‘The city is going behind the backs of its most engaged residents to facilitate the construction of a small number of units for people who make much more than average residents of the community.’
Thanks to city policy, $3,200 in tax arrears became a $500,000 debt and a community garden was ravaged. A sale of similar tax liens is scheduled for this week.
‘We are losing a once-in-a-generation opportunity if we do not put the same level of energy into sustainability as we are putting into maximizing affordable housing opportunities.’
A former city housing commissioner writes that the mayor’s efforts to reform the zoning code will have a significant impact on the supply of affordable housing—by addressing obstacles to affordability that are becoming a larger issue nationwide.
“The battle for a more just and equitable society isn’t just a battle about land and resources. It is also a battle of ideas.”
“Simply put, inviting significantly more building in low-income communities without guarantees that most or all of the new housing will be affordable to current residents may increase, not reduce, the risk of displacement.”
Why is the plan to build 200,000 units meeting opposition? Perhaps because that goal fails to address deeper inequalities behind the affordability crisis—or lend itself to simpler, more elegant solutions that could really create a more just housing market.
The looming City Council debate about the mayor’s rezoning proposals should grapple with a deeper question: Should New York accept a future as a hyper-dense metropolis, or try to recapture a human-scaled city?
The push to expand NYU’s core campus followed all the rules of the city’s Uniform Land-Use Review Process. But because of flaws in that system, the author argues, community members still felt sidelined.
A change proposed by the de Blasio administration will save $1 million in every new 100-unit building.
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