Don't look now but a bureaucratic pissing match between two big city agencies has in the more moderate verbiage used by the Times "delayed the building of hundreds of homes for low- and moderate-income New Yorkers in economically struggling neighborhoods, city officials, developers and advocates of such housing say." The cat fight is between the Department of Housing Preservation and Development and the Office of Management and Budget and involves financing on homeownership projects on city-owned land. HPD wants the projects built. The budget agency doesn't want to spend city money in a tanking market. Many of the projects that have fallen victim to the bureaucratic micturition battle are in parts of the Bronx and Brooklyn where foreclosure rates are highest. The fact the fight has even gone public indicates how nasty it is. Housing advocates say the budget office is engaging in "a form of redlining." No agency officials offered any comment whatsoever, except for a dude who said a bunch of offices smelled like urinals and that it was kind of gross.
· Feud Between City Agencies Delays Moderate-Cost Housing [NYT]
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