The promised territories: the production of branded housing projects in contemporary Turkey

Cities in Turkey, following the neoliberal restructuring of the country, have undergone a process of transformation in the last decade at a greater pace than experienced in previous periods. Through these processes, while new territories have been constructed, previous formations have been dismantled. While some of these constructed territories are abstract (e.g. Nomenclature of Units for Territorial Statistics [NUTS] regions), some are tangible and physically defined such as branded housing enclaves. Branded housing projects produce territories in the form of housing enclaves, which provide key services and facilities within their confines exclusively for project residents. By 2013, the number of branded housing projects located in Istanbul alone numbered 852 with the number of units provided by these projects amounting to 7.7% of the total housing stock the city (Sarıçayır 01/21/2014). This paper argues that these territories are co-produced by political society and civil society (in Gramscian terms): while political society regulates and directly contributes to the production of these territories through public actors involved in the branded housing projects, civil society contributes through the production of social consent for such developments. The article discusses the role of political society and civil society in the production of branded housing projects by focusing on the case of Emlak Konut GYO (Real Estate Partnership) projects developed in Istanbul between 2003 and 2014. Firstly, the role of political society is discussed through the roles of TOKI (Housing Development Administration of Turkey) and Emlak Konut GYO as major public actors in the development of these territories; and secondly, the role of civil society is discussed through excavating the traces of production of social consent for branded housing projects in news articles published on Emlak Konut GYO projects between 2003 and 2014. The paper concludes that branded housing projects are emerging as spatial territories in contemporary Turkey as a result of hegemonic struggle through political society and civil society

Legal Issues in the rehabilitation of abandoned housing projects of the liquidated housing-developer-companies in Peninsular Malaysia

Abandoned housing projects is one of the biggest problems in the housing industry in Peninsular Malaysia. Even though since the Independence days in 1957, the Malaysian Government have provided laws and policies to govern housing industry, yet abandoned housing projects problem is still an unsettled issue until today.The real victims are the purchasers themselves.Usually when a housing developer company is wound up, the affair and business of the company are taken over either by the private liquidator or provisional liquidator or the official Receiver (OR) under the Department of Insolvency.The liquidator may rehabilitate the abandoned projects left by the wound up housing developer companies, if the projects are viable for rehabilitation with the approval of the creditors, contributories, the committee of inspection and the court and that there is adequate fund to finance the rehabilitation. Otherwise, if the project is not viable, particularly because there are insufficient funds to run the rehabilitation, the projects may be stalled forever without any prospects for rehabilitation, to the detriment of the purchasers. This article discusses the law and practice in the rehabilitation of abandoned housing projects in Peninsular Malaysia of the wound-up-housing-developer-companies.At the ending part of this article the author proposes certain suggestions for facing the problems of abandoned housing projects of the wound up housing developer companies and their rehabilitation in Peninsular Malaysia

Zoning New York City to Provide Low and Moderate Income Housing - Can Commercial Developers Be Made to Help?

Lower income New York City residents are faced with a housing emergency. Concurrently, commercial and luxury residential development is expanding. New York is considering adopting an approach to the housing shortage which has been taken in several other cities. The plan advocates amendment of the City\u27s zoning ordinance to require developers of commercial and luxury residential projects to provide the City with lower income housing units. This Note examines the proposed requirement that commercial developers provide lower income housing units. It addresses the question of the validity of such a requirement in the context of New York City\u27s statutory authority to use zoning ordinances to place conditions upon proposed development projects. By analogy to the limitations on this authority, this Note recommends a shift in emphasis to bring such a program into compliance with New York law

Zoning New York City to Provide Low and Moderate Income Housing - Can Commercial Developers Be Made to Help?

Lower income New York City residents are faced with a housing emergency. Concurrently, commercial and luxury residential development is expanding. New York is considering adopting an approach to the housing shortage which has been taken in several other cities. The plan advocates amendment of the City\u27s zoning ordinance to require developers of commercial and luxury residential projects to provide the City with lower income housing units. This Note examines the proposed requirement that commercial developers provide lower income housing units. It addresses the question of the validity of such a requirement in the context of New York City\u27s statutory authority to use zoning ordinances to place conditions upon proposed development projects. By analogy to the limitations on this authority, this Note recommends a shift in emphasis to bring such a program into compliance with New York law

The Cost of Affordable Housing Development in Oregon

The cost of new affordable housing has been a topic of intense scrutiny recently as the need for affordable housing across Oregon continues to significantly outpace the current system's ability to deliver additional units. Many people have questioned why costs for publicly subsidized affordable projects are as high as they are, and whether there are ways to significantly reduce the cost of new affordable housing. Meyer Memorial Trust convened the Cost Efficiencies Work Group to answer questions like these. Meyer recruited sixteen experts from development, construction, finance, and related fields and charged this Work Group with three major tasks: 1) To create a clear and concise summary of key factors affecting the cost of developing affordable housing; 2) To identify opportunities – whether policy and systems changes, or innovative approaches to design, construction, and financing – to deliver affordable units at a lower cost; and 3) To advise Meyer on pilot or demonstration projects to test new approaches to affordable housing development. This report synthesizes the results of this work over the last year. The full report engages a wide variety of topics in detail – and the details and nuances are important – but the key results are summarized below

The impact of LIHTC program on local schools

The low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) program has developed over two million rental homes for low-income households since 1986. The perception of deterioration in school quality has been a main reason for community opposition to LIHTC projects in middle-and upper-income areas. In this paper, we examine the impact of LIHTC projects on the nearby school performance. The LIHTC projects tend to have positive and statistically significant impacts on school performance the year they are placed in service and this finding is robust to various specifications. Offsetting these, the one year lag effects are negative and of similar or smaller magnitude.Housing subsidies ; Housing policy ; Education ; Poverty

Multi-stakeholder partnerships in affordable rental housing: An investigation using soft systems framework

Queensland Department of Housing has proposed the use of partnerships as one possible option to deliver affordable housing outcomes. Although this initiative is supported by other stakeholders, many constraints have impeded its implementation for the delivery of real projects. Whilst it might find application for mixed housing projects with some relaxation on tax and/ or planning requirements, in general, affordable housing has not been seen as a valuable investment. Moreover, the partnerships require stakeholders to work across boundaries and outside their comfort zones.\ud \ud This initial study examines the use of soft systems framework to explore stakeholders’ views of multi-stakeholder partnerships in affordable rental housing. A series of in-depth interviews with major stakeholders representing housing providers, regulators and users in Queensland has been conducted. \ud \ud Soft systems methodology has been used to express the unstructured problem by using systematic thinking to develop a conceptual model to solve the problem. A complex problem is broken down into role, social system and political system analyses. This study provides an example of using systematic thinking in solving conflicting problems. The gap between the conceptual model and implementation in the real world situation was also investigated. Major changes in the socio-cultural aspects of the broader community as well as between stakeholders were required to implement the further development of multi-stakeholder partnerships for affordable rental housing