Three Places in NYC Where Rent Has Decreased | De Blasio Unveils Affordable Housing Plan

Photo Credit: Robert Neubecker/Wall Street Journal

1. Where the Hipsters Haven’t Gone (Yet) “Could there be parts of New York City where the rent never went up—for more than a decade? It’s like going to your high-school reunion to discover some of your classmates are still 18. But it happens. Welcome to Bay Ridge. And Canarsie. And the South Shore of Staten Island. In a report released this summer, the anti-poverty research-and-advocacy group Community Service Society noted that after adjusting for the period’s 32% rise in inflation, rents reported by recent movers in those three neighborhoods actually fell between 2002 and 2014. That’s compared with an inflation-adjusted 24% increase citywide.” [Wall Street Journal – 07/31/15]
2. De Blasio Unveils Affordable-Housing Plan “During his 2013 mayoral campaign, Bill de Blasio vowed to require developers who benefit from future city zoning changes to include large numbers of affordable apartments in their projects. Nineteen months later, he has unveiled a plan to make that happen. On Friday , Mayor de Blasio released details of a proposal for a program of ‘mandatory inclusionary zoning,’ saying it would entail ‘the strongest affordable-housing requirements in the nation.’ The plan requires that at least one in four apartments in new buildings in rezoned areas be kept affordable for the entire life of a project, city officials said, a stronger requirement than in other cities. The proposed requirements were designed to match affordable-housing rules that developers must already meet to qualify for a property-tax exemption beginning next year.” [Wall Street Journal – 08/31/15]
3. As New York Rents Soar, Public Housing Becomes Lifelong Refuge “For many families in public housing, it is a rite of passage to one day move into private rentals or buy their own homes. But in another sign of the affordability challenges facing New Yorkers, many others are staying longer, if not for life, even when making a decent living. And that has forced New York and other cities to balance two critical, yet opposing, needs: to maintain economic diversity in the crumbling housing projects, and to make room for its neediest residents. Some have begun to ask whether the New York City Housing Authority, with its 178,000 apartments and waiting list of 270,000 families, should be doing more to persuade higher-earning residents to leave, given the dire need for housing, particularly among homeless people. Last month, an audit by the inspector general of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development recommended that the authority, known as Nycha, and its counterparts in other cities should coax those families out, a move opposed by both HUD and the authorities. ” [New York Times – 08/03/15]
4. Affordable Housing through Lottery Shows Huge Demand in New York “The odds are not in your favor. There were 696 applications for every ‘affordable’ apartment offered in city lotteries dating back to July 2013, according to data obtained via the Freedom of Information Law. The slim odds show how sky-high the demand is for affordable units, housing advocates said. ‘The affordability crisis is getting worse every day, and we’re in danger of losing our city,’ said Maritza Silva-Farrell, a spokeswoman for Real Affordability for All. ‘Too many neighborhoods are being handed over to wealthy developers.’ All told, there were 2.9 million applications for 4,174 affordable units available from 72 lotteries run by the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). City officials said the response validated the Mayor’s ambitious affordable housing agenda.” [NY Daily News – 08/03/15]
5. 18 Months of NYCHA Scrutiny, Reform and Conflict “‘If we were to lose public housing,’ warns City Council Member Ritchie Torres, ‘we might have a shelter system overflowing with hundreds of thousands of people.’ With more than 400,000 residents, the New York City Housing Authority, or NYCHA, is the largest public housing system in the country. Never far from the headlines due to ongoing problems, NYCHA is under even more scrutiny courtesy of a series of audits by City Comptroller Scott Stringer, who has made the authority a central focus of his early tenure. Torres, who grew up in public housing in the Bronx and now chairs the so-named committee in the City Council, points to the stakes as debates over NYCHA management and oversight rage. Mayor Bill de Blasio has made NYCHA a far greater priority than prior administrations, but the push to ensure a sound public housing stock remains urgent for many.” [Gotham Gazette – 08/03/15]
6. New York City Starts Moving Tenants from ‘Three-Quarter’ Homes, But Others Are Left Behind “But even as the 90 men and women now living at the Sleep Inn in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood talk about their new home with huge grins, the fact that it is temporary underscores the challenge for the city in resolving the three-quarter-housing issue. It hopes to find permanent housing for these residents soon, but the monthly $215 housing allowance set by the state for people on public assistance — which covers the rent for many three-quarter-house residents — is too low to pay for much of anything. While moving some tenants, the city left behind others, saying the homes were no longer overcrowded. But some of those remaining said they still lived four and six people to a room, with bedbugs and squalor. Some said they were still being forced to go to specific substance-abuse providers for treatment, even though that is illegal. They mourned the missed opportunity.” [New York Times – 08/02/15]
7. New York City Is Becoming One Giant Construction Site as Building Permits Rise by 156% in Just One Year “It’s official. New York City is in the midst of an historic building boom - and the proof is in the numbers. The Department of Buildings agreed to the construction of 52,618 residential units over the last fiscal year, a massive 156% increase from the previous fiscal year and a 749% increase from the post-recession low of 2010, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data by the New York Building Congress. Developers were particularly active in Brooklyn, where the DOB issued permits for 23,326 residential units over this past year, accounting for almost half of all approved permits, compared to just just 7,181 last fiscal year.” [New York Daily News – 08/03/15]
8. Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier 6 Opponents: New Buildings Will be a Strain on the Area “A group of local elected officials and development opponents called for further study of two controversial residential buildings proposed for Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier 6 during a raucous public hearing Thursday night—even though some admit that such a study would likely show that the project can be built anyway. ‘Too many questions are unanswered, alternatives unexplored and claims unproven to approve this proposal,’ state Sen. Daniel Squadron said, citing the strains on overcrowded local schools and transportation that have become more acute in recent years. Mr. Squadron and several government colleagues are calling on the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corp. and its parent organization, Empire State Development, to go back and study the impacts that the two proposed buildings would have on the community.” [Crain’s New York Business – 07/31/15]
9. Covenant House to Get New Home inside Affordable Housing Complex “A West Side refuge for homeless youth will get a sparkling new home topped with affordable housing, according to city documents. Covenant House, located at 460 West 41st St., will get a ‘state-of-the-art facility’ that will house its national headquarters as well as local programs, the city’s Economic Development Corporation confirmed. The new development will also build housing that is approximately 40 percent affordable, including 100 units of supportive housing, EDC confirmed.” [DNAinfo – 08/03/15]
10. The Economics Lessons in a Single New York City Block “On Greene Street, between Prince and Houston in the heart of Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood, personal shoppers clip-clop down cobblestones. Deftly they slip from the cast-iron facades of luxury boutiques into the backseats of Escalades, owned by employers of unfathomable wealth and reach. Tourists mill, perhaps a little shell-shocked by this dense arrangement of wealth. Taking in the entirety of this single block, I wonder, with an itch of dread, whether it constitutes the future that developers hope for elsewhere. With some of the highest real estate values in New York, and therefore the world, Greene Street is among the loftiest points on the smooth arc of Manhattan’s economic success. It’s hard to imagine it any other way. But an online project from the Development Research Institute at New York University complicates that picture of undeterred growth.” [CityLab – 08/03/15]