The Bloomberg administration, hoping to inspire more imaginative design in working-class housing, intends to turn over one of a dwindling number of large tracts of city-owned land to a development team with an unusual plan — to build a low- and moderate-income housing complex bound together by courtyards and roof gardens that would be used for everything from harvesting rainwater to farming vegetables and fruit.

From the New York Times

The property, in the Melrose section of the South Bronx, was condemned by the city in 1972.The proposed project, selected from among five finalists by a jury that included not only architects but a professor of environmental psychology and anthropology, would include an outdoor amphitheater, apartments designed for breezes, a fitness center, wiring for Internet access, “live-work units” for people who work at home, stoops with photovoltaic canopies, even a Christmas tree farm.

“We started out on this process to try to raise the level of design and the level of sustainability for housing not just on this site but with the hope that this could be really a model,” said Shaun Donovan, commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. “Given the responses we got, I think there’s a real opportunity for this to be a project that changes the future of housing in this country.”

The competition, announced last June and sponsored by the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects and Mr. Donovan’s department, attracted interest from 32 teams of architects and developers from around the world. The Bloomberg administration has vowed to create or preserve 165,000 units of low- and moderate-income housing by 2013.

The winning team, to be announced today, is made up of an international architectural firm, Grimshaw Architects; a New York firm, Dattner Architects; and two developers, the Jonathan Rose Companies and the Phipps Houses Group, a New York nonprofit that develops low- and moderate-income housing. For one dollar, the city plans to give the team an oddly shaped, empty 60,000-square-foot lot at Brook Avenue and East 156th Street in the South Bronx, which it condemned in an urban renewal program in 1972. The property, which includes abandoned railroad tracks and possibly contaminated soil and groundwater, lies northeast of the Hub, the third-largest shopping district in the Bronx.

The 202-apartment complex, called Via Verde, or the Green Way, would include an 18-story tower at the north end, a mid-rise building with duplex apartments, and townhouses to the south. Sixty-three units would be co-op apartments for sale; the rest would be rentals. The garden would begin at ground level, then spiral upward in a series of roof gardens that face south, culminating in what the team calls a sky terrace.

“There’s a reason why people like to be in parks and gardens and trees,” said Jonathan F. P. Rose, president of Jonathan Rose Companies. “We grew out of nature. How can we make this very urban building but also give people a connection with nature?” He said the team decided to “wrap the building with a garden,” beginning with a contemplative space and moving “from very private to increasing levels of communality.”

The so-called green roofs have multiple purposes — social, psychological and environmental. They would enhance insulation, reduce heat absorption and help manage storm water runoff, the developers say. They would help with solar and rainwater harvesting systems. Every apartment would have two facades, allowing cross-ventilation and plenty of light; all mechanical systems would be energy efficient.

Other environmentally sensitive technologies that might be used include geothermal ground loops for heating water in winter and cooling it in summer. To encourage conservation, residents would be given control of their own energy consumption. There would be low-flow, water-conserving plumbing fixtures and rooms for recycling and bicycle storage.

The co-ops would be for households making no more than 130 percent of the median income for the city, or roughly $70,000 for a family of four. The rest of the apartments would be rentals for households making less than 40 percent, between 40 and 60 percent, and between 60 and 80 percent of the median income. The low and moderate rents are to be made possible with the help of city, federal and state subsidies.

Construction is expected to begin in mid-2008.

[Read the full article from the New York Times]

The Union of Concerned Scientists released a report on Wednesday accusing Exxon Mobil of spending millions of dollars to manipulate public opinion on the seriousness of global warming.

“Many of the tactics, and even some of the same organizations and actors used by Exxon Mobil to mislead the public, draw upon the tobacco industry’s 40-year disinformation campaign,” the report said.

The report said that a task force that Exxon Mobil helped create on global climate science in 1998 included someone who had led a nonprofit organization called the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, “which had been covertly created by the tobacco company Philip Morris in 1993 to manufacture uncertainty about the health hazards posed by secondhand smoke.”

Many of the accusations in the report have been made before by the scientists’ organization and environmental groups. But the organization, a liberal advocacy group, said this report more completely detailed connections between money donated by Exxon Mobil and the scientists in groups that question the degree to which humans are contributing to climate change.

The release of the report comes as Democrats take control of Congress, and the organization said it hoped incoming committee chairmen investigate the links detailed in the report.

“The relatively modest investment of about $16 million between 1998 and 2004 to select political organizations has been remarkably effective at manufacturing uncertainty about the scientific consensus on global warming,” the report said.

Exxon Mobil released a statement responding to the report, saying “many of the conclusions are inaccurate.” It added, “Our support extends to a fairly broad array of organizations that research significant domestic and foreign policy issues and promote discussion on issues of direct relevance to the company.”

[via New York Times]