Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Inclusionary zoning deadline extended

From Crains:

The city is widening its search for private-sector firms to help craft a key portion of the mayor's affordable-housing plan.

The Housing Development Corp. is seeking firms to analyze real estate markets around the city and locate neighborhoods that might be ripe for mandatory inclusionary zoning—a policy that would require affordable apartments to be built as part of new developments in areas that are rezoned for taller new buildings.

Mandatory inclusionary zoning is a cornerstone of Mayor Bill de Blasio's effort to build 80,000 more affordable-housing apartments over the next decade.

But after a July 25 application deadline netted two complete proposals, HDC extended its application period until Aug. 28 due to additional firms that expressed interest in applying for the project.

The administration wants the private-sector firms it hires to find locations where mandatory inclusionary zoning rules would encourage development.

Eventually, the winning bidder would also be responsible for proposing changes to the city's existing inclusionary housing program, which offers extra development rights to builders in exchange for including affordable units in new construction but is optional.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can't we just deport to make more living space? I think that's a better idea than to keep attempting to put up "affordable housing " that we know is going to look like garbage in another few years. The city of new York can't take care of it's infrastructures.

Anonymous said...

De Blasio and his crony friends want affordable units in buildings because then they get to give them out to their pals who get to live in a building and only pay 800 a month in rent when everyone else has to pay 3k.

The cost of construction leaves even high rise apartments affordable to most excluding the cost of land, and aid payments/cash to poor people/guaranteed income make them affordable to all.

The only issue is the price of land. An apartment that costs 100k to build sells for 500k, so the developers bid up the price of land, and it ends up costing nearly 500k to build that apartment. If there are more apartments the price drops.

The cost of land per unit of housing would drop. It's possible the already inflated land prices would come down with enough building, but isn't necessary.

So why doesn't this happen? Low density zoning. People don't want their neighborhood to change, so they fight it. Pols like DB get to give out token unit to their pals so they wouldn't gain anything from lowering the cost of housing, so they don't fight for it. Those in rent controlled units fear having their protections removed, and for many are living well under the cost of construction excluding land, so they would lose out and so they fight it. The result is the mess we have now.