The Association for Neighborhood Housing & Development, or ANHD—founded in the 1970s to reclaim the growing number of burned and abandoned apartment buildings across the city— turns 50 this year. City Limits sat down with Executive Director Barika Williams to talk about that work, and what’s ahead.
Harry DeRienzo, president emeritus and special advisor at the Banana Kelly Community Improvement Association, reflects on the legacy of New York City housing organizer and advocate Bonnie Brower, who passed away on June 2.
Large and small organizations have envisioned ways that, with the right resources and city policies, the city’s nascent community land trusts could come to encompass thousands of apartments.
Not-for-profit developers say the city’s focus on producing more units faster and cheaper is sidelining the mission to create housing that neighborhoods actually welcome.
‘We’re not offering a building like for the billionaires on 57th Street,’ the developer explained. ‘We’ll have apartments at $2 million up to maybe $5 million.’ Bargains like that threaten to destroy the design and demographics of a unique neighborhood.
Energized that the city is expressing interest in the model of community-based, nonprofit ownership of land for affordable housing and other uses, groups who back the approach are trying to transform its constituency from wonky to widespread.
Mayor de Blasio’s housing plan was full of ambition and ideas. Achieving them will require streamlining and rearranging the city’s housing development system, says HPD’s commissioner.
The administration sees city-owned vacant lots as potential sites for affordable housing. Communities that use—or hope to use—those parcels for gardens see them as something else.
You can debate whether gentrification is good or bad for neighborhoods. But it’s clear that many low-income tenants aren’t simply sitting and waiting to be pushed out of their homes.
The area’s improvement—thanks to community action and city policy—is undeniable. What’s debated is whether the same displacement seen in Bed-Stuy and Bushwick is headed that way.
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