The Parks Department is looking to curb the cost of constructing new public bathrooms — by making them smaller.
Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver Tuesday said the agency is exploring stand-alone units tested in other cities, such as the Portland Loo and trailer-like bathrooms in Boston.
This story was originally published on Aug. 8 by THE CITY.
The Department of Education is running late on a legal mandate to equip every yellow bus with a GPS device by the first day of school, THE CITY has learned.
The City Council in January passed legislation requiring a GPS in all 9,500 yellow buses by the time the 2019-2020 school year starts, on Sept. 5.
The sponsor of the legislation, Councilmember Ben Kallos (D-Upper East Side), noted the DOE hasn’t awarded a contract yet to provide the devices on buses that serve 150,000 students.
“This is by far the most subsidy I’ve seen on any project,” said Councilman Ben Kallos (D-Manhattan), chair of the Subcommittee on Planning, Dispositions and Concessions.
Incomes for the families already in contract on three of the homes are up to $84,510 for a family of three, and up to $122,070 for a family of three on the remaining seven.
Brooklyn real-estate broker Sara Golan said the prices are a steal.
“That is an amazing deal,” Golan, of Nest Seekers International, said of a Grant Avenue home in the program. “I would take that deal any day.”
She said she recently sold a similarly sized house on Throop Street for $1.83 million.
“I share the mayor’s goal for affordability, but have concerns about the lack of mixed-income developments proposed in the plan,” said Councilman Ben Kallos (D-Manhattan).
“A middle-income family should still have somewhere to live in this city. They’re not provided for in the mayor’s plan.”
E-hail yes!
A Manhattan lawmaker is introducing legislation Monday that would require the city to launch a universal e-hail app for yellow and green cabs — the latest salvo against app-based taxi services like Uber.
City Council Member Ben Kallos says such an app would make the old-time, hand-hail yellow and green cabs significantly more competitive against the newer car service firms.
“City taxis need an app of their own to compete, and New Yorkers need to be able to get a cab in the rain without having to worry about surge pricing,” said Kallos, who’s also a software developer.
The head of the city Board of Elections stunned City Council members on Tuesday by claiming that the long-battered agency was purposely shorted funds by the city so it would fail.
BOE director Michael Ryan made the conspiracy-laden accusation as part of a pitch to secure a whopping $55 million in additional funding from the city’s coffers, even as his agency remains under investigation by the city.
