Archinect - News

NYC plan to allow cannabis cultivation on public housing rooftops runs into federal hurdles

2022-04-19T17:34:00-04:00

At an April 9 panel discussion in Albany, Adams said his team was exploring whether the city could allow cannabis cultivation on the rooftops of New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) facilities. The idea, he said, would be to employ NYCHA residents to staff and oversee the greenhouses as the state continues to roll out its recreational marijuana program for adults. “The jobs can come from NYCHA residents. The proceeds and education can go right into employing people right in the area.”

As part of its economic development agenda, the Adams administration has been pushing an ambitious pilot program for rooftop cultivation on federally-funded NYCHA public housing properties. The current laws, however, still classify marijuana as a controlled substance, leading to an inevitable impasse. An inbound decriminalization bill written by New York Democratic congressman Jerry Nadler could clear the way for legal grow operations on such property via an update to the federal guidelines, which a spokesperson for the mayor told Gothamist are held over from a pernicious era of public policymaking.

“[Federal] laws still on the books continue to harm the same communities that have been targeted for decades,” City Hall spokesperson Charles Lutvak explained. “The House passed legislation to this effect earlier this month, and we need those who are obstructing progress at the federal level to follow New York’s lead.”

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Facial recognition technology would be banned from public housing per new bill

2019-07-31T16:35:00-04:00

The legislation, dubbed the “No Biometric Barriers to Housing Act,” was introduced by Congresswoman Yvette Clark whose district borders the Atlantic Plaza Towers in Brownsville where tenants made headlines this spring with their fight to keep a facial recognition system out of their apartment complex.

Back in May, residents of the Atlantic Plaza Towers in Brooklyn opposed the installation of facial recognition technology proposed by their landlord. Now a bill has been introduced that would prohibit "facial, voice, fingerprint, and DNA identification technologies" within federally funded public housing.

Trump appoints his "event planner" as a head of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Region II

2017-06-16T17:55:00-04:00

President Trump has reportedly appointed a longtime Trump family supporter and event planner with no housing experience to oversee federal housing programs in New York. Lynne Patton will lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) region that oversees New York and New Jersey, the New York Daily News reported Thursday.

Appointed on Wednesday, Lynne Patton, has zero experience in housing, and is now in charge of running the office that oversees federal housing programs in New York.

Patton falsely claims to have a law degree from Quinnipiac University School of Law in Connecticut. Yale University is also listed on her LinkedIn profile with no official explanation.

Her relationship with Trump family began in 2009 when she became responsible for arranging tournaments at Trump golf courses. Patton later served as the liaison to the Trump family during his presidential campaign, arranged Eric Trump’s wedding and helped run the Eric Trump Foundation, a charity that's now under investigation.