Affordable housing will never happen on Bloomberg's watch

From Gotham Gazette:

Almost five years ago, the Bloomberg administration came up with several [affordable housing] solutions. One of them was to rezone scores of communities, Williamsburg included, across the city and provide financial incentives to developers to build permanent affordable housing -- otherwise known as inclusionary zoning.

The problem, some advocates and experts say, is that it isn't meeting expectations.

A review of the units created by this type of financial incentive shows that the administration is not close to hitting its goal. And given the economy, it is unlikely to anytime soon. What a spokesman from the Department of Housing Preservation and Development calls a "key piece" of the administration's affordable housing agenda has to many advocates, officials and experts been disappointing.

Back in 2005, the administration said the rezonings already approved -- like Hudson Yards and Greenpoint-Williamsburg -- would alone create 6,000 units of affordable housing thanks to inclusionary zoning.

Nearly five years later and with more than a dozen new neighborhoods under the program, less than half that number have been preserved or built during Bloomberg's first two terms. A vast majority of those apartments, 1,786 of the total 2,716, are in Manhattan, according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

Some of these developments were projected to create affordable housing over an extended time period. Even taking those deadlines into account, they are behind schedule.

Here's more from Bloomberg Watch.