Nearly two dozen City Council members are calling on Mayor Bill de Blasio to dramatically shift the city’s current affordable housing model ahead of a major speech he’s expected to deliver later this week outlining his plan to create and preserve 200,000 units of affordable housing over the next decade.
Twenty three members have signed onto a letter, which was sent earlier this morning, endorsing a model that would provide 50 percent market rate and 50 percent affordable housing in new housing developments—a far higher rate than the 80 percent market rate and 20 percent affordable model that is currently typical in the city.
“Replacing the ineffective 80/20 model with one that maintains a higher percentage of affordable units, like the 50/50 model, would create and sustain a much greater quantity of real affordable housing for low-income and moderate-income households,” they added. “It’s a smart, progressive reform that will give city taxpayers a better return on their investment in affordable housing while still enabling developers to reap profits and trade unions to access good jobs.”
Here's the key line from the letter:
The city should use up-zoning, tax abatements, subsidies, and other tools to strive for real affordability in every new housing development.
The only Queens Council Members to sign onto this are Crowley, Dromm, Lancman and Reynoso.
Meanwhile, DeBlasio's looking at a mansion tax.
8 comments:
How is affordable rent calculated?
Is it 25% of 2 minimum wage salaries for mom and dad?
“It’s a smart, progressive reform that will give city taxpayers a better return on their investment in affordable housing while still enabling developers to reap profits and trade unions to access good jobs.”
Hahahahaha....
"smart, progressive" is an oxymoron.
If it is so smart, why not make it 75% affordable, or 90%?
since the city council is finally listening and realizing how ridiculous the 80/20 deal is-
How about 100%?
How about a tax on these maggot equity firms poaching these buildings?
'Affordable housing' is made available at a price only to individuals or families who's income is within a percentage range of the median income, either citywide or for a neighborhood, depending on the specific unit in question. Sometimes 'affordable' means for the poor. Sometimes it means for the middle class. Sometimes it means for the upper middle class. If it's for the latter two, it's pretty much luxury buildings in good neighborhoods that have a few discounted units. Housing for the poorest generally brings in the least money for developers, and comes with the most community opposition, so it gets left out.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/nyregion/report-cites-shortcomings-of-affordable-housing-plan.html
In a city that measures wealth in square feet, even apartments marketed as “affordable housing” can still be too expensive for many New Yorkers.
As an example, the report looked at a building in Highbridge, a poor section of the Bronx where the median income is $26,140, that advertised for tenants earning considerably more: between $29,931 and $53,800 to qualify for a studio, and $37,680 and $61,400 for a one-bedroom.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/nyregion/new-york-city-housing-push-should-aim-at-poorest-stringer-report-says.html
And the increases were the harshest for lower-income New Yorkers. Households with earnings of $20,000 to $40,000 a year had the biggest rent squeeze compared with the previous decade: They spent 41 percent of their income in rent in 2012, up from 33 percent in 2000, well above the federal affordability standard of 30 percent.
I have no problem telling any developer that asks for an upzoning that 50% of the upzoning will be affordable housing, or if they want to target middle class, 75%, or upper middle class it should be 90% affordable.
Also require that affordable housing open by a specific date in any development. Affordable defined in terms of local median income means developers have an interest in pushing off opening the affordable units as the neighborhood gentrifies.
http://brooklynpaper.com/stories/37/19/dtg-atlantic-yards-hearing-2014-05-09-bk_37_19.html
'The price of the below-market-rate rentals is tied to the neighborhood median income, which is rising with the completion of fancy residential skyscrapers Downtown and which new luxury apartments in each Atlantic Yards tower would drive up if they were completed piecemeal.'
Median and average income figures are meaningless in a city that has a disproportionate number of the 1% of the 1% as their income skews all the other numbers way too far north.
Affordable shouldn't equate a number that varies depending on who defines it - that's total bullshit!
'Median and average income figures are meaningless in a city that has a disproportionate number of the 1% of the 1% as their income skews all the other numbers way too far north.'
What? The richest 1% making 200k each is the same as the richest 1% making 200M each in determining the median income. Median means half are more, half are less. Average gets skewed yes, but not the median.
If you were referring to the comment above about Atlantic Yards, the affordable housing deal there required units to be affordable for someone making I believe 60% of the area's median income, and because of the delays in building the affordable units, the ongoing gentrification of the neighborhood has raised the area's median income so that the affordable units will no longer be affordable for the people it would have been had they been built sooner. So the problem isn't the 1% of the 1% there, it's the middle class and upper middle class moving in.
'Affordable shouldn't equate a number that varies depending on who defines it - that's total bullshit!'
The problem is who is it designed to be affordable for? Everyone? Then it would have to be free to be affordable to the people who have zero income yes? It's an imprecise term.
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