The next time a New York City developer seeks permission to replace a derelict factory with a shimmering condo tower, the heated swimming pool and sky-lit roof lounge will have to be accompanied by another amenity: affordable housing.
In the most forceful remarks yet of an administration determined to reshape the cityscape, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s top planning official declared on Friday that affordable units will be a requirement for any future real estate project requiring a zoning change from the city.
The mandate will apply not only to neighborhood-wide redevelopments, like the earlier transformation of industrial Williamsburg into a residential mecca, but also to individual projects, as when a developer needs a waiver to graft stories onto an apartment tower in Midtown.
“You can’t build one unit unless you build your share of affordable housing,” Carl Weisbrod, chairman of the City Planning Commission, told a packed room of landlords, planners and investors at a New York Law School breakfast on Friday. “You can’t build just market-rate housing, period.”
Aides to Mr. de Blasio, who has pledged to create or preserve 200,000 affordable units in the next decade, have signaled for months that mandates for developers were on the way. But Mr. Weisbrod’s comments provided the clearest glimpse yet of what the city’s plan would mean in practice for the real estate industry, which is still wary of a mayor who has presented a lofty vision for future development but has provided few details on how he plans to achieve it.
Privately, some developers expressed skepticism about the administration’s plan, fearing that the requirements would make it financially difficult to build. While few in real estate criticize the mayor publicly, Mr. Weisbrod acknowledged those concerns, saying the industry was a necessary partner.
In his speech, Mr. Weisbrod said the administration would take steps to ease the bureaucratic burden on developers, such as speeding up the public review process and rolling back other onerous regulations. And he pledged that planning officials would consider new projects on the merits when determining how many affordable units should be included.
25 comments:
Has the Mayor's office ever published the exact amount per sq. ft. that is deemed affordable in a city of primarily minimum wage jobs?
Let see - rule of thumb is 25% of gross pay - at $10.00/hr - $400/month for an apartment.
Is that right?
God save our city.
"...requirements would make it financially difficult to build." Give me a break.
Why is it that when they build condos, only 30% are "affordable housing units" ? Why aren't 100% of the units "affordable "?
I remember a time not too long ago when pretty much all of Queens was truly affordable. Then we were "discovered" and all hell broke loose.
I remember a time not too long ago when pretty much all of Queens was truly affordable. Then we were "discovered" and all hell broke loose.
This "you cant do stuff unless you share" is worse then communism in the Soviet Union.
At least in Russia they segregate and put housing into classes based location, where you work, and your education, and police record.
Who the F_ wants to pay full rate for an apartment, pool, spa only to share it at with some pregnant single mom with 4+ unruly "inner city" kids ?
I recently visited a disabled friend in that "affordable housing" tower in Astoria near the running track (Shore Blvd ?) Holy HOLY shit --Females pushing baby strollers everywhere with kids in tow clogging the elevator, stink of diaper, screaming and sounds like overcrowded unsupervised NYC junior high school lunchroom's inside. -Just Horrible !!!
Where are all these low class people and illegal immigrants the mayor keeps attracting to NYC expected to work with all this housing driving all the manufactoring and industrial space out?
These "new people" wont be working on Wall street, Executone, Slingland, Banks, film & Studios so how many McDonalds, Pizza huts & assorted retail shacks can absorb and employ such a population on a already jam packed Island.
With the above all a given where does the jackass Mayor expect all these people to find paying employment aside becoming slave's, domestic help and dog walkers for the Manhattan elite ?
2 bedroom apartment $2400 a month affordable house. what a joke
the blaz,although his demand was admirable and justified,is still kidding himself to think that these greedy tower owners are going to capitulate to his demands and to the desperate working people's right to live comfortably in nyc and the triboro areas.The fun size mayor and his toady city planners have made permanent and irreparable damage with their willfully blind rubberstamping to allow these developments in the first place.Add to it the recent decision by some judge to legalize class seperatism by permitting a different door for the tower on riverside blvd.
It's nice to hear he has a pair but all this grandstanding is not going to help anyone,Bill.The only way to reach your 200 large goal(I'm sure the needs reach twice that)is to build more projects.100% affordable buildings.A lot of people are going to cringe and bring up crime statistics,but how else is this going to work?
Mayor DeBlasio:
Stuffing 10 pounds of shit into a 5 pound bag!!!
I've got one word for him---
INFRASTRUCTURE!!!
r185 said...
"...requirements would make it financially difficult to build." Give me a break.
Depends. If a lot that bloomberg would have let them throw up 100 market units on can now only have 80 market, 20 subsidized then it's like lobbing a couple floors off the building. The marginal cost of adding another floor of apartments is much much less than the marginal revenue it brings in. If you now only get a quarter of the revenue then some marginal projects die out. The 'fix' to this that you should worry about is that De Blasio will let the developer build the same 100 market rate units, but they have to add 25 cheap ones too.
Poster 1 affordable is defined in terms of percentage of area median income. What percentage? Varies, depending which market they are targeting. A disproportionate share of the 'affordable' units built under Bloomberg were built for the middle-upper middle class. De Blasio talked about this during the campaign a couple times, and the need to target the bottom end more. Haven't heard much from him on that recently. Given his focus on the 200k number he might build the same affordable units bloomie did. Cheaper and less objectionable to developers. Also housing plus transportation is a better test of affordability and it's often defined as affordable at 45 percent of take home. Given lower transportation costs (at least on average) near subways you can let the cost of housing creep up a bit before it's unaffordable.
Why is it that when they build condos, only 30% are "affordable housing units" ? Why aren't 100% of the units "affordable "?
Because there is a housing shortage so people are bidding up prices and some of the land that could be used to alleviate the shortage is instead used as a place for rich people to dump some money. Add a property tax surcharge if a unit isn't your primary residence or rented out to someone who uses it as their primary residence would help. So would building more. But instead the city finds it easier to create a handful of 'affordable' units to give out to their buddies, to shield them from the rising housing costs.
The only way to reach your 200 large goal(I'm sure the needs reach twice that)is to build more projects.100% affordable buildings.A lot of people are going to cringe and bring up crime statistics,but how else is this going to work?
Have housing grow faster than population for a while and prices come down, vastly reduces the number of people who can't live in market rate units. Then no need for project.s
Fred Trump where are you?
How about limiting the net growth in housing to the net growth in private sector jobs?
In time, housing supply could actually equal housing demand.
More America and less Soviet Union, please. Housing should be built where the jobs are.
200,000 units is approx Roosevelt Island piled 10 high or 10 wide!!
I don't believe this is possible without massive MASSIVE abuse of imminent domain, or taking huge swaths of parkland in the outer borough's
The mayor is on drugs or crazy.
-- I'm going with drugs, after all he did spend years in Central America
Having big government decide where housing goes is less america and more soviet union anon.
I wish folks would start using some sort of names so we know one Anonymous from another. But, anyway... one Anonymous said "...after all he did spend years in Central America." Huh? How many years did the mayor live in Central America?
I wish someone in REBNY would just say publicly already, "if we can sell or rent it to an actual tenant, it's 'affordable.'" Everything else is just spin.
the mayor will get no where if city council doesn't let him.
start with that prig ex-library alum jimmy no brainer - the MAJORITY leader on city council - then work your way down the list of the john liu supporters.
No anon, eminent domain isn't needed at all. Rezone to higher densities and the cost of buying out owners of low density buildings gets split between several times as many future owners or tenants. Offer people enough money and they sell willingly.
NYC is going to need to put those illegals streaming across the border thanks to President Barry SOMEWHERE. Why not right in with the average wealthy NYC denizen? Do your fair share, average resident, or are you cold and heartless?
when Bill (aka Werner Wilhelm Jr. ,RED DIAPER Baby) DiBlasio was director of H.U.D. for NYS/NJ, under A.Cuomo,some how millions of taxpayer dollars disappeared.
r185,
Im not the one you are quoting, and i dont know if he lived there or not, but Mayor Bill "The Red" was a *strong* supporter of the Sandinistas
re:r185
search: DISCOVERTHE NETWORKS.ORG FOR INFO ON Werner WHILHEM jR./BILL DIBLASIO.
HIS PARENTS BOTH WERE EDITORS FOR "TIME MAG." DURING THE PERIOD THAT WHITTAKER CHAMBERS WAS AN EDITOR THERE.AFTER HE TURNED ON THE COMMUNIST PARTY UNDERGROUND SPY OPERATION. 1939-48.
HE RESENTED THE USSR STALIN-HITLER PACT 1939 and turned to Christianity.
Post a Comment