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Tackling New York City’s Housing Crisis is a ‘Shared Responsibility’
New York City officials are hopeful that two new packages of laws—the City Council’s Fair Housing Framework and Mayor Eric Adams’ proposed City of Yes for Housing Opportunity plan—will work in tandem to fairly and equitably produce new housing across the city and ensure every single neighborhood contributes to solving the city’s acute housing crisis.
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Racial Inequities in New York City’s Property Tax System
New Yorkers in neighborhoods with higher shares of Black residents are disproportionately burdened with higher effective property tax rates compared to their white counterparts, according to an analysis by the NYU Furman Center.
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News & Events
Supply Skepticism Revisited: What New Research Shows About the Impact of Supply on Affordability
Furman Center faculty directors Vicki Been, Ingrid Gould Ellen, and Kathy O’Regan recently released “Supply Skepticism Revisited”, highlighting the latest rigorous research that draws out the nuanced effects housing supply has on housing affordability. The paper delves into arguments made by “supply skeptics” and counters them with evidence from recent studies that show the positive impact additional housing supply has on the affordability of a local housing market.
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Research & Policy
The GSE Conservatorships: Fifteen Years Old, With No End in Sight
Senior Visiting Fellow Donald H. Layton compiles a 10-point Q&A to explain some of the history and key events of the government’s conservatorships of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
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Faced with Housing Shortages, Policymakers Test New Reforms To Increase Production
State and local policymakers around the country are working to address America’s severe housing shortage, by considering, and implementing, a wide range of policies in the hopes of increasing housing supply. A new series of seven papers published by the NYU Furman Center, with funding from the Pew Charitable Trusts, shows how specific land use reforms have affected outcomes on the ground, especially in residential areas.
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Research & Policy
Manufactured Housing Is a Good Source of Unsubsidized Affordable Housing - Except When It’s Not: High-Level and Specific Policy Recommendations (Part 3)
Recently, there has been a renewed focus on expanding the supply of manufactured housing (MH), known for being low cost, as one key method to help reduce that shortage. This reflects the belief by its supporters that MH, being produced in an efficient factory environment, can provide low-cost housing without the need for government subsidy, whereas other sources of low-cost housing usually do require such support in one form or another. In Parts 1 and 2, I showed that MH often does not easily fit into the traditional categories of rental or owned housing, particularly due to the significant market share of MH where the structure is owned by its resident but the underlying land is rented from someone else. In this Part 3, after briefly reviewing the analytical framework and policy underpinnings developed in Parts 1 and 2, I lay out recommendations designed to fit the complex economics of the MH marketplace.
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News & Events
Changing Narratives and Engaging Communities Toward Better Policy: New York City’s Low-Density Neighborhoods Event Recap
A recent report from the NYU Furman Center illustrates that New York City’s least-dense community districts are permitting new housing at lower rates compared to the rest of the city, raising questions for policymakers over how to achieve fair and equitable housing growth across a broad range of neighborhood types. On May 25th, 2023, the NYU Furman Center hosted By The Numbers: Focus on New York City’s Lowest Density Neighborhoods, an event that gathered city officials, housing policy researchers, and leaders from community organizations to discuss the findings from the report and its implications.
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Research & Policy
Government Mortgage Interest Rates: A Serious Discussion about the Intertwined Topics of Risk Adjustment and Cross-subsidies
The purpose of this article is to address the very serious – and not broadly understood or openly discussed – interrelated topics of interest rate risk adjustment (or the lack thereof) and the embedded and often hidden cross-subsidies that today are found at the four government mortgage agencies, i.e., the two GSES plus the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
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News & Events
NYU Furman Center Releases State of New York City’s Housing and Neighborhoods in 2022
We are thrilled to announce the release of the comprehensive report the State of New York City’s Housing and Neighborhoods in 2022. This work sheds light on the evolving landscape of housing and communities in New York City, providing valuable insights into the city’s vibrant and diverse neighborhoods.
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Research & Policy
The Weakness of Neighborhood Revitalization Planning in the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program: Warnings from Connecticut
The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (“LIHTC”) is the nation’s largest program to produce and preserve subsidized housing. To ensure that LIHTC avoids harmfully concentrating poverty, entrenching segregation, or inefficiently deploying resources, federal law requires that states prioritize allocating credits to projects located in high-poverty locations that contribute to a “concerted community revitalization plan” (“CCRP”). In high-poverty neighborhoods, tax credit developments are meant to facilitate broader neighborhood revitalization, not only to benefit the residents of the housing itself. This working paper by Noah Kazis, Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, and Faculty Director Kathy O’Regan provides new, empirical support for long-standing concerns that the CCRP process is ineffectively enforced.