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Food for thought: If the NYS assembly removed the FAR cap on NYC properties, the city could then sell an incredible amount of air rights from existing NYCHA properties, giving the agency a much needed cash boost for repairs.
It would be great but the usual ignorant NIMBYism would surface, claiming gentrification and any discussions about building on these blackholes on the city's otherwise vibrant streetscapes will immediately get shut down.
Ignoring the fact that gentrification could never occur in the NYCHA buildings themselves because they are protected.
NYCHA properties are already pretty high many of them.
If the amount of people who cannot afford to live here on their own merit is so great that the govt cannot even house them on the govt dime, then those people simply need to leave.
It would be great but the usual ignorant NIMBYism would surface, claiming gentrification and any discussions about building on these blackholes on the city's otherwise vibrant streetscapes will immediately get shut down.
Ignoring the fact that gentrification could never occur in the NYCHA buildings themselves because they are protected.
While I agree that building market rate towers on actual NYCHA property is probably unfeasible for a multitude of reasons, my idea focuses on the air rights being given to adjoining parcels around the projects.
^ The adjoining blocks around NYCHA are actually intact, healthy, walkable built environments. It's the towers-in-the-park NYCHA blocks that need to be redeveloped, not their healthy neighbors.
How will Air Rights work? Most of the NYCHA buildings I know of are at least 16 floors high. The only ones I know that are low like under double digits floors are the ones over by Eden Wall and Queens Bridge.
The good Air Rights are the ones over the Metro North red and blue lines.
^ You can't just look at height alone. You have to take into account the lot it is built on. Many of the NYCHA towers are on huge lots so if you were to spread their built space out, it won't amount to as much as you think.
Besides, air rights and FAR is so arbitrary. The city can (if it wants) upzone all NYCHA land and then you can have lots of extra air rights to sell/transfer.
How will Air Rights work? Most of the NYCHA buildings I know of are at least 16 floors high. The only ones I know that are low like under double digits floors are the ones over by Eden Wall and Queens Bridge.
The good Air Rights are the ones over the Metro North red and blue lines.
There's two zoning principals that must be understood if one is to understand how big buildings get built:
First is that every property has a certain amount of Floor to Area Ratio that determines how much space can be built in a given plot. Say for instance you have a 200 x 200 sq ft plot (40k sq ft), and a F.A.R of 6. That means the building you can build can be no bigger than 40,000 x 6 sq ft or 240,000 sq ft. FAR is determined by multiplying the size of the lot with the FAR number.
The second issue is the actual air rights. Every property has a certain height cap meant to preserve sunlight. Developers can buy air rights off adjoining parcels to use on theirs meaning those parcels now can't go any higher while the developer can now stack those air rights he bought to build a bigger building.
My thought is for the NYS assembly to in esscence grant NYCHA properties as well as other affordable housing developments like Mitchell-Lama unlimited air rights and remove FAR Caps. This doesn't mean the buildings will actually go onto the NYCHA/ML property, but instead can be used by developers to build new high rises (Market Rate) next door or in the neighborhood of the affordable housing development. The money raised by selling these air rights would more than pay for repairs as well as ongoing preservation of Mitchell-Lama.
NYCHA is a mismanaged corrupt agency with no accountability. Even if Bloomberg gave nycha 30 billion tomorrow the money would dissapear or be wasted. So selling the air rights sounds like a good idea on paper but it wont help
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