The newly appropriated funds are part of a five-year, $3-billion city plan to renovate and construct 65,000 affordable units. "The Governor's allocation of $60.7 million of tax-exempt bonding authority to HDC will help enable us to implement our new five year plan to create and preserve 67,000 units of affordable housing," says Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The $60-million allocation revealed yesterday will finance several projects that fall under the auspices of that plan, including construction of a 136-unit mixed-income project in Downtown Brooklyn on a site currently owned by the Empire State Development Corporation; conversion of an abandoned theater in Brownsville, Brooklyn into 84 units of low-income housing; construction of 130 units of low-income housing on Washington Avenue between East 168th and East 169th Streets in the Bronx; and construction of 104 units of mixed-income housing on Manhattan Avenue in Harlem.

"I know that new housing is one of the City's top priorities," says Governor George Pataki. "And I am committed to putting State resources behind these vitally needed projects that will make it possible for more hard-working New Yorkers to have access to safe, affordable homes for themselves and their families."