Daily News from New York, New York • 238

DAILY NEWS, SUNDAY, MAY 28, 1978 78 habit How to curb our housing subsidy We ought to consider encouraging poor families to move to the suburbs9 ing from pathologies associated with poverty and discrimination are simply put back, the buildings again suffer the same abuse that caused the need for rehabilitation in the first place. Within a short time, they need new rehabilitation. Public housing, when closely supervised and vigorously maintained, has worked better. The Housing Authority's buildings are were designed for hard use. Advocates of large-scale rehabilitation insist that row-house living will not change the problem of proverty.

Probably true, but now that we know rehabilitation costs more in original dollars than new row housing, it would seem that the proper use of public subsidy funds would: 1) provide many times more row houses than apartments; 2) reduce density to a sixth, or less, of apartment house crowding and 3) irrespective -of what else is done, proportionately reduce the concentration of problem families. We have never tried on a big scale to encourage families to treat low-cost, row housing as their own. Such ownership, probably cooperative or condominium, could form a basis for the careful selection and training of tenants and the encouragement of responsible community leadership. Neither the federal government nor the city has found in Section 8 the proper financing or planning idea to deal with the inner city housing problem, which, it is easy to agree, is only a part of the bigger poverty problem. Aside from economical row-house construction, which attempts both to lower construction cost and density and appeal to the pride of home ownership, there are other possibilities for lower cost, better housing.

The Mitchell-Lama package of long-term low interest mortgages and tax abatement, like the post-war Veterans Administration mortages program, is still a sound approach and, if the state and city can't use it, the federal government should consider picking it up. We ought to consider encouraging thousands of poor families to move to the suburbs. Under the federal government's Section 235 program, which writes down mortgage interest on single-family homes, we could afford to build a $50,000 home in Westchester or itockland County for poor families in New York and carry it for a lot less than an ITHA-mortgaged, Section 8 subsidized, rehabilitated, slum district apartment. Under such a program, if a house cost $50,000 to build, the federal government would, lor example, make a one-time contribution of $25,000 toward the construction. Interest and taxes would, by contract with the municipalities, then be based on the written-down value and a family with an income of $12,000 a year could carry a new $50,000 house.

Under such a capital grt program, the federal government Juld be financially much better off. Based on Section 8 subsidies of $6,000 a year for rehabilitated, densely populated apartment houses in former slums, it would take the payment of only four years and two months of the current type of continuing rent subsidies to cover a capital grant of $25,000, after which subsidies would stop. The Section 8 program lets the subsidies go on forever. And we must adopt cheaper materials and simpler building concepts. These are not likely to be found in high-rise, one-of-a-kind buildings.

Economies of scale and repetition are achieved by producing large numbers of small homes. Everyone connected with housing in New York knows that present high costs are destructive, that the future lies in creative approaches to new construction and financing, and the sharp reduction of non-building "soft" costs caused by bureaucracy. for every "apartment built under its auspices. Washington experts were convinced that rent subsidies were better than interest subsidies (Section 236), or public housing, which had become a curse word to conservatives and the followers of Jane Jacobs, the Greenwich Village writer. Sure enough, the highest single use of Section 8 funds in New York was for the bailout of Manhattan Plaza, a Lindsay era faux pas developed by HRH Construction Corp.

and sold to a consortium of tax-shelter investors. Manhattan Plaza gets rent subsidies of $11,542,080 a year, or $6,827 a year for every apartment. Some tenants get subsidies of better than $1,000 a month! The Section 8 subsidy program works like this: Assuming a construction cost of $65,000 for a new, average five-room high-rise apartment in New York, the normal carrying charge at today's inflated cost, including interest, taxes, maintenance and a reasonable profit for the owners, would be in the range of $11,000 a year. Assuming the family earns $12,000 a year, the federal government expects the family to pay 25 of its income, or $3,000 a year, $250 a month, for rent. The rest, $8,000, is contributed by the feds as a subsidy to provide the family with a decent place to live.

If, insteau of building Class 1, high-rise buildings, the program allowed only one and two-family row houses, the construction cost per dwelling unit could be cut to $32,500 or even less, assum'ng efficient design and the avoidance of excessive "soft," or indirect, expenses for legal fees and sales expense, political maneuvering and delays. The cost of carrying such a dwelling need be only one third of the cost of carrying theapartmtnt in a high-rise building. In addition to' cutting interest, amortization and taxes in half, row housing would make it possible to reduce maintenance expenses sharply. A check on typical costs, exclusive of heat, power and insurance, in high-cost Mitchell-Lama housing developments showed in 1977 a range of $250 to $300 a year per room. The lowest cost for a combination of security protection; management, legal and accounting expense; personel and maintenance cost, including elevator maintenance; supplies and painting of public areas was $163.10 per room per year.

Since these expenses would not occur, this is $1,250 that would be saved annually on each unit by building family-sized row housing. It appears that, as a result of changing the program, the city might produce a pretty good, private type of house to carry at around $3,500 a year. Assuming the same family income, $12,000 a year, cited for the high-rise example, the family would pay the same $3,000 a year, $250 a month, for rent. The federal subsidy could then average $500 a year instead of $6,800. Subsidy money could go 13 times as far.

Rehabilitation seems to work for middle-income occupancy in places like the West Village in Manhattan or Park Slope, Brooklyn, but if people suffer I. 1). KOBBIIVS MAYOR KOCH told the. New York Building Congress that the cost of building new housing In New York is "obscene." It is indeed. In 1964, a fine.

Class 1, fireproof apartment community comprising just under 5.000 rooms, located on a prime 15-acre site on Queens including 10 acres of lawns and gardens, parking lots, playgrounds, 13 community rooms and a large social hall, was completed for $14,300 per apartment. Included in this cost was a shopping center completed a year later. On May 4, 1978, the Board of Estimate approved the construction of Booth Towers on Adam Clayton Powell Blvd. in Harlem at a cost of more than $70,000 an apartment. Costs have multiplied by five in 13 year3.

Mayor Koch, joined by the five borough presidents, voted for this obscene expenditure. To their credit, Council President Carol Bellamy and Controller Jay Goldin voted against it. In voting for Booth Towers, Mayor Koch cited the "desperate need of housing" in Harlem. He said his administration would not again approve "high-rise, high-cost" apartments that required city funds and federal subsidies. One day later came an announcement that financing has been authorized for the rehabilitation (not new construction) of a 100-family apartment house in the South Bronx at a cost of $4.5 million.

This is $45,000 an apartment to rebuild old si-story. semi-fireproof buildings, not including anything for the cost of the land and the existing improvements. Few people realize that the high cost of construction is only the beginning of the obscenities in today's New York housing scene. Equally obscene is the amount of the federal subsidy being paid under Section 8 of the Federal Housing Law to enable poor families to live in these absurdly expensive apartments. In two years and nine months of operations.

New York City proposed and the feder- al Department of Housing and Urban Development approved programs carry-ing annual subsidies of $170.3 million for 25,124 units, an average annual subsidy per unit of $7,780. But there are individual projects which are much worse. Each apartment at Booth Towers will be subsidized to the tune of $9,210 a year. Assuming an average of five rooms per apartment, this is an annual subsidy per room of $1,842, a monthly subsidy of $153.50 per room Obscene? Yes, indeed. In Brooklyn, there is a rehabilitation job known as Sumet II with 206 apartments.

The federal government has agreed to provide an annual subsidy of of $7,325 for each rebuilt apartment. When they were built, these apartments probably rented for under $35 "a room per month. Close behind In obscenity is the additional cost ot bureaucracy. In 1977 there wai more than one city employe on the payroll of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development "A stamp for your letter will be IS cents. Now, would you also like to have it delivered?" The 42d St.

village green By JEROME GARTNER who want to help, and the Garden Club of America, which has also offered to help. Publicize the efforts of Police Sgt. Martin J. Wenzel, whose detail is doing a wonderful job this spring of making Bryant Park safe and comfortable for all. Support the efforts of the unsung park force under foreman Frank Monahan who, for the past 10 years, has found equipment like picnic tables where none existed.

At a time when New York needs more jobs and more tax revenues, do not neglect Bryant Park. Not only does the park aid the quality of life for people as its only midtown breath of green, but the park should be a positive asset to attract business, as part "of the 42d St. renaissance, with many new building projects recently announced. Never again should a corporation like Union Carbide leave New York, being quoted (Barrons Magazine) as its only concrete reason, the mugging of a corporate executive in Bryant Park. Thank God there has not been a mugging jn.

Bryant Park in a year and a half. (Jerome Gartner is a coordinator for the Bryant Park Steering Committee.) W. 't'l't i an additional $300,000 in Community Development funds, which can be matched by $300,000 on federal Bureau of Outdoor Recreation money. Find the $5,000 Community Board No. 5 money voted for Bryant Park but lost in the maze of the Municipal Building, Encourage private giving with a plan, and city aid.

Last year private corporations, OTB and Music Performance Trust gave close to $50,000 for park entertainment and permanent improvements; the Ford Foundation volunteered a challenge grant, for Bryant Park this year, and there were also the yeoman efforts of Al Loritsch, of the Avenue of the Americas Association, two summers ago, in organizing and obtaining funding from private corporations and Music Performance Trust to place music in the park most of the summer, on a week's notice. Make a plan to flower and green Bryant Park. It is a unique opportunity for the Society of -t Landscape whose offices the park, BRYANT PARK is the village green for 2 million midtown New York City workers, a haven during the steamy-hot summer days from the noise and odors of the surrounding concrete canyons; a place to rest on the green lawn surrounded by leafy trees, the blooming of forsythia, cherry trees, and perhaps rose3, while the purple finch and other birds chirp in the trees, and the iris come up through the ivy, and the working fountain masks the noise of the city. And, although much has been accomplished recently to enhance this oasis for the working person, still more remains to be done. Specifically: Untangle the HUD bureaucratic maze which prevents the spending of $40,000 i in Community Development funds already approved for the park by the city.

Implement the Park Department proposal fojy,.