Council Member Farías on HPD project tracking and Mitchell-Lama prioritization

Does HPD have a central tracker of all their projects that are in the works and that could have, that are publicly funded in this way?

We have an internal tracker of projects that are in our pipeline and then we report out on projects once construction closing has happened.

And does the prioritization of HPD

closings, how does that include Mitchell's?

Does it just come down to the management, the timeline of the project, if it's fully financed?

Yeah, it comes down to whether or not the project is ready.

And our project managers work with the development team and the owner to get them as ready as possible, as quickly as possible.

I only ask because, granted,

Jamie Towers is a state Mitchell, but HPD is the one that, from the money that I allocate through my capital budget to

Jamie Towers, they're dependent on HPD's assigning them a project manager in order to move the process along.

And overall, in my district, I've dedicated nearly...

$12 million in capital dollars to modernization and repairs on Michilama campuses, but I've given Jamie Towers four over my first term.

and my assembly member recently allocated another four to them, but they have not been able to move any of that money over the last three budget cycles because HPD has not assigned them a project manager.

And so I'm, you know, for me, that's a hindrance to how the progress

of that project can move and whether or not people can move freely within the campus themselves.

And I'm just interested in understanding if the money is all there, their financing is in place, but we've gone three closing cycles without

getting them a project manager and on the closing list, what more does a campus like Jamie Towers need to prove that they need their project to be completed and started?

Yeah, and we thank you for the support with the ResoA funds and every council member, I think, does their best to put as much towards the Mitchell Lama as possible and we're very grateful for that.

We can look more into the timeline for a project manager being assigned, but like I said, we're in the process of staffing up.

We were able to get a lot of new hires, and we're working as quickly as we can to get them on board.

And then once they're on board, to ensure the project is actually ready to close.

If ResOA is assigned to a project, it does not necessarily mean that everything is in place for a construction loan closing.

There could be ResOA available and a project manager unassigned.

Not great, but on the development team side, the ownership side, they might not have done any of their due diligence or prepare for a closing as well.

So it's a little bit of a give and take of ensuring we're getting somebody assigned and helping the owner of the co-op board drive the project to a construction loan closing.

Well, I'd love to continue that conversation offline now with this.

Campus itself having $8 million from the state and the city, I hope we're in a better place to move that along.

I will follow up with the additional questions I have because I've gone over my time, but thank you to both of the chairs and thank you folks.

Thank you.

Just as a reminder for folks that are here from the public, if you haven't signed up to testify, if you could sign up with one of the sergeants in the back, that'd be great.