Mayor Bill de Blasio Awards Affordable Housing Building Contracts to Minority Owned Firms

Mayor Bill de Blasio, Deputy Mayor for Strategic Policy Initiatives Richard Buery and Department of Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Vicki Been, announced the selection of eight minority and women-owned business enterprise teams to lead the construction of six new affordable housing developments on vacant city-owned land this week. The developments will include about 440 homes for seniors and other New Yorkers with a variety of income levels, including extremely-low income and formerly homeless households.

The sites are located in the Bronx’s Melrose and Crotona Park East sections, Brooklyn’s East New York and Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhoods, and Central Harlem.

“These Minority and Women-Owned business enterprise firms are offering first-rate projects that will serve a diverse set of New York communities and New Yorkers,” de Blasio said. “I congratulate them, and expect to see important work from each of them as we continue to work together in the future to protect affordability and quality of life in all our neighborhoods.”

Aimed at increasing contracting opportunities for M/WBE firms in City housing and economic development projects, HPD issued a Request for Qualifications to create a pre-qualified list of M/WBE developers. The development of these properties was specifically restricted to respondents from that list through a Request for Proposals. In addition to hundreds of homes, these developments will incorporate community space for a green market, a high school capacity building program for STEM students, a tech center and an LGBT community center.

With the Mayor’s Office of M/WBE’s, the City made a commitment to award at least 30 percent of the value of City contracts to M/WBE’s by 2021 and to double that number of certified M/WBE firms by 2019.

To read the full release, please visit HERE.