Publications
-
Gentrification Responses: A Survey of Strategies to Maintain Neighborhood Economic Diversity
This report examines strategies used by local governments to address rising housing costs and displacement of low-income households in gentrifying neighborhoods. To assist tenants at risk of displacement, the report details strategies to regulate the landlord/tenant relationship well as strategies to provide assistance for households that move. To create and preserve affordable housing, the report explores ways to use city-owned land and other resources strategically to promote affordable housing in areas where costs are on the rise. It also examines ways to harness the market, such as inclusionary zoning and linkage fees. The report is part of an ongoing series of work by the NYU Furman Center on gentrification, but is the first to provide an overview of policy responses to the effects rapidly rising rents.
-
Zoning for Affordability: Using the Case of New York to Explore Whether Zoning can be Used to Achieve Income-Diverse Neighborhoods
This article considers the legal limitations on a locality’s ability to regulate land use, in order to evaluate whether mandatory inclusionary zoning can withstand legal challenge. It uses New York City’s recently adopted, ambitious, mandatory inclusionary zoning policy as a case study, and considers how the city might justify the policy in the face of both constitutional and state law challenges. The article concludes that New York City’s policy is likely to survive, but there are open legal questions that make it hard to predict with certainty how the policy will ultimately fare. Inclusionary zoning policies in other jurisdictions are likely to face similar challenges, and the experience of New York City will hold important lessons for other high-cost cities interested in using land use r egulation to foster economically diverse neighborhoods.
-
NYU Furman Center / Citi Report on Homeownership & Opportunity in New York City
This report, commissioned by Citi and conducted by the NYU Furman center, analyzes recent home sales data and examines the potential purchasing power of households at various income levels in New York City, as well as the nearby counties of Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester. It finds that becoming a homeowner in New York City’s real estate market is a considerable challenge for the vast majority of New York City households due to the city’s severely constrained supply of affordable home-buying opportunities. And, according to the new report, homeownership prospects do not necessarily improve by moving out of the city to the surrounding New York suburbs.
-
Selling the Debt: Properties Affected by the Sale of New York City Tax Liens
This data brief sheds light on the process of tax lien sales in New York City, which affected over 15,000 properties and roughly 43,600 residential units between 2010 and 2015.
It finds that most tax liens in New York City eligible for sale are sold and generate substantial revenue for the city; between 1997 and 2015, the city raised more than $1.3 billion from the sale of tax liens. However, the city also has the power to remove liens eligible for sale from the lien sale list. The report also describes the characteristics of properties with liens sold in New York City between 2010 and 2015, including the property type, their location, and the outcome following the lien sale.
-
Why Don’t Housing Voucher Recipients Live Near Better Schools? Insights from Big Data
This paper by Ingrid Gould Ellen, Keren Mertens Horn, and Amy Ellen Schwartz, published in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, uses administrative data to explore why voucher households do not live near to better schools, as measured by school-level proficiency rates. It seeks to shed light on whether voucher households are more likely to move toward better schools when schools are most relevant, and how market conditions shape that response. The authors find that families with vouchers are more likely to move toward a better school in the year before their oldest child meets the eligibility cutoff for kindergarten. Further, the magnitude of the effect is larger in metropolitan areas with a relatively high share of affordable rental units located near high-performing schools and in neighborhoods in close proximity to higher-performing schools. Results suggest that, if given the appropriate information and opportunities, more voucher families would move to better schools when their children reach school age.
-
Low hanging fruit? Energy Efficiency and the Split Incentive in Subsidized Multifamily Housing
This paper explores whether and how the rules governing utility billing arrangements of subsidized housing programs impact energy consumption and exacerbate market failures that create incentives for both tenants and owners to be indifferent about their consumption levels. We test whether these incentives or dis-incentives result in higher energy consumption in subsidized properties than in comparable non-subsidized properties.The analysis focuses on three subsidized housing portfolios: Public Housing, Project-based Section 8, and the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC). Using several multivariate regression models, we find that subsidized properties are associated with higher utility consumption than market-rate properties and, of the subsidized housing programs, Public Housing tends to consume the most energy.
-
Mortgage Financing for Small Multifamily Rental Properties: What is the Problem?
This study examines the effect of mortgage financing on the long-term viability of the small multifamily rental stock in both Chicago and New York City. It also explores the relationship between the size of the mortgage gap and the condition of the housing stock, and looks for how the financial crisis and Great Recession affected and continues to affect the rate of origination of new mortgages for multifamily buildings of different sizes in the two geographies. It finds that, despite the mortgage gap, smaller multifamily rental properties may be in better condition generally and properties that have mortgages are generally in worse condition than those without mortgages, regardless of size. Moreover, it surfaces a number of possible reasons that can account for the mortgage gaps.
-
Renting In America’s Largest Metropolitan Areas
The renter population grew in both central city and suburban areas while more renters struggled to find affordable housing in the 11 largest metropolitan areas in the US, according to the NYU Furman Center/Capital One National Affordable Rental Housing Landscape report, which was released in March 2016. The Landscape examined rental housing affordability trends in the nation’s largest metropolitan areas, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, DC and San Francisco from 2006 to 2014 and identified the impact these trends had as the renter population increased while affordable housing rates continued to decline. “Affordable” rent should comprise less than 30 percent of a household’s income. Read more >>
-
Fifty Years of Historic Preservation in New York City
This white paper offers a detailed overview of the process of designation and the spread of historic districts and landmarks throughout New York City. In addition, it provides additional analyses comparing the land uses, building types, commercial uses, and population in historic districts with those attributes of nearby neighborhoods and lots. A summary of the white paper's findings is available in the accompanying policy brief of the same name.
-
Policy Brief: Fifty Years of Historic Preservation in New York City
This policy brief compares the development characteristics, housing stock, demographic characteristics, and commercial characteristics between historic districts and areas that are not regulated by the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC). It finds that New York City’s historic districts have similar population and built density to non-LPC regulated areas, but also contains a higher proportion of market-rate housing. Residents of the city’s historic districts are also higher-income, more highly educated, and more likely to be white.
