ANHD 2016 Building the Community Development Movement
No more tax abatements without better affordability
In a January 5, 2014 opinion piece in the New York Daily News, ANHD lays out how Mayor de Blasio’s affordable housing policy should include Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning and continue with even deeper reforms. While during the Koch years the city’s task was to catalyze much needed investment, in the current moment where real estate investment is flowing the City’s task is to ensure long-term and real affordability for the community:
During the campaign, Mayor-Elect de Blasio focused on a new tool: guaranteeing that affordable housing is included in new growth generated by re-zonings. This new policy will go against the way things have usually been done. Under Bloomberg, the City simply gave away the enormous value that comes from being granted the right to build taller and denser in one of the most lucrative real estate markets on earth.
The Bloomberg administration thought that that allowing market-rate housing to be built where and when developers wanted would help alleviate the affordability crisis by increasing the supply of housing overall. But after 12 years of this policy, affordability for most New Yorkers is even farther away. We need to do more than just build housing – we need to build the right kind of housing.
Blogger: Benjamin Dulchin
ANHD blog team: Benjamin Dulchin, Moses Gates, Ericka Stallings, Jaime Weisberg, Barika Williams, Eric Williams. Anne Troy, editor.