned building on Delancey Street and mounted an exhibition. The police padlocked the show but after community and media support of the artists the city offered use of a building at 156 Rivington Street as a compromise. more ›

This past February Mayor Bloomberg announced an expansion of the city's five-year housing plan to a ten-year plan that will create and preserve 165,000 units of affordable housing by the end of 2013. The two lead agencies in the housing initiative are the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). Recently, Gothamist had the opportunity to take a walking tour of the neighborhood around Marcus Garvey Park led by HDC's Aaron Donovan, who also publishes Starts and Fits. In addition to showing us HDC buildings, Aaron also pointed out several notable market-rate developments in the neighborhood as well as new commercial buildings. (Disclosure: Gothamist lives in an HDC-financed building that was mentioned on the tour.) more ›

Julie Miles, Housing Here and Now more ›

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In the chicken vein, there are roosters keeping Harlem residents awake with their crowing from 4AM well into the morning. NY1 called the Health Department and was told "the responsibility lies with the Department of Housing, Preservation and Development since the lot where the roosters roam is city-owned. The HPD told [NY1] it had first been trying to find out who owns the roosters. But now because of this story, HPD had Animal Control remove them." Maybe Andrew Weis needs to get NY1 to do his work for him. more ›