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There is no such thing as permenent affordable units. There no government funding for that anymore. NYCHA has been crying poor and planning to sell their property because they lack the funding to maintain the buildings.
I wish people would move to a cheaper state instead of seeking welfare from tax payer to maintain their luxury lifestyle in NYC.
Clearly you've never been inside a NYCHA apartment building. You would not be impressed with the "luxury amenities" offered, such as rats, leaky roof, mold, broken elevators etc.
I am genuinely confused on how the mayor's affordable housing strategy helps anyone except real estate developers. It is almost like he took an even more aggressive approach than Bloomberg in accelerating gentrification of NYC. While his current voting base will benefit from subsidize housing for the next 30 years, people are going to get upset real quick once affordable housing policy expires and the apartments are either converted to market rate or sold to affluent people.
Wouldn't increasing the supply of market rate housing place downward pressure on rising rents?
And I applaud De Blasio to finally stand up to dumb NIMBYS and rezone the city to make it taller and denser. Ridiculous that you can only build five stories in Chelsea with a subway station right in the front. The city's way too conservative zoning is to blame for causing the high costs of housing we are dealing with right now in the first place, so it's about time the city fixes it.
I am genuinely confused on how the mayor's affordable housing strategy helps anyone except real estate developers. It is almost like he took an even more aggressive approach than Bloomberg in accelerating gentrification of NYC. While his current voting base will benefit from subsidize housing for the next 30 years, people are going to get upset real quick once affordable housing policy expires and the apartments are either converted to market rate or sold to affluent people.
There is a wealth of research literature highlighting the concerns around developer (and bank) benefit when it comes to mixed income housing. Further, the theoretical benefits versus actual benefits, and, issues surrounding sustainability, and cost.
This housing is being majority financed by the only federal housing production program still in existence, the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC). LIHTC housing sets aside a designated amount of housing units for households based upon the Area Median Income. LIHTC is *only* active for 30 years. Afteward, the owner can OPT OUT of the program and bring the entire complex to market rate. In NYC, the AMI is high, $62,500. Typically, affordable housing is split up to designate a particular amount of units for households making within 30%, 50%, 80% of the AMI.
The concerns residents raise, however, are quite valid. DeBlasio's plan for 'affordable' housing goes one step further, and, concentrates much of its focus on housing/new construction for moderate income families and beyond, making 81-121% of the AMI. This constitutes to new rentals ranging from $1,600 - $2,500.
When you examine rental rates in East New York at present, they range from $600 - $1,100. A majority of households in single family dwellings are housing voucher holders, meaning, their out of pocket rent averages from $300 - $600.
To increase the housing stock with hundreds of $1,600 - $2,500 rental units in such a depressed area (with most of the development around the transit area allowing residents paying higher rent to benefit from the proximity to transit), this will eventually raise the average rent in East New York, and, force relocation and in turn displacement for the City's poorest. This has already occurred in Wiliamsburg, Bed Stuy, Crown Heights, etc. East New York has seen an influx of displaced residents over the past several years. There is little truly affordable housing in existence, and, this will be further diminished if East New York turns. Further, this activity places rent stabilized units in jeopardy in the area, as, many landlords will want to remove their buildings from the program once they realize they can obtain higher rents (this is what you are seeing in other parts of Brooklyn, slumlords keeping housing in horrible shape, no heat, floors missing, to encourage residents to move out so they can turn the entire building to market rate).
Granted, some of this is just part of the process of gentrification. However, when we look back into the rationale behind this endeavor in the first place, and, why the City would be spending a fortune to incentivize developers into creating more affordable housing if it'll in turn do the opposite, I don't blame residents and citizens groups for being active and against a project of this sort without further research into all of the negative implications that can ensue from development of this type. 'Rezoning' for commercial activity in Williamsburg resulted in luxury housing. Rezoning in NYC, 40% of it over the past decade or so, has also resulted in a sharp increase in inequality and rental costs across Manhattan.
Other states don't hand out freebies and luxury apartments left and right. People actually have to work for a living there and nobody cares when they scream that they feel entitled to something.
Not true, there are housing projects and welfare in other states as well. There is no state that is welfare free.
And clearly most New Yorkers do or have worked for a living.
You don't know what you are talking about. We are not talking about those 1950's urban renewal NYCHA housing projects. That Moses era model did not work. This is 2015, not 1960. There is a program in place for a few decades now called Inclusionary Housing Program and it does work, just needs more of it.
Since New York City’s IZ program was created in 2005, inclusionary zoning produced the construction or preservation of over 2,769 affordable housing units – but just two neighborhoods have reaped the majority of those benefits. While many other US cities’ IZ programs require 10, 15 or 20% of new multifamily housing to be affordable, New York City’s voluntary, incentive-based inclusionary zoning program has only generated 2% of all multifamily units built since 2005.
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Originally Posted by antinimby
And you're ridiculous with your luxury lifestyle assertion. Most people are not living in luxury. Quite the contrary, many pay ridiculous rents for old, scruffy apartments in the city. As for your moving to another state quip, this city would turn into a ghost town if everyone that aren't rich were to leave.
It won't turn into a ghost town, I can see quality of life significantly improving with less people. People will only pay for services they value rather than being force to do it by government reallocating their tax money to support welfare.
It won't turn into a ghost town, I can see quality of life significantly improving with less people. People will only pay for services they value rather than being force to do it by government reallocating their tax money to support welfare.
Yes, and there is a place like that and it's called Paramus NJ.
Wouldn't increasing the supply of market rate housing place downward pressure on rising rents?
Only if you view all NYC as Manhattan. Location matters, so poor neighborhood with new Manhattan amenities will have the opposite effect. For people who have the money they will see it as lower prices compared to
Manhattan while people from the outer boroughs will see it as a rise in prices.
There would be no restaurants, no hotels, no stores, no subways, no deliveries, no cops, no firefighters, no teachers, no nurses, no nannies, no cab drivers, no fresh direct, no dog walkers, no postal workers, no plumbers, no nothing because all or most of the workers that make a city operate would be better off living in another state. If that were to happen, even those that can afford to live in the city, would bolt as well because there would be nothing here.
This simply isn't true. Gentrification has it's limits and in a more common sense world there would be plenty of affordable housing being built in places like SE Queens, NE Bronx, Canarsie, ENY, East Flatbush, Newark, Jersey City, Staten Island, etc. Tax the luxury developments and use the windfall to build more middle/working class housing in the areas that can support it. While inclusonary zoning seems nice, in reality it truly does not help the situation and like you said, can actually serve to spread gentrification around *faster* than in a more natural market. Let the developers build the heck out of Manhattan and prime Brooklyn and you'll see less bleed into working class areas.
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A healthy city (and this is clearly a city heading in the wrong direction) has room for everybody that wants to come, live and work (or go to school) here. If the balance is not maintained, then the government needs to step in. All great cities in the world has some kind of government intervention.
I'm not trying to delibrately be a smart alec, but you're basically talking about a NYC of 100 million people (or more?). Not everyone who wants to live in NYC is going to have that oppertunity. Sad, yes, but that's life. I wanna be able to dunk basketballs like Jordan but my 200lb ass isn't going to get that high. It's the facts of life.
Second, on a more philosophical note: What makes NYC, and other world cities, so great is the presence of the "elites". You can deny it all you want, but all those museums, clubs, art galleries, shopping, etc exists in the first place is because there is a critical mass of wealthy people around to support such things. If it was simply a matter of sheer density of people then Dhaka, Bangladesh or Lagos, Nigeria would be poppin, but no offense to those places they're not. As far as what other cities do, Tokyo and London are vastly more expensive than NYC and have massive affordability issues all their own. Paris has their "Banlieues" and I don't think that's something we want to emulate. NY isn't alone in this issue and by no means do the other great cities of the world have it all figured out.
Obviously, not everyone would leave. I was responding to his statement by using the most hyperbole example.
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I'm not trying to delibrately be a smart alec, but you're basically talking about a NYC of 100 million people (or more?).
Now you're using hyperbole. We haven't even reach 9 million. Let's not worry about 100 million yet. Besides, there will always be a natural limit to how big a city can get, not the least of which, is that not everyone in the world would even want to live in NY, for whatever reason, the lousy weather being one of them.
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