Skeptical NYC challenges new Census count

For City Hall, the latest Census is a big number-crunching exercise that just doesn't add up.

Expecting New York City's population to rise to 8.4 million, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other officials were stunned two weeks ago to learn that 2010 Census results totaled the five boroughs at only 8.175 million. That's just over 2 percent more than the 2000 results.

"I am not criticizing them but it doesn't make any sense," Bloomberg said. The mayor and experts in his city planning office plan to file a protest with the U.S. Census Bureau as early as June.

If the Census agency finds there was a problem in the city numbers, it can change the tally. While any change wouldn't affect reapportionment, it will impact future population estimates used to decide certain federal funding formulas, said one city expert.

Last week, Robert Groves, Census Bureau director, called Bloomberg to tell him that the city's appeal will be examined carefully. "The city received assurances that it could submit its challenge . . . and that the bureau would take a close look at the issue," Rachaele Raynoff, spokeswoman for the city planning agency said Friday.

City officials believe the real problem lies in the unusually high number of vacant housing units the Census reported for parts of Queens and Brooklyn, particularly in Census tracts that have traditionally been beacons for immigration.

While the city and Census officials agree the five boroughs added about 170,000 new housing units since 2000, the federal count indicated that about 82,000 of those were vacant. A city official who asked not to be named said the vacancy finding was unexpected because usually about 90 percent of new city housing is rapidly occupied.

To challenge the Census results, the city is sending teams into affected neighborhoods and delving into its computer data bases for occupied housing that may have been missed.

Particular attention is being paid to Census tract 594.02 in the Sheepshead Bay area of Brooklyn. Census data reported a housing vacancy rate of 30 percent in a neighborhood drawing Russian and Chinese immigrants, said the city official. Those vacancy levels don't make sense, said local Realtors.

"I would say that is not true at all," said Sheepshead Bay real estate agent Vince Dilorenzo.

While some new condominium construction along Emmons Avenue--which is actually outside the specific Census tract--has empty space, existing housing stock in the vicinity is filled up, said Dilorenzo.

"It is a lie," said an official at Exit Realty Group about the reported vacancy rate. "A lot of people are looking to buy (existing housing), a lot of people are looking to sell."

Similar high vacancy rates were reported by the Census in the Astoria section of Queens, traditionally home to Greek immigrants and recently drawing a large Middle Eastern migration, said population experts. Queens' population increased only about 1,300 since 2000, a finding that baffled Bloomberg.

"Could that really be possible?" he asked rhetorically last week. "As they say in Brooklyn: 'Fuhgeddaboudit.' "