#De Blasio delays land use reboot, leaving development and affordable housing in question

Mayor de Blasio is refusing to let the city’s land use review process restart — several weeks after the construction industry roared back to life — leaving in limbo for-profit development, affordable housing projects, and even neighborhood re-zonings backed by his administration.

“We’re opening up the city. We’re going to go to Phase Three. It’s time for us to get to work,” Councilman Rafael Salamanca (D-Bronx) told The Post.

A City Hall spokesman said the multi-step public review process, formally called Uniform Land Use Review Procedure or ULURP, “remains on pause due to the COVID crisis” and pledged more information about a restart in the late summer. ULURP was suspended in March because of the pandemic.

Vicki Been, de Blasio’s deputy mayor for housing and economic development, told an industry roundtable last week that she was still working out technological issues to convert ULURP’s in-person meetings to a remote system.

“I certainly expect that in the early fall we will be back in business,” Been said.

Joe Apicella, whose development firm The MacQuesten Companies is building 107 apartments for low-income residents in Brooklyn’s Ocean Hill is gobsmacked by the holdup, which has put his project on ice.

“We understand COVID but you know it’s just a shame because these are people who need a roof over their head. This a project that enjoys support form the area council member and the community. I can’t rationalize in this day and age with technology why we can’t have meetings,” Apicella told The Post.

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, who supports Apicella’s development, blasted City Hall’s foot-dragging.

“At a time when the need for affordable housing is even more acute throughout our city due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s simply no excuse for holding up developments for low-income families.

“Further delays in the land use process will increase the likelihood that closings won’t happen until next year, creating a greater strain on our already-limited supply. If Borough Hall can figure out virtual ULURP hearings, so can the Department of City Planning,” Adams said.

Salamanca noted that businesses and nonprofits with pending land use applications are still paying attorneys and architects while the administration dithers.

“It makes no sense,” he said.

In addition to the 1510 Broadway affordable housing project, other pending applications including neighborhood-wide re-zonings proposed by City Hall in Soho and Gowanus as well as a private waterfront rezoning in Long Island City’s Anable Basin that would bring 5,000 condos and rentals, over 300,000 square feet of manufacturing space, three acres of public park and a new public school.