The Week in Review

1. New York City Air Rights Set To Be Developed

The New York City Housing Authority may sell its air rights as part of a plan to bridge its $195 million budget gap, The New York Sun reported. Twenty-four of the agency's developments have at least 500,000 square feet of unused development rights, and seven others have more than 1 million square feet of unused development rights. Eighty-five percent of the Housing Authority's unused development rights are concentrated in East Harlem, the Lower East Side, Central Harlem, and the Upper West Side. The air rights of the Housing Authority's nearly 200,000 subsidized apartments and 343 developments throughout the city could be worth "billions" of dollars, the president of Manhattan, Scott Stringer, said. Mr. Stringer is calling for the development of the air rights, which are equal in size to 11 Empire State Buildings.

2. Whitney Museum Selling Five Townhouses

The Whitney Museum of American Art will sell five townhouses it purchased as part of a now defunct East Side expansion plan. In 2006, the museum scuttled its plan to erect a tower behind the townhouses, which are adjacent to the Madison Avenue museum, Crain's New York Business reported. The buildings, on Madison Avenue between East 74th and 75th streets, are in a historic district, and any work on their exterior would have required the approval of the Landmarks Preservation Commission. The museum is aiming to raise $60 million from the sale to fund the purchase of a new building in the meatpacking district, Crain's reported. A Whitney spokesman said the museum has set its sights on a newly available lot on Gansevoort and Washington streets. That site is slated to open in late 2012.

3. TriBeCa Is Most Overpriced U.S. Neighborhood

TriBeCa is America's most overpriced ZIP code, Forbes.com reported. The study, conducted by rent aggregator Hotpads.com, studied each ZIP code in the nation's 40 largest cities to determine where buyers would pay the highest premium to buy an apartment relative to how much it would cost to rent a comparable property. New York's 10013 ZIP code topped the list, with a 36.3% discrepancy between buying and renting costs. Boston's Chinatown neighborhood came in second, followed by Milwaukee, Wis.

4. Residents Oppose Hospital Expansion

Upper East Side residents are opposing a new building proposed by the Hospital for Special Surgery as part of its expansion plan. The $235 million project includes a new 12-story outpatient center on Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive between East 71st and 72nd streets, and the addition of three floors to its existing building, the New York Times reported. Opponents say the new River Building will increase traffic to the area and obstruct river views. The hospital, named the nation's top hospital for orthopedic medicine two years in a row by U.S. News & World Report, is at capacity, it has said. The local community board voted in favor of the new construction in May. The Planning Commission is expected to rule on the proposed River Building soon, and the proposal will go to City Council shortly thereafter.