Community Development and Design
The De Blasio administration estimates that it’s ahead of schedule on its goals to preserve or create 200,000 units of affordable housing over a decade, citing 53,000 units created or preserved so far. [New York Times]
State lawmakers in New Jersey introduced a bill to impose statewide taxes on Airbnb hosts. Newark and Jersey City have already agreed to tax Airbnb hosts at a rate similar to hotels. [Politico New Jersey]
Transportation
The MTA announced it was moving forward with plans for an 18-month shutdown of the L line between 8th Avenue and Bedford, to begin in 2019. [Slate] Here’s what RPA had to say about it. [RPA Lab]
New Jersey democrats have united around a revised plan to fund the state’s transportation trust fund, keeping the gas-tax as a central component and agreeing to a new income tax break for veterans and an acceleration of the phasing of out of the state’s estate tax. [NJ Spotlight] But Gov. Chris Christie said the plan was “dead on arrival.” [Politico New Jersey]
A century of mass transportation has transformed Coney Island from a rich-man’s playground to a more universal park. [City Lab]
Elon Musks’s proposals for ditching fixed route transit systems may work well in suburban or rural communities, but it doesn’t make sense for our dense urban areas. [Human Transit]
Energy and Environment
The Hills, a new section of Governors Island with sweeping skyline views, opened to the public this past week and exemplifies how climate change and sea level rise have shaped the park’s design. [The Guardian]
Budget cuts for Connecticut parks and environmental programs are drawing criticism and questions from lawmakers and advocates. [Hartford Courant]
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plan to subsidize nuclear facilities by including them in his mandate to grow renewable energy sources represented a seismic shift in state energy policy, equating the solar panel with the nuclear reactor as an essential piece of New York’s energy future. [Politico New York]
Photo: Stuyvesant Town, May 2008 by Marianne O’Leary / Flickr Creative Commons