Archinect - News

Ida deaths highlight persistent flooding and housing issues in New York City’s low-lying immigrant neighborhoods

2021-09-03T14:50:00-04:00

As the fallout of Hurricane Ida comes into focus in both the Gulf Coast region and the Atlantic Northeast, one area of chronic concern has become ground zero for planning gaps that are increasingly deadly indicators of race and class in cities that number among the most expensive in the world.

The Hollis section of Queens in New York City, where 13 people were tragically killed in the flooding that gripped the city over the night on Wednesday as the unexpectedly intense storm bore down on the region, was particularly hard-hit relative to other neighborhoods in the borough of nearly 2.5 million.

Two people died in the basement of their 183rd Street apartment as storm waters collapsed walls and deluged buildings around Hollis. The neighborhood is prone to flooding and has been the subject of a multibillion-dollar sewage system upgrade that began in 2019 and is still undergoing construction, according to Mayor de Blasio.

Photos:183 Street was devastated by flooding last night. A mothe...

New York City initiates basement apartment conversion pilot program

2019-08-20T08:00:00-04:00

The Basement Apartment Conversion Pilot Program provides eligible low- to middle-income homeowners living in East New York and Cypress Hills, Brooklyn with low or no-interest, or possible forgivable, loans to convert their basement or cellar into a safe, legal, and rentable apartment, based on altered building code legislation passed in February 2019.

Billionaires' basements: the luxury bunkers making holes in London streets

2012-11-12T12:05:00-05:00

The reason for all this quarrying is not the discovery of a coal-rich seam beneath the Wrenaissance streets, but the local enthusiasm for subterranean development. Over the past four years, this local authority alone has granted planning applications for more than 800 basement extensions, refused 90, and has a further 20 outstanding. It is the most densely populated borough in the country, with no room to build outwards, and no permission to build upwards – so the only way is down.