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COMMENTS
Stalled Construction Sites Are Here to Stay
By Audrey Tempelsman
Dec 11th 2009 @ 12:00PM
Dec 11th 2009 @ 12:00PM
Filed Under: Cities
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When you live above a construction site, the promise of waking up to birds, instead of bulldozers, and sunshine, instead of tarp-covered scaffolding, is what gets you through. 'One day,' you think to yourself. 'I'll walk down my block without worrying about being crushed by a 25-story crane.' Dream on.
Construction has stalled on 515 properties in New York City, according to an analysis by the New York Building Congress, with 237 of them in Brooklyn.
Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and other north Brooklyn neighborhoods account for 30 percent of the borough's stalled sites, thanks to the hipster-driven housing boom of recent years. The borough of Queens came in second, with 140 projects on hold, and Manhattan has 80, with particularly high concentrations in the Turtle Bay-East Midtown area.
The total number of stalled construction sites in New York City has increased by 30 percent since last July. And though a new law makes it easier for developers to renew building permits after they expire, NYBC president Richard Anderson believes the city has a long way to go. "In the midst of this credit crunch, we need a lot more incentives like tax credits, zoning modifications and land use changes to jumpstart these stalled projects," he told Crain's New York.
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