The anti development NIMBY slant of this article is depressing. Even more depressing is the NIMBYism in these comments. Want housing prices to come down? Build more. Build build build, It simple selfishness. I’ve got my place here, you stay out.
9
Not everyone who opposes such projects happens to be anti-development. Some just want something that goes with their neighborhood rather than against it. For example, the opponents of the Atlantic Yards over in Prospect Heights section of Brooklyn didn't oppose what got built by Forest City Ratner because they wanted no development on the Vanderbuilt Yards, they supported a plan know as UNITY that was the exact opposite to what wound up there, which was supported by Extell Development. Despite offering triple the bid, he was denied the site by the MTA mainly because then-Governor George Pataki wanted only FCR to build there and nothing else. If the rail yards were to remain undeveloped, it would have been because of the MTA, not them. Over at Willets Point in Flushing, a number of businesses were forced to sell their property to Parkside Realty because their property was seen as blight especially since they were right across from Citifield, where the Mets play. The real reason why they didn't have the needed sewage that caused floods at times was mainly because the city actually closed them off despite the fact that they were paying their taxes for it hence making it so they should move. Their claim was to reopen those so that it would develop itself. Meanwhile, the Columbia University expansion was a claim that the very college itself should first look into the buildings they already have before going to others, which many of barely used to start with.
4
@Bob Carlson
On other thing because I couldn't fit into my first reply due to being too long. What these projects had in common were that those who opposed them didn't because they were going to be living them, but more like they were going to have to move if they got built. In other words, they can't be called NIMBYs if that's going to be the case. On a side note, the way your comment sounds as if you might work for a developer just by saying that, and I know this for encountering some of them especially during hearings involving the Atlantic Yards where they were actually paid for FCR to back his plan despite getting duped in the end. Maybe they can have a shirt that reads this, "I supported this project and all I got was this lousy shirt." I don't feel bad for any of this people who believed what they were getting hook, line, and sinker hence the bait and switch. In reality, they just wanted someone like you to help push them through any barriers to help them get what they want. BTW, would you like if someone called you a NIMBY or someone selfish if you didn't want something getting built in your neighborhood or even where you live? I'm sure you wouldn't like it the same way others wouldn't you call them such.
3
@Bob Carlson
The pro-development-at-any-cost slant of your comment is depressing. You don't think of the huge burden on the environment that excessive development is responsible for. All the materials used in construction do not come from the thin air.
8
@jT Brooklyn
There is no way to write off unearned income. If you are unemployed for a year, do you get a tax deduction for lost income? Landlords are property owners. They pay taxes and utilities and insurance. That means they have no income if a property is vacant.
1
How can so many commenters remain so oblivious to a natural fact: Millions of people would like to live in NYC, San Francisco, Vancouver, La Jolla, and many other cities in high demand.
Yet, they do not move to these cities because they cannot afford housing. Make "affordable" housing available and the cue to buy would multiple a thousand times over.
Price allocates. Abolish market pricing and the cue remains--only now the choice is to win the housing lottery. As long as the number of people who want to live in a city vastly outnumbers the "affordable" units available, a housing "shortage" will persist. Fact of life.
7
I am very thankful for the people mentioned in this article that are fighting onerous development around the city.
I live in Greenpoint and it has totally changed since I've been here. I guess I wasn't paying attention during rezoning but I was very surprised when the waterfront plans were presented as a fait accompli. If we didn't have a rent stabilized apartment my wife and would either need a new professions or we would be long gone.
6
If you dont have alternate solutions to these developments (and I am not saying they are all good ideas) then don't complain about the cost of living. New housing is not driving up housing costs
8
If plain Jane apartments can be constructed for $100,000 per unit, it is a totally different public policy calculation than if the minimum construction cost is $300,000 per unit. For many people, linoleum floors, formica countertops, and fiberglass showers are acceptable. What about building apartment buildings by stacking prefabricated units, not even trying to appeal to the upper class, and decorating with houseplants?
6
@Kay Sieverding The cost of the land and labor alone to build a structural shell is more than $300,000 per unit. That is why there is an affordable housing crisis. It is not affordable to build them. Finishes have little to do with the cost but durability and longevity need to be considered when designing housing. People with low incomes will not want to replace items every few years so they must last.
5
@CEI Land and labor are expensive all over the city. The days of cheap rental buildings ended in the 1960s. My parents owned a 2-family house in Kensington. Nearby Ocean Parkway was lined with many new 6-story elevator buildings for Brooklyn's middle class, some even had parking garages. No one can put apartment buildings like that anymore.
In fact in SI and Queens even plain 2-family homes ask in the +$1M range so imagine what an apartment buildings costs to construct.
4
I’m so tired of all these commenters blindly saying the solution is to build more. Sure build more truly affordable units but that is not what is and has been happening. We’ve been getting only luxury buildings with fake “affordable” units sprinkled here and there. Meanwhile, as a very recent NYT article stated, almost half of these towers are empty because there are no buyers. These empty units are not resulting in trickle down affordability. Neither has the luxury tower building boom. Incomes are stagnant and real estate and rents continue to soar.
We have a glut in expensive condos and the developers are saying. Let’s wait it out. Even if it takes 5 years to sell. There are no real discounts or meaningful price drops. The article is on this site. Read it for yourself.
23
@Curious One You are mixing condos with rental units. "Luxury" most times means market rate units, whatever the market can bear. The "they" out there to build below market rate units is a combination of non profits and mostly for profit developers and apartments owners that receive low income housing tax credits. The building of for sale condos above a certain price is really not part of this equation. The glut of condos is a distraction from the number of apartments built and the number of units within those buildings that are rent restricted or below market rate. NYC needs an inclusionary program but even then people will complain. Not building any housing even just at market rates does not lower prices ever. You need both market rate buildings and a significant federal investment in below market rate housing for low and middle income earners. Plus preservation. As far as "fake" affordable, that has to do with the HUD guidelines. They are skewed off a bit. No one builds them and then says this is the best price, that is the price you are given to rent those units at based on the funding used to build the project. Building housing is not free and affordable units cost roughly the same to build depending on where.
3
For those who didn't know, there were some major projects in the past that didn't involve any changes in city zoning, but rather by passed them with help from the state. Those projects included the Atlantic Yards, Willets Point, and even the Columbia University expansion. Thanks to help from the state, ULURP became either irrelevant or had not affect by any means as they were able to use SEQRA to ignore them. Also, the developers behind those projects were even allowed to use eminent domain to remove anyone who refused to sell to them even if their property was never for sale in the first place, which is an abuse of such because this isn't for something serving the public. However, in response to the ruling of Kelo v New London, which ruled in favor Pfizer using eminent domain to acquire such property for their project, there have been numerous cities and state that have passed laws against this and made laws defining what eminent domain must be used for. Unfortunately, neither NYS or NYC is one of them, and that's mainly because developers due have leverage with such politicians. More importantly, those fighting these projects weren't fighting them because they would be living with them, but because it would be going on their property if it happens. In other words, you can't call them NIMBYs for that if it means that they will be have to move for it to be built.
9
The area in Crown Heights directly east of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden was specifically rezoned to bar construction of highrise buildings, in order to protect the amount of sunlight for this botanic reserve.
The BBG is not simply a park or garden: it is a collection of plants from around the world, many of which do not normally grow here. The greenhouses at the eastern edge of the BBG would be adversely affected by buildings which block morning sunlight.
Now the developers want to overturn these protections, build enormous towers that block the sunlight. The purpose is not affordable housing: it is to make a profit on buildings which current zoning prohibits.
23
Most Staten Islanders and their local politicians are against the Bay Street Corridor development that will change the character of two Island communities. The area will be supersaturated with residential and commercial properties that will impact everyone and everything! So why wasn't it mentioned? Is Staten Island still the forgotten borough when it comes to reporting?
4
@claude The Bay Street rezoning has not been challenged in the courts yet, but I expect to be challenged now following the Inwood ruling.
3
This so-called housing crisis is made up to satisfy the hungry-hungry hippos (big developers), not people looking for housing. The "hippos" donate to elected officials who in turn wreak havoc on zoning. Zoning exists for a reason and shouldn't be overturned to satisfy the appetites of developers.
Of the housing that results, the affordable units are just barely affordable. Look at the charts for family size, income parameters, and compare the "below-market" rents and you will see what a struggle it would be for the lucky lottery winners to pay those rents every month..
It's not a housing crisis. It's a stagnant wage crisis, been going on for more than 40 years. If workers earned more, they could find find afford apartments. Apartments exist.
New York City is full up. There is no human right to live here. Those who can't find an apartment within the city can commute. Others have done it. We are very dense here already. Our infrastructure and city services cannot accommodate more humans without precipitating serious failures.
It's GREAT that communities are pushing back! Keep on pushing!
21
The purchase of development rights from adjacent properties should be stopped -- it simply leads to buildings that are too tall and bulky compared to surroundings. The other point not mentioned in the article is that much of the big development, like Hudson Yards, is happening without regard for public space, and with views blocked.
13
“Vicki Been, the deputy mayor for housing and economic development, said “everything is on the table” when it comes to the possibility of adding residential density to SoHo”
Will Ms. Been please tell us where -exactly - these developments will rise in SoHo?
– In 2004, there were 17 empty parking lots. A change to the zoning (ZR74-712) permitted residential development. Developers soon developed, all luxury housing. The 1-2 remaining lots are too small or irregular to be built upon.
Ms. Been missed that train.
– Even, hypothetically, were the neighborhood to be up-zoned (as both the mayor and City Planning said it will not), the Landmarks Commission would not allow 20-25 story buildings to be permitted in a low-rise (6-story median height), historic, 19th-century, historic district.
Time to move on.
6
Normally I don't read much of the other comments. This time I did & even recommended some of them. But none of them mention how to finance such a benevolent venture like divesting some of the units to below-rate ones. That's fine, but how to finance it. One simpler (well-known) method is to tax the "rich". That's also fine. But who will decide on the proportion of so-called Luxury Condos or Duplex and Affordable ones. Is it 50:50, 60:40, 70:30 or what??
1
The fact that the proposal that would cast shadow on the Brooklyn Botanic Garden has gotten this far is a stain on Brooklyn and the city. Where is the Mayor, Council person Laurie Cumbo and attorney general Laetitia James on this? Is absolutely disgraceful this proposal continues on in process.
23
To answer your question, South of Albany: They take money from developers.
I don't mind responsible developers and I don't mind responsible politicians, but what we have now is a rancid stew of unscrupulous developers and venal politicians.
14
I agree, and I’m aware of it. But, in this case it’s just beyond the pale. To think that the botanical garden, a charity, will have to sue against what is already protected by deed is an absolute embarrassment. Cumbo, to side with a petty development project, I am just speechless.
15
I guess in a few short years when the regular working people can't afford to live in the burroughs and move out completly and all the local stores are closed because they can't afford the rent or help to work in the stores then the rich can starve and die for the benefit of all .
12
The article title is misleading. It isn't "the people" against "big development", it's a few wealthy entitled NIMBYs seeking to selfishly embalm their communities in amber, blocking new housing. For example, the UWS "community groups" are led by extremely wealthy NIMBYs living in very tall, modern buildings that wouldn't even be proposed today, they're so uncontextual. Yet they're the ones claiming to represent "the community" when they just want to preserve the housing shortage and maintain their views. I know some of these "community leaders" in a professional capacity. It's people literally organizing/suing because their terrace views of Central Park or river views will be slightly altered, and because their 1970's coops will be slightly less expensive at resale. These are people with 3-4 homes and unbelievable resources, yet they're dictating land use policy and hilariously demonizing housing developers as "too wealthy".
There are some working class neighborhoods with NIMBY movements too, but usually led by outside agitators who believe that all development is bad, so even new affordable housing must be fought, because said development is built by "big developers."But if you ask the average person on the street whether they support new affordable housing in their community, 90% of the time they'll say yes.
11
@Osito
New buildings are for rich people.
The “affordable” part is a scam.
In many instances, people lose housing and real affordable units are lost as small old buildings are torn down for the new high rise.
Any new “affordable” units are essentially time limited - once the tax abatement expires in 20-25 years, the units will go to market.
The assertion that only wealthy people are against new development is wrong.
There are still non-rich people left in Manhattan and quite a few against new luxury high rise buildings.
14
@Osito "But if you ask the average person on the street whether they support new affordable housing in their community, 90% of the time they'll say yes."
Nice try. No 'average person' in their right mind would every be against truly affordable housing ('truly' being the operating word...)
We normal folk are sick and tired of corruption and back-office deals between REBNY, developers and local pols, all at our expense. Cookie-cutter 'luxury' buildings going up left and right, with the bare minimub (i.e., forced upon the developers) designated as affordable housing. We ain't no fools. Affordable housing?? Affordable for whom exactly?
Many of us against this ploy are neither 'outside agitators' nor people who own 3-4 homes (never mind even one home...).
20
Well, on the other hand most middle-class New Yorkers don't want projects in our backyards either.
Too much crime, too many shootings, and bullets have a bad habit of going astray and hitting innocent people, even children sitting in their own bedrooms at night.
6
These aren't protesters; they are NIMBYs nothing more, nothing less.
8
@Brian
And that is supposed to be an insult?
1
In Morningside, the iconic Union Seminary is being partly dismantled to allow for a 40 story ultra luxury tower. Jewish seminary tore down half a block of mixed income housing to build a forty plus story ultra luxury tower. Now Columbia wants to build its’ own 40 story luxury tower. All this within a 4 block radius. Nothing on the barriers says one word about the height. Daniel O’Donnell, one of our reps has not word about it on his website and has said nothing.
12
“We shall limit the price of housing by limiting supply”
- people who slept through economics class
14
@Andy Deckman
If housing prices actually went down due to adding supply (which they don't due to the cost of new development), but the quality of life goes down as a result, is it desirable trade-off? For many people the answer is no.
Institute an unforgiving vacancy tax so nothing gets built on speculation
7
Towers in Inwood could "cast shadows on the nearby Brooklyn Botanic Garden"? Those must be some huge towers!
9
The easy-peasy "trickle down" supply and demand hype that has been misappropriated as answers to solving the housing crisis is the lie that keeps on giving.
In reality, the City's mismanagement & cavalier hostage taking have been on the backs of low income rent burdened NYC residents. It's already pushed reverse migration...more homelessness...and the creation of a quasi Dubai where community character is sanitized; immigrant resident families squeeze into insufficient spaces; black and brown generations living in targeted areas are told it's gonna' be "affordable". That's what we have...that's what Bloomberg began and 'progressive'-tale-of-two-cities-Bill put on steroids.
Not un-coincidentally, deBlasio & his former Deputy Mayor Glen (ex-Goldman Sachs) cooked up the Mandatory Inclusionary Housing scam...and most of the City Council (after getting a 33% raise from the Mayor's largesse in 2016 just one month before he rolled it out) said sure...why not- and ratified it. Both the Mayor and many of the Council (thankfully,-btw, 34 will be termed out!) enabled the ruse by permitting upzoning and rezoning ad nauseum. Aiding deBlasio and his politician cohorts has been the Dept of City Planning (aka Dept of Rezoning!) and the BSA chock-a-block with conflicts of interest and Big Real Estate affiliations. And they deceptively call all of the generated new apartments even with $199,650 /yr required incomes: AFFORDABLE HOUSING.
Thanks to Chen -this focus has been overdue.
15
Vicki Breen, de Blasio housing czarina, should do her homework first before spouting knee-jerk responses.
There is simply no land left in SoHo to build upon. Can’t she open her eyes?
Her boss de Blasio even admitted that last week on the Brian Lehrer radio show.
He also cited the cost of land in SoHo and NoHo as too prohibitive to build inexpensive housing.
Finally, he admitted there is not enough time in his term in office to do all the minutiae that a SoHo and NoHo re-zoning takes.
End of story.
Don’t these two talk to each other?
4
@just a thought According to this info from various public databases there is 1.25M sf of vacant land in Comm Board 2 - http://pc.cd/aUoctalK
@NYC Taxpayer
Actually, look at your link more closely. There is 1,500,000 sf of vacant land in CB2, not 1.25M as you state, of which only 25,000 is located in SoHo. That is 1.5%.
Further, of the 25,000 sf in soho/noho, had you checked further, you would discover these are lots too small or irregular for economical construction.
Do you not think they would have already been built upon during the building boom SoHo has witnessed in the past 15 years?
Finally, of the 1.5M sf you talk about in CB2, most of that footage exists in the form of piers and parkland on the Hudson River.
@just a thought My mistake on the totals, you are right. I pulled the info based on CB2 which includes most of Soho but also other neighborhoods. It's hard to narrow down city databases by specific neighborhoods.
And where are Bill De Blasio and Andrew Cuomo? This is like the Wild West!
1
@Jean louis LONNE
Those 2 are working the angles on this....
2
The construction unions are just as much to blame for being in bed with the Real Estate moguls. They only care about keeping the gravy train rolling and could care less about the consequences of overbuilding and out pricing the locals. Its selfish and short sighted.
12
What does the Times mean when it refers to "luxury" apartments? Are there any new apartments that are not "luxury" apartments?
9
Racial decisions on zoning?
Wow, the judge needs an education on the constitution.
3
I have lived in Flushing for over 40 years and noted that the household income has declined steadily in that period. Indeed, at least one real estate site now lists the central part of Flushing as a "lower income" area with incomes less than half of the metropolitan median. The construction of expensive condos in recent years may have changed this to some degree, but some gentrification would not be a bad thing for Flushing. Unfortunately, some projects have failed including one on 146th St. near Northern Blvd. whose 14 stories or so emit no light after dark. Two smaller nearby buildings have also stalled in mid construction. The main opposition to development on the west side of College Point Blvd. will likely come from those who recently purchased condos on the east who will lose their views of Manhattan.
7
How do we balance the needs of the present with the needs of the future? Can we be provincial and globally compete? Is standing still, going backwards? Certainly unregulated development will change the nature of our current city but the city we are in now is so different from the city my father and mother knew and from that of their parents before. The issue is not whether there should be development but what type of development should we embrace. Left to its own devices the real estate industry will build for who will pay the most (highest and best use). However, without development demographic factors will overwhelm the existing housing stock and cause rents and prices to rise (supply and demand). Perhaps we should take a step back to ask how our city should be planned. The 1969 master plan didn’t work and the current incremental approach leads us to where we are, lacking goals and direction, relying on meaningless city, state and federal environmental reviews, filling out forms of no impact. Besides, do we really want judges planning our cities? Perhaps a new paradigm is developing and EDC deserves credit here. People are becoming more involved in community development and expressing how they see the future of their neighborhoods. This new civics should be nurtured. Given guidance and the responsibility to plan (involvement), communities can reach consensus and create an agile, orderly, evolving planning and development process.
8
It's time to stop encouraging people to have second-homes in the NYC when people who live here can't afford housing. Non-resident and corporate residential property owners who have second (third, fourth?) homes here are artificially inflating housing costs. Let's start "developing" luxury neighborhoods and turn them into into affordable neighborhoods. And it's time for non-resident and corporate owners to make that happen. Non-resident and corporate owners should have an annual property tax equal to 100% of the appraised value of their property that goes directly into a fund for affordable housing. Some of the owners (and real estate agents) will be shocked and appalled and may sell: that's great, that process will help make housing more affordable for residents, the people who make this city great. And who knows, it may cause a few people who don't reside in NYC for tax reasons to move back "for tax reasons".
18
Oh, well. Rich people have always had several homes and also New York City dwellings. Such people gave us our museums and many of the works of art in them, libraries, universities, parks, and other cultural institutions. Yes, the middle class made New York City great.
So did Carnegie, Rockefeller, Morgan, Vanderbilt, Astor, Lenox, Tilden, Altman, Havemeyer . . . .
Not to mention less well-known rich people whose trusts help, for example, pregnant teenagers with medical care and job training.
17
@B. Your reply is not based on what I wrote. Rich people who reside full-time in New York City are good citzens; this is not about them! This is about people of have second (or third or ....) homes here and shell corporations that do NOT give us our museums and many of the works of art in them, libraries, universities, parks, and other cultural institutions. They are not here most of the time; they do not pay local income taxes, they swoop in and out (often for tax reasons), and they do not support local businesses, city coffers, and non-profits like full-time residents do.
7
"Full-time residents" of New York City the people I mentioned probably never were, not with townhouses in New York City, summer homes in Newport and Bar Harbor, and springtime estates in the Berkshires.
2
LAST MAN IN AND LOCK THE DOOR:
This philosophy has been espoused by generations of New Yorkers. It has limited the amount of all housing production for all income brackets, which has resulted in shortages for everyone - especially lower income. The housing shortage will never improve until more housing is permitted in all neighborhoods throughout the city.
16
Hah! a NYC studio apartment in a new hi rise building with doorman is renting at $3,500.00 a month just across the street
from me and affordable rents are assigned to a few apartments BY LAW in that abode.
Hardly anyone in hospital a support services can afford that rent such as Xray Tech and nursing employees. How are we to keep these folks here in NYC as well as the store clerk that bags your groceries or drives your food to market .
Today affordable rents now have to be gotten in some sort of lottery remembering the Seinfeld Tv show ? Your (we ) are going to Hell Jerry" ... Hell is our NYC housing market.
15
The people who bag groceries usually live in the far reaches of outer boroughs, the way middle-class people like me always have.
Unless they are in one of the low-income buildings around the corner from Lincoln Center. Or overlooking the East River or New York Harbor. Or looking out onto the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. Just to name a few choice locations.
6
@B. '...The people who bag groceries usually live in the far reaches of outer boroughs...'
Not any more. In the 'far reaches' of S.I. new two family homes are in the $1M range, older one family homes go for around $560K.
2
Nonsense, NYC Taxpayer. You evidently don't go to these areas or know anyone who lives there.
I do.
1
We need more housing. Rents are too damn high. We need to build more housing and everyone needs to sacrifice for it. Including the rich who live in New York. But also others. We also need a land value tax so we tax landowners who use their land unproductively (small 3-story buildings vs taller apartments that can house more people; penalize vacant units)
10
The beautiful and unique buildings of my neighborhood (Flatbush) are being torn down and replaced with "luxury" eye sores, often plain badly-proportioned boxes that look like they were modeled in foam coat by first-year architecture students. And some of these ugly buildings are 14+ stories taller than the surrounding neighborhood.
They block light, they block views, they displace businesses that have been here since the 60s. They destroy our neighborhoods. We're being sold by City Hall and it needs to stop.
24
This problem exists all over the city and it shouldn’t be up to residents to fix by filing lawsuits. The city should do its job and exert responsible oversight over development. This building is going up on the UES. It is going to tower over its neighbors and take up 2/3 of the block. Multiple smaller residential buildings with businesses at street level were torn down to make way for it. The new building will have less than 4000 square feet of street level retail, likely to be occupied by a bank or something else totally unnecessary to the neighborhood. And how many units are being created - 26! All of this for 26 units! It is insane for literally everyone but the developers who stand to profit. Those 26 owners could have found a place to live (assuming the owners of these units will even actually live there) in any of the many other hi-end developments sitting half empty around Manhattan. How is this the best use of this property? How does this benefit the neighborhood? It doesn’t. And buildings like this are totally irresponsible.
https://newyorkyimby.com/2020/02/construction-hits-street-level-at-150-east-78th-street-on-the-upper-east-side.html
12
@Maureen
That means Kaye's is gone! How sad. I grew up on that block. It was lovely there when it was a low-rise neighborhood. We actually knew our neighbors and the tradespeople....
I want to say, at least this behemoth is not a shiny glass tower and tries to fit in, like the tall awkward girl at her prom...
SIGH!!!!!!!!
First of all NYC will be flooded in a few years and is already overcrowded. Secondly what's up with the supposedly affordable units, it appears to me that affordable disappears as soon as the building is completed. The way things are going the wealthy will soon loose the slave class who perform so many services for them.
For all the blather about the climate what we see are stories like this that reveal the upper classes have zero concern or even acknowledgement regarding what is coming down the pike. Beyond that is is also clear that the upper classes are ignoring important sustainability issues right and left. Seriously, this time Chicken Little is right!
Talk about unforeseen consequences, we are about to suffer those unforeseen consequences, and it won't be pretty.
6
We already lost this one in Ft. Greene / Downtown Brooklyn. See 80 Flatbush as the flagship example
5
You know, it occurs to me that the problem isn’t that people hate buildings. The problem is that the people here hate other people. The “hipsters” moving into those buildings you resent so much? Those are other people who need somewhere to live and are paying through the nose to have a roof over their heads. If they could move somewhere cheaper they probably would. But they can’t, for the same reason you’re not moving somewhere cheaper either.
14
@Vanyali Yea, people tend not to enjoy being displaced from the communities they or their families have lived in for a long time by rising rents in their neighborhood that only the richer and usually white transplants can afford with roommates. Also let's be real, a lot of these transplants enjoy living in these communities because they feel more "real" or "authentic". The problem isn't just the buildings, although they are gigantic eyesores, the problem is with developers feeling like they can come into a community and build something that large scale without community feedback. We need affordable housing, but real affordable housing, not just below market rate.
5
Great! We should all support these communities that stand up against predatory corporate developers, who want to build luxury high-rises to sell to foreign businessmen and squeeze out actual New Yorkers who can't afford to live in this city any more.
These developments are a blight on our city, and the high-rises going up across Brooklyn should make any New Yorker sick to their stomach.
13
“This suit had 15 petitioners, which helped show the judge we’re not a couple of angry people — this is a whole community.”
vs.
"The city is appealing the decision."
The Government is NOT your friend! It must be constantly fought.
8
..not to mention TWO TREES Developers, a couple of Bro's who want Williamsburg to look even more like Dubai, they plan a "lagoon" & TWIN 60 story towers at the end of Metropolitan Ave in an area which is already maxed-out as far as utilities, sewage and transportation is concerned. Keep in mind 10 years ago the tallest building was 11 stories, now we have a dozen 20 story towers and two 40 story towers, and more underway it can really ruin the 'vibe' of a neighborhood as well as render it "ugly" and stress out the infrastructure. The developers say but 12% will be affordable housing .. meaning there will be apartments in the basements and ground floor , interior no-view zones ( .ie un-rentable areas ) they will rent out to low income peoples with perfect credit and no criminal records, since those are the requirements, you don't see these people they are often forced to use different entrance ways and it's more like 2% of occupants not 12% which are able to gain a 'low income ' apartment in these developments. Keep an eye on the developers, people, they are slippery and slowly ruining your neighborhoods!
15
"opponents say that simply building new housing, even with a mandatory share of below-market-rate units, will not stem the continued loss of affordable housing for average New Yorkers"
But... there is no other solution to demand other than increasing supply. What planet are people on where they think that limiting supply with somehow magically bring prices down? What they are really thinking is this: "I want to keep MY apartment as cheap as possible. If anyone wants to move here, they are on their own--as long as I can stay where I want for the price I want everything is fine."
It is so unbelievably selfish and immoral it boggles the mind. The problem with rent is that income has not kept up with inflation, and housing prices have. Gee, why don't we solve the *income* problem and make sure that median wages match inflation so that the average person can afford the average rent.
But nah, let's just add barriers to building more housing, because it feels good to say "no." It's criminal.
14
@J c
"Income has not kept up with inflation"? No, the problem is that income has not kept up with the inflation of RENT. Though wages have stagnated -- and while this (along with all the ramifications of oligarchy) is certainly a crucial problem -- the exceptionally large increase in housing costs is a problem unto itself.
2
Development for NYC is good thing having grown up in the East Village in the 70s and 80s I can attest to the power of gentrification it made the neighborhood livable crime down, stores and services for residents way up. As for displacement of long time residents no one has a right to live where ever they want for ever, change is inevitable and to demand that everything stop for your benefit is ridiculous. Many neighborhoods have changed for the worse forcing people to relocate and some change for the better, it is unfortunate if some are priced out but that is life stop thinking you are entitled to everything.
16
None of these projects expand the property tax base sufficiently to give existing payers a break.
3
Years ago, I used to take my daughter to see the Holiday decorated windows on Fifth Avenue until it got so crowded , it was impossible to enjoy seeing the decorations. I watched many stores turn into high end stores in Manhattan catering to the rich and now they are empty storefronts. The then beautiful skyline now looks like toothpicks sticking out in odd places.
What is missing in New York that kept it viable in the past is a middle class and cultural opportunities for the middle class. Even if a middle-class person is lucky enough to have bought a house way back or has a rent controlled apartment, the restaurants, theaters and the museums (that used to be free) are prohibitively priced.
21
There are plenty of cultural opportunities for the middle class. If you go to one museum regularly, a membership is a bargain (especially given that in the course of a year the cable TV bill costs about a dozen times more).
And if you have a New York Public Library card, it'll get you into other museums.
Besides, most museums have "suggested" entrance fees. One doesn't have to pay.
But if people are tired and resentful and suspicious and contemptuous of rich people's largesse, then they ought to pony up and pay a real entrance fee.
7
As an attorney representing the City Club of New York in opposing the tower at 50 West 66th Street and other community groups and individuals fighting similar projects, I can attest to the difficulties faced by opponents of these projects, even when their claims have legal merit. I recently wrote an article in the New York Law Journal, entitled only somewhat hyperbolically, "Why Community Groups Can Never Win Against Developers," in which I explain the issues and propose some changes in the law that would create a more level playing field and allow plaintiffs to win where they should win. In addition to organizing to oppose individual projects, opponents of these projects need to organize to change the law.
18
@John LB I'd like to read that but can't find it on NYLJ site. Can you post a link?
3
We really need a regional solution with better inter-city/area transit. Not everyone has a right or a desire to live in NYC.
Density creates its own problems. If you want to know what over development feels like, walk along 57th street between Park and 7th Ave. The inhuman scale is overwhelming. There is nothing on the street except overpriced stores and empty store fronts.
Many new developments have over priced retail spaces that sit empty, rather than create community and shopping districts. It may work on an Excel spread sheet but not in reality.
Someone needs to do a model of New York which shows what it would like if all current zoning laws were followed and NYC was built to maximum capacity. Then we should quiz people to see if they still would want to live here.
Then take another model and consider proposals from all the YIMBYs and see if they would prefer that.
A far better solution is green transportation rich linked small, medium and large communities throughout the region — not JUST in the city limits. Higher and denser is not always better.
16
@Jay I Absolutely agree. This is a legacy of Robert Moses. We have a very dense core and sprawling suburbs. Even within NYC there are suburban neighborhoods that do not pay a proportional tax rate for their use of city resources. Many parts of Queens, Bronx and Staten Island are low density single family homes.
Suburbs with access to public transportation into NYC such as metro north, LIRR, and NJ Transit show also increase density and reduce the pressure of building within the city.
4
@Yev '...that do not pay a proportional tax rate for their use of city resources...'
Really? I pay $5900/yr in property taxes on a small (912 sf) 1-family home plus the city 'resource' water/sewer taxes which are based on usage of course.
7
I was thinking the same thing. Robert Moses singlehandedly destroyed housing all over the city in the name of building roads. As the chief of the "slum clearing program" he excerbated the housing shortage and promoted corruption. Nothing has changed in NYC except the names of the players.
1
Good luck to those fighting their court battles, but I have learned that fighting the inevitable is futile. One only has to look at the monstrosity that is being built at 430 E 58th St. between First Avenue and Sutton Place. The East River Fifties Alliance and their followers fought a courageous battle to fight arcade zoning laws. It took the court over a year to hand down a decision to uphold BSA’s grandfathering request. It was David and Goliath all the way, but in this case Goliath had too many friends helping him. While the fight was going on in the courts, construction continued to pass the agreed-upon height. There was no way that BSA believed it was going to lose and have to tear down multiple floors. They knew they had won before the court handed down their decision. It was always a done deal between the mayor, the city Council and the development company. As long as lobbying exist, the deck is stacked against you.
11
I have strong feelings about both the positives and negatives of development growing up in London and now living in the East Village for a number of years, having seen the approach taken in both of those cities.
Holding back the tide and waves of gentrification is very difficult given the the huge growth in population in cities globally. In New York one of the things the city has got right is allowing ultra tall towers. This at least keeps some of the city atmosphere in tact with all these awful billionaires stacked on top of one another on a plot of land of no larger than a football field by Central Park.
In London the opposition to development and NIMBYism is out of control, blocking development and pushing normal people further out from the centre of the city. The billionaires each own the same plot of land in the centre the same size of one of those towers.
I worry New York is going in the same direction. The best thing that can be done is to build more. These areas will be gentrified regardless of blocking individual developments. I worry that 1000 affordable housing units which now wont happen are better than none, with these residents following what has happened in London and ultimately being forced out anyway as development does not keep up with demand.
Cities have always been organic places, constantly changing. Grasping at trying to keep things how they once were via NIMBYism against global trends in population and reurbanisation ultimately do more damage.
12
It' important to point out in the Inwood case that this was not about NIMBYism. The neighborhood was supportive of rezoning the post-industrial areas for residential use, and many local groups supported alternative plans that would have created even more housing units than the city's plan.
The difference was that the city's plan played favorites, with massive buildings on sites owned by certain players in the real estate market yet enforced blight in other areas to preserve future economic development that may never come. The hack job of a plan they pushed through was not difficult to find fault with.
Had the city used actual planners, and not EDC, to develop their rezoning, and not lied through their teeth for three years about the trade-offs, they might have found much more support.
12
The purpose of a rezoning is to increase land prices, replace low-income residents with high-income ones, and enrich developers. Developers target "transit rich" neighborhoods that have not yet gentrified rather than rich ones because that is where they will make the most money.
10
In Port Chester, NY, about 30 miles north of the city, a small group of activists, called Sustainable Port Chester Alliance, are battling big-time development. We don't have the resources available to those in the city to fight against it. Our downtown is ground zero for new development and the people most gravely impacted will be small business owners who rent their space and are predominantly Latino.
Developers are counting on people who can no longer afford NYC and people who are downsizing to fill the units they plan to build. We're on the Metro North line, which makes for an easy commute in the city.
We're fighting for mitigation to displacement of residents and small businesses. We're also fighting for affordable housing to be based on local AMI as opposed to county-wide AMI, which will leave the majority of current residents, mainly Latino and Black and low-income people, out in the cold. We're fighting for local hire and union jobs. But we also recognize that the village must find ways to expand our stagnant tax base.
Developers have controlled the narrative to say that the 'numbers won't work' if they're required to build with more than a 10% set aside for affordable, a mere drop in the bucket that doesn't do nearly enough to create affordable housing for volunteer firefighters and new teachers to live here.We're paying close attention to what's happening in the city and are buoyed by the successful challenges to rezoning. There's a lot going on up north too.
12
@Joan Grangenois-Thomas Good to know about Port Chester. You describe the situation perfectly, whether there or in New York. To build truly affordable housing, it must be subsidized. Any sizable for-profit development, even with a small affordable housing set aside, will drive prices higher. As for AMI, it doesn't matter where it comes from as long as the percentages are affordable to the locals -- e.g. 20 percent of AMI, 30 percent of AMI, etc. Of course for-profit, market-rate developers cannot build housing affordable to those who truly need it without subsidies.
6
The upzoning was rammed down the throats of Inwood residents. I'm glad they won. The bigger problem is that land and labor are very expensive in NYC. In my neighborhood a standard 2-family homes have asking prices over $1M now, so I can just imagine what it costs to put up an apartment building in Manhattan or Brooklyn.
6
The City claims that they target upzoning low income communities of color such as Inwood & Bushwick because they are the only "transit rich" neighborhoods with development capacity is simply not true. Deputy Mayor Vicky Been's argument that wealthy neighborhoods have no room for more development is hogwash. Walk thru the transit rich but wealthy, white Upper Eastside, Upper Westside, etc. Sure, you'll find high-rises on the avenues that make them appear highly developed. But walk on the side streets (3x as long as the avenues) and you'll find plenty of 3 and 4 story buildings. There's plenty of room for more density in these high income neighborhoods. The issue is not where is there room for development, but where City officials think most residents are too poor or powerless to fight back. Maybe some of these neighborhoods are showing they are not so powerless after all.
NYC won't solve its affordable housing crisis until politicians engage ALL 59 community board districts or ALL 51 City Council districts to do their part, and stop trying to pick off lower income neighborhoods one by one. The contributions to the solution will be different in each district based on development opportunities, community needs, and levels to which residents are--or are not--at risk of housing insecurity or homelessness in each district. But if every community in NYC does its part based on plans in which local residents & business people are genuinely engaged, then we can make real progress.
8
@Paul UES and UWS have much higher density than bushwick or crown heights already, so more apartments should be used there. It’s as simple as that.
Moreover there are actually more towers being built currently on UES than in crown heights. So this particular nimby argument doesn’t really make sense.
9
@Bogdan Your comment on towers in the UES makes my point that the City's claim that you cannot add density in wealthy neighborhoods is hogwash.
As for Inwood, Bushwick, and other lower income neighborhoods, the question is not whether to add density, but HOW to do it. The City's top-down approach creates great displacement risk to the existing low income populations, as happened in a number of Bloomberg-era rezonings using a very similar approach. In Inwood, Bushwick, and other neighborhoods, there were community-developed plans using different approaches that would have kept new housing more aligned with existing income distributions of residents. These plans would add more density, housing, and people but with less displacement risk and, incidentally, less profit for developers. Using the City's approach of upzoning low income neighborhoods and adding 3 or 4 market rate units for every below market rate unit is a formula for hyper-gentrification & displacement. Using that same approach in wealthy neighborhoods does NOT create gentrification because those neighborhoods are already wealthy. That's exactly where to use the City's approach. In lower income neighborhoods, use other approaches with lower displacement risk.
4
@Paul The lower income areas are improved when middle-class people move in. Middle-class neighborhoods decline when poor people move in. This is what happened in Brooklyn in the 1960s. That is just the truth of it. Now that still doesn't give the city license to force upzonings on an area.
5
It's interesting that we only hear about the fights now and not the ones that were then. One of the biggest fights possibly in NYC on people vs big development was the Atlantic Yards (now known as Pacific Park) that happened throughout much of the 2000's. It was all about people fighting to keep their property from being seized by a private developer known as Forest City Ratner to take away their homes just to build what they wanted. The only reason why Ratner won was because he was able to play the race card of using minorities who claim that they needed jobs and even on getting a basketball team, which was really his Trojan Horse for the whole project, by supporting him through donations or creating special groups himself such as the Koch Brothers are known to. I can even remember going to hearings where those said supporters were known to disrupt the hearings whenever someone in the opposition spoke including myself and even with whistles at times while constantly vilifying the opponents and calling them selfish for not wanting to sell. More importantly, the media had a history of vilifying the opposition as well as they did for other projects such as Willets Point and the Columbia expansion in calling anyone who was against these as anti-development NIMBYs even though they weren't even going to be living with those projects but rather removed through the abuse of eminent domain despite not really serving the public as well as involving corporate welfare.
13
Yep. Atlantic Yards may be a failure too. There’s no known financing avenue for how they’re going to complete the project. And, the neighborhood is a pedestrian and cyclist’s death trap.
2
I grew up in the Washington Heights/Inwood neighborhood and I'm very familiar with the site mentioned in this article & I have a great affection for the area.It's the last bastion of semi-affordability in NYC. And it should stay that way. What is needed there is truly affordable housing, not some theoretician's idea of what's affordable. A family of 4 with an income of $50K cannot spend $2500-$3k on rent and have enough left to live on. Unless the city's goal is to eliminate the working class altogether, they need to come up with another plan. And while we're on the subject of plans...how are all the people in these new buildings supposed to get to work, school or anywhere else for that matter? There 1 subway line, the IRT local, in that neighborhood, and a very long walk to the last stop on the A train at Broadway and 207th St. But I guess the fictional residents of the luxury apartments won't be taking the subway or the already overburdened buses. They'll have to contend instead with the nearly continuous gridlock of street traffic as they wait for their Ubers or taxis.
15
@A. Cleary
I grew up a few blocks from the proposed Inwood site. It’s a shame that the NYCHA is a shell of an agency that it once was in the 60’s when I lived in Inwood. A competent and strong housing authority is the only solution to affordable housing for the poor.
Growing up on the “poor” side of Broadway, I knew many who lived in the Dyckman Projects. It was a livable and solid alternative for the working poor.
That new proposed site would be the beginning of the end for Inwood as we all know it today. Pretty soon it will become another Williamsburg.
5
Well written article shining a light on a very real problem for this city. I rather fear with the current regime in Washington’s views of NYC, there are limited solutions out of this mess in the near to middling future. The city needs truly affordable housing solutions but like London has completely priced out the workers it needs to maintain the energy, hustle and bustle and 24 nature of the city. Not for profit builds needs to be incentivized for investors/large banks if the city itself will or can not build the needed houses itself. A real plan for land use needs to be put together across the boroughs and used it needs to include all infrastructure including school, hospitals, community projects etc. until this is done, chaos will prevail.
9
Calls for more government regulation and rules are misguided, they are what have gotten us to the current situation. The myriad of rules, regulations, studies and processes have led to a constrained market. There developers bankroll the politicians who in turn ensure a playing field that will work to the advantage of those developers. Campaign contributions, zoning restrictions, tax abatements, environmental studies are all part of the toxic stew. No master plan for development: land use, infrastructure, schools etc, just an ad hoc system.
6
@JG It is corruption that has ruined the market.
1
Here's the thing I don't get. For all the 'regulation' that NYC imposes on the real estate industry, how come there are no aesthetic rules these developers must abide by? Say 200 Amsterdam, for example. It just simply does not fit with the neighborhood. Most new development is like a new car, the minute one buys it, it goes down by at least 1/3. Forcing 'affordable' housing won't make this city affordable. Anyone who bought a gallon of milk or a sack of potatoes in a Manhattan supermarket knows that. And schools?!? Forget about it! This city is expensive. Period. Get used to it or move. Building these towers cheapens and lessens investment in real estate, but it does not make it more affordable. So many new condos are empty! and coops are simply devalued because that condo inventory is part of the market.
8
@inNYC There are lots of aesthetic rules, in particular regarding landmarking.
@inNYC The only way to prevent something from being built for aesthetic reasons is to get your neighborhood landmark status, and then changes to existing buildings will have to be presented to your community board and then
to the Landmarks Preservation Commission. If it's primarily the height that is the problem, you should definitely attend your community board's Land Use meetings! Proposals for projects that are way taller than the surrounding buildings usually involve an individual rezoning request, and the community board can sometimes pressure the developer to reduce height, or pressure the local councilmember to veto the project.
4
@lambda242 Indeed. Slum Preservation is the rule for certain parts of the city
1
There are solutions:
1. You have to build more to bring down costs. It is simple math.
2. The government and private industry have to work together.
3. Antiquated, slow, cumbersome and expensive regulations that slow down building add significantly to cost. Government can fix this. Good, efficient regulation is good.
4. The city should donate land to build housing.
5. Raise taxes and more people will leave New York State. That leaves those who remain paying even more for similar or lesser services. Tax breaks for some at the expense of others will lead to disaster.
6. Improve government efficiencies: government employees who pad their pensions with over-time are committing fraud. What happens to you or I when we commit fraud? The same rules and laws should apply AND be enforced.
7. New York politicians should be fighting the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT to spend more on New York: right now the Fed siphons off 10-15 cents of every federal tax dollar New Yorkers pay in to re-distribute to other states. New York needs this money (it is BILLIONS), but our elected officials are not fighting for this because it does not buy votes.
14
You’re describing the status quo.
2
The only unrealistic answer is for the federal government to re-engage in large scale building for low and moderate income folks and a locality willing to work with the federal government to provide the necessary land. The politics of Washington and New York City will not allow this to happen.
6
@Schneiderman A new round of building Mitchell-Lama co-ops is the answer.
4
@Schneiderman You mean "realistic".
Politicians control zoning.
Sadly they prefer upscale and commercial developments over regular folk.
Voters ( regular folk) have the power to endorse and vote for more sustainably inclined politicians.
Hopefully they will mobilise and use their power for their own gain - beginning with affordable housing.
11
@MKLA
It's not necessarily that politicians prefer upscale and commercial development. The issue is that building housing for low and moderate income people requires government subsidies including, in some cases, on-going rent subsidies. That means raising taxes which, even in NYC, is problematic at best. Moreover, the City can't raise income taxes without approval from the State of New York which, under the current Governor, the City will never receive.
3
In France, affordable housing and other projects for the public good are funded with the profits from a public bank created for that purpose. We should do it here.
6
Developers would love for you to think building more units will lower prices and increase affordable housing. It will not. Development in New York over the last 10 years has only increased the cost of housing. Affordable housing is a joke. The 421-a tax break program for developers is producing "affordable" units at 130 percent of Area Median Income that are more expensive then market rate housing -- for example, $2,250 a month "affordable" studios in Bushwick. The cost of land is so high, each new for-profit building produces only expensive new "luxury" units, which not only are not affordable, but ultimately push up the average/median rental price throughout the area, raising prices for everyone. One way to produce new units of truly affordable housing is 100 percent affordable subsidized nonprofit development. In addition to the small number of these projects created via HPD every year, a public fund or public bank could generate the money to do it on a bigger scale.
37
@Mopar "Development in New York over the last 10 years has only increased the cost of housing"
over the last ten years there have been around 50,000 units added to the market. not in Manhattan, in all of NYC. that's very little. at that rate of construction, prices will keep going up.
7
@Moparwhat the number of units coming on line relative to the demand is a joke. So your assertion that recent history demonstrates that new development increases housing costs is false. And your idea of 100% affordable housing financed by the Unicorn Bank is a fantasy. We need to build our way out of this crisis, and the private sector is best positioned to do that, however distasteful you mind find that.
4
@Dennis The private sector does not want to build non profit housing.
4
Yes, let’s stop all new development to insure that housing prices stay high or increase. Basic economics: a shortage of a desired product causes prices to rise.
19
@Lance Michaels
Unless you are talking about building hundreds of thousands of units in a relatively short period of time, the small trickle of new units each year now built will not impact prices.
8
@Lance Michaels Not really the case here in this NYC right now read: There is a "glut of empty luxury apartments", but the prices are not coming down from the stratosphere.
Economics show a glut is survivable for the ones who have wealth and does not adjust itself towards those with less.
12
@Schneiderman "Unless you are talking about building hundreds of thousands of units in a relatively short period of time"
that's exactly what NYC needs. i don't mean it ironically.
5
Environmental impact statements should also consider the impact of NOT upzoning neighborhoods and building densely in transit-rich neighborhoods. We will get more sprawl, more carbon emissions and a hotter planet. The NIMBYs are contributing directly to sprawl and climate change, and should be held to account for it.
24
@Dennis, it doesn't work like you think it does in many, many places. Developers aren't interested in building reasonably priced infill; they're building high-priced luxury units for upscale, part-time residents, which solves NOTHING. In fact, an increasing number of long-time residents where I live are moving out of formerly neighborly areas in the city to escape the mess, and actually increasing sprawl.
15
@John D. this is just false. We need all kinds of new housing, for the rich, the poor and in-between. Second homes for rich people represent a tiny fraction of new development and is not the problem. And if developers are not building in-fill housing, it could be because onerous parking, setback and other zoning rules that NIMBYs love to impose on developers make these projects unfeasible.
7
@Dennis Don't throw around the "NIMBY" epithet so loosely. Residents of Inwood, Bushwick, and most other low & moderate income neighborhoods singled out for upzoning worked hard to put together community-developed plans with plenty of new development and new housing units, and at much more affordable rents than the City proposed--and that meet the income distributions of their existing residents. But it wasn't as much development as City development agencies and their real estate speculator friends wanted, so CIty officials ignored their community plans.
7
The way to bring down prices is to build more dwellings. Its not complicated. The last 30 years has seen the least amount of dwellings built compared to other periods going back 200 years. Unless more homes are build prices will spiral ever higher.
If people want to limit homes then they cannot complain when prices go into the stratosphere. To see just how much worst things will get see San Francisco. The only place where building is restricted more than NYC.
10
@Chris Not really the case, read about it in the NYT: There is a glut of empty luxury apartments, but the prices are not coming down from the stratosphere. Economics show this " glut " is survivable for the ones who have wealth already and does not adjust itself towards those who have less or are homeless, that is just how capitalism is structured, and how the wealthy stay wealthy and the poor stay poor.
18
@Jt actually prices for very expensive units did come down quite a lot in 2019. read about it in the NYTimes:) not even the rich are exempted from economic laws.
4
@Chris Sure. The question is how, i.e. where to place those new dwellings. There are good ways and bad ways to allocate new development in New York, and while Inwood is an excellent candidate for rezoning old industrial areas (something residents have been asking for long before the current actions) the way the city went about it was a mess, driven by politics and backroom deals. There is absolutely a right way to rezone Inwood and add thousands more housing units, but it requires planners and not politicians to lay it out.
3
Here in San Francisco a one bedroom rents for $4k, teachers and low paid service workers have multi hour commutes to work in the city, and the streets are covered in homeless people because community groups like these have blocked housing for decades. I guess it’s empowering to attack developers, but try to limit the damage or the whole place becomes unliveable.
29
For all SF folks posting - we have development in NYC, lots of it. For the all out YIMBYS, we have huge buildings in transit rich corridors. But, what is actually happening (if you read the details) is that even as units are built, the homeless population soars. The whole point is that NYC is a pro-development city and the results are not playing out. Meanwhile infrastructure lags behind from another era...or two. It’s far more complicated than simply throwing luxury buildings next to the subway.
22
@South Of Albany No, we do not have a lot of development. We are building less housing per capita than San Francisco. We completed fewer units in the 2010s than we did in the 1970s, when the city was actually losing population. Small areas of concentrated development (like in Long Island City, for example) don't make up for the fact that we're doing almost no homebuilding outside those areas.
9
@DanMiller In the last decade, NYC has had a net loss of residents. How is it that we see a 50-100% increase in rents over that period of time? The bottom line (that no one will tell you) is that NYC is developing for an income bracket that is not even close to median income or what the city pays the majority of municipal employees. This is a generational purging of everyone that’s not on the income trajectory of a tech worker. I’ve offered my idea many times to those so enthralled by the supply / demand metric of housing - pour concrete into the East River. Build an entire new city with actual, functioning infrastructure. There will be no community groups to deal with because they don’t exist. When that happens and there’s development sufficient for the YIMBYs' thirst then get back to me on whether or not there’s a significant amount of development in NYC.
12
As a native NYer who no longer lives there, one of the biggest things I notice when I return is the state of disrepair of older homes and buildings. Aside from the "luxury" market, there should be a fund for blight/ vacant lots/ buildings that are left to rot for over 40 years (!!) Maybe this is more of an issue outside of Manhattan, but my entire life there has been a rotting warehouse in mill basin right on the waterfront- nothing is happening there because I assume a private owner is refusing to do anything with it??
13
@Lyn
It usually comes down to zoning. A rotting warehouse is probably only zoned for a warehouse which with all of the environmental cleanup that is probably needed is not worth putting in another warehouse. The taxes are low if the property is kept in disrepair. One day the zoning will change and if a large building can be put up the property value increases 1000x. They are waiting till the zoning changes. Eventually the thirst for housing becomes too great and zoning changes. See LIC. It became an instant city in 10 years after zoning. Now thousands of people live there where once it was really only known for its strip clubs.
10
@Chris As someone who has lived in LIC for longer than the Citi building has been around, I can say the "instant city" you speak of doesn't offer much. LIC was definitely known for more than strip clubs, but now it's just known as "overdeveloped with nothing to offer".
6
@Lyn A landlord in NYC need only to keep the storefront legally up to speed. Other residential units can be left to rot or warehoused until a pro real estate industry politician gains the mayoralty. The out of control exorbitant rent charged just for the storefront can pay for the landlord's mansion(s). most likely in a gated community outside the city limits.
7
There needs to be a luxury real estate tax on expensive (and usually empty) apartments which primarily serve as money laundering schemes for foreigners. Also a tax on empty commercial properties to make it less advantageous to keep properties empty for long periods of time. There are too many empty store fronts in NYC. And no more of these schemes where luxury building are built with tax dodges like Hudson yards.
90
@spike
There is no advantage to keeping properties empty.
Property owners still have to pay all the taxes, utilities, etc to keep a place operational, but get no revenue when it is empty.
Also, there already is a special tax on "luxury" real estate.
6
@Brian I am pretty sure there is a tricky way to write off the $4000 per month rent that are loosing as opposed to the $1000 monthly they were getting when it was occupied.
14
@Brian there is a luxury tax on sales (1.5%) which is nothing. A lot of the new buildings (eg. Hudson yards) benefit from fake tax rebates because they pretended these building were in impoverished areas. And yes they get to take off "lost rental income" as a loss, (see http://www.city-data.com/forum/new-york-city/2787220-there-tax-benefit-empty-commercial-space.html) and other scams, so yes in NYC it pays owners to sit on empty commercial real estate. NYC real estate practices are bizarre.
5
It's amazing to see all this development happening while our city's infrastructure is unable to keep up - in fact, it's crumbling before our eyes. It's incredibly short-sighted and deeply impactful to the standard of living in this city. It would be ideal if infrastructure impact were taken into account every time one of these massive developments were proposed, but we know that ain't gonna happen because there's much money to be made.
23
@Vin actually to rezone you have to do an extensive study on the impact on transit. It is a required part of the rezoning process.
1
@Albert If you believe that Environmental Impact studies paid for by private developers and executed by private surveyors, specialist etc. are accurate. They're drafted to benefit the applicant in ULURP, ie the developer. In a city neighborhood rezoning the Department of City Planning is responsible for the Environmental Impact Study. They may have even less credibility than the private firms. Try to commute on an average day. Let your experience answer the question.
9
@Vin
Same situation in Los Angeles!
Can someone actually show us how and who determine the MARKET RATE? And what’s the point of studying MEDIAN INCOME of a neighborhood when you have unsold luxury condos next to rent control apartment buildings? And buying the unused development rights in adjacent lots to increase building heights?
Most people just want to live, and hopefully have decent quality of life. New York is easily the dirtiest city in the world, developed and otherwise. We don’t need more ‘ high density’ housing but less people. Real estate speculating is a global sport, made easier by globalization and technology like everything else. Real people on the ground suffer from the endless construction noises, overcrowded sidewalks with never ending scaffoldings and seemingly unregulated number of venders of counterfeit goods and smoky food trucks. All signs of a city out of control.
The real question to ask is, why aren’t we build sensible housing for regular people instead of playing this glassy tower trading game?
14
Stopping development of expensive new housing in places such as Inwood is a tie, not a win.
A win is development of new low and middle income housing.
20
Medium and High-density development have nothing to do with “affordable housing.” 1) NYC has had net outflows of residents for nearly a decade. We’re actually losing people to other states. Housing scarcity has become an enabler of development. So, we’re building a ton of buildings, people are leaving the city and homelessness is growing. 2)NYC is all about Real Estate and most all the elected politicians are in on the hustle. Nearly half of NYC’s revenue comes from real estate taxes. So, every single time a new building goes up there a new revenue stream (in some cases delayed by boondoggle tax abatement). City Planners and electeds tend to live in the homes that can never be upzoned - historic preservation. That’s part of the reason you see most rezonings happen in commercial / industrial areas. They don’t ever happen where they should - brownstone neighborhoods. There is no reason for the City to partner with real people. It’s in the city’s and city employees benefit to build to the sky. 3)the term below-market. It doesn’t take an economist to notice that the AMI adjusted rents are clearly NOT affordable. A newly built MIH unit is not a deal, not affordable, not even a possibility for the middle class. It’s appalling that a city official would state otherwise. 4) NYC is great example, academically, of the failed promise of high density building structures. The more we build, the more homeless. Its results in direct inverse to its purported promises.
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@South Of Albany More than that. New York can not claim to be any kind of cultural capital, when the people who create culture cannot afford to live in New York, or anywhere near it. And if you have to lose two or more hours a day commuting, leaving perhaps one hour in which you might be able to write or paint, is not viable.
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@South Of Albany FYI - your assertion that NYC has had a decade of outflow is not supported by the facts. NYC recently hit a historic high in population. You can google it!
https://www.nap.edu/read/18671/chapter/15
I’ve looked at a lot of numbers on it, including a recent article in the NYT that discussed this very point. The growth from births and international immigration does not change the fact. More people are leaving annually than coming in. There is a net outflow.
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Inclusive community-based decision making is hard to do right, because it can take literally forever, and there will always be people who are perpetually dissatisfied. However, not having it seems to result in empty luxury high-rise condos owned by wealthy out-of-towners purely for investment purposes.
I don't actually think that everyone has a "right" to be housed as in "give me a house" or "give me a job". Nobody ever gifted me with a job; they offered me positions after I showed I was qualified to do the work. They sure never gave me a house, and certainly not for free.
However, I do believe that everyone has the right to equitable ACCESS to housing. That means it's available and affordable for them, that they aren't denied a lease because of cruel or unintended technicalities, there's a curb on both conscious and unconscious bias, and that there's some mechanism in place so that everyone can be good neighbors, or some approximation thereof. There needs to be both access, and accountability.
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@Red Ree Unlike CA, NY State actually has the right to shelter in its constitution. That's why we spend 4 times as much as CA on homeless shelters, and it's also why despite having more homeless people than CA, we don't have tent cities like in West Oakland. Both CA and NY, however, would be better off if they passed tax laws that incentivize the type of building and renting that we actually need and that disincentivize luxury buildings (pied-à-terre tax, vacancy taxes, flip taxes, eliminate 421a, wealth taxes, etc.), and if they pass further rent stabilizing measures to keep people from becoming homeless in the first place. CA has the 2/3 rule for passing tax laws, so the perverse incentives will likely continue. NY might have glimmers of hope though!
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tons more housing to accommodate a growing city, gazillions more property tax revenue for the city - no problem.
But at least in Brooklyn they forgot to build the infrastructure to support that. Hospitals, good schools, transportation, roads without potholes, protected bike lanes. Even vision zero has stalled.
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@F R
It is a HUGE problem! Where is there proof the additional housing is for "New Yorkers" or foreign nationals who just want to buy those properties for their financial gain? Leaving them empty to accrue value over time. The city isn't improving infrastructure or schools or businesses around the new buildings and leaving us high and dry. This city has been on the decline since Bloomberg .
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@abe
Bloomberg has put the rezoning plan in to place....
On Ocean Avenue, there are over a dozen new buildings up or going up, and I assure you they are not for foreign oligarchs or young tech wizzes.
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There is no proof whatsoever that the builders solution solves the housing problem and that supply and demand is an important element in the cost of housing (or anything else). If so, show a real world example. The builders and real estate tycoons put up expensive units that are often pied-a-terres for out of towners or else VRBOed with a few cheap units (with a separate entrance) for window dressing. Because that is how the money is made. The people are justified in vigorously fighting these developments which destroy their neighborhoods. Progress is what benefits people, not capital.
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@Tibby Elgato As an example of a real world example of supply and demand affecting price start with oil, note an inelastic good having large price swings due to changes in demand and supply.
This is a knotty issue, of course, and one which will shape what kind of city New York (well, mostly Manhattan for the next 50 years) will become.
The $610 million said to have flowed into Inwood r.e. so far has probably all but doomed some of the small businesses that seemed to have led the fight against the City's plans. (It's been always thus - If you don't own your building, you're likely to have a rent problem at some point. Most Times readers prefer NYC to Buffalo!)
Maybe, public housing COULD be done less awfully than it seems to have been done in NY and elsewhere in the states. Surely, some Scandinavian country has found a better "formula" than any we've tried so far.
But given that there seems to be zero appetite - even at NYS and NYC levels - for public housing, one is reduced to just hoping that SOME safeguards are enacted. Just as buildings going co-op were required to allow residents - typically older and poorer - to opt out, ... and a fair amount of "slash & burn" building came with "payouts" and "accommodations" for those displaced, THAT strikes me as crucial (missing ??) in the current "you can build higher if you have some 'affordable' units" environment.
"U Like Chinese Takeout" may be a wonderful place, but neither it nor even 100 families who might be displaced SHOULD stop progress. Because safeguarding the $50K (household income) family's interests sends the $90K family off to the suburbs. Fighting inequality = help the middle class = BUILD!
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@edTow Curious. What NYC suburb is the $90k family buying in, in your scenario? Because you have to get pretty far out or pretty darn dicey before $90k becomes house money around here.
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Housing affordability is a major problem in New York but refusing to add to the supply of housing is no solution. Low income minority neighborhoods should be empowered to negotiate not only for affordable housing but also for construction jobs in exchange for development. But there’s no excuse for affluent neighborhoods like the upper east or west side to be blocking development. That simply restricts supply and actually adds to the wealth of existing homeowners and landlords. Progressive forces who want to help low income people with their housing problems should not be partnering with NIMBY types who are adding to their own wealth while blocking development.
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‘Empowering neighborhoods’ in Inwood/bushwick restricts supply in the exact way ‘nimby types’ on the ues/UWS do. Only the demographics are different. For a city with an ‘equity crisis’, perhaps we treat different neighborhoods equitably, irrespective of demographics.
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@Rick McGahey Adding to the supply of housing has exacerbated the housing affordability problem, because no one actually builds anything affordable.
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@Rick McGahey Negotiating with a developer is impossible unless your council member has your back and is willing to veto a project in ULURP, and very few council members really have their neighborhood's back on this issue. And no for-profit developers will build more than the absolute minimum of affordable housing than they are required to by law, which is why we simply need better laws (including tax laws) that will steer the market away from producing empty luxury condos, and to get better laws, we need better law-makers! Changing the balance of power in Albany got big results for tenants, and hopefully we can do the same in NYC!
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Would love to see continued coverage on this — early stage battles are brewing on the Williamsburg waterfront with a Two Trees / Bjarke Ingels re-zoning proposal in the works for one of the last remaining industrial lots. No one is fighting to preserve the chain-link fenced swamp that is currently there, but the proposal to add two 600 foot super-talls can’t be the best we can do there.
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@Kerry O I am really hoping the NIMBYs lose that one: as you say, it is a toxic swamp right now, and there is a gap between the Domino Park, and the North Williamsburg ferry piers. More building is coming to the Domino development as we know, and this will be entirely in keeping.The plan for Williamsburg was always for a ribbon of park, paid for and supported by tall residential development. It's a win-win, and there is virtually no original low-rise residential use in the immediate area. I'm not a developer or in any way associated with the development, but I am a local, and I walk my dog up and down the incomplete parks from Schaffer's Landing to Transmitter Park all the time, in all weathers, and development like the Domino Park and North 5th Street park is what can be done to what was not previously charming little houses, but a post-industrial wasteland. I cannot for the life of me understand the desire to turn back the clock and I think the Bjarke Ingels development looks amazing.
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@Kerry O " the proposal to add two 600 foot super-talls can’t be the best we can do there."
and what would be the best we can do, preserve the swamp? this is unreal. instead of fighting for including more affordable housing in these developments, people want to preserve empty lots in one of the most expensive cities in the world.
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Two ways to get more housing units in NYC fast:
1. Ban AirBnB and turn tens of thousands of unregulated hotel rooms back into housing for residents. Walk through neighborhoods some time and count the groups of tourists with wheelie suitcases, staring back and forth between their phone and the numbers on apartment buildings.
2. Impose a punitive tax on expensive apartments people don’t live in most of the year. If oligarchs were not offshoring oil money as penthouse apartments, the merely super rich could live in them, and they in turn could pass their apartments over to the upper-income professionals, and so on down the line.
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@Glen
Yes, particularly, to point 1.
I've seen this on my own block many times.
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@dc Some neighborhoods are basically wholly catering to the tourist class. We're headed toward a Venice/Barcelona-type inundation.
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@Glen You are so right. These two solutions seem so easy, yet no one in power wants to implement.
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Zoning should be considered an unconstitutional taking. Historic preservation laws are the use of state power to preserve elite aesthetics. Tall towers house people. If we had more of them, we’d have more housing. Neighborhoods naturally grow and change. They have to be allowed to do that. People who strangle new development - including new transportation options - because they’re nostalgic for some mythical past when everyone fit their particular aesthetic are slowly killing what should be a vibrant city, what could be if we let it. Of course it’s bad when someone’s rent goes up, but the solution isn’t to turn New York City into a museum, to ossify it in place.
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@Matt Actually, zoning is not an unconstitutional taking. That was decided in the 1926 US Supreme Court case of Euclid v. Ambler. If you want to live a totally unregulated life as far as land use goes, buy yourself 10,000 acres in Montana.
City life requires cooperation and yes, some regulation. There are laws about what compensation must be paid when land use regulation reaches the level of a constitutional "taking"...none of the subject matter of this article seems to approach that threshold. Totally free market, unregulated development of cities leads to ugly, inefficient, environmentally catastrophic landscape...I'm lookin' at you, Houston.
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@Matt
Hear hear!
Pave Central Park! It is only there as an antiquated museum piece for the elite who can afford to live nearby! Affordable housing and parking are at crisis levels in NYC! More parking and affordable housing would help the economy for the OAC & Sauders class!
While we're at it, let's tear down the museums too! We could house the poor on those valuable underused lots. The museums are only making New York a museum.
7
Historic neighborhoods preserve history.
A judicious use of birth control would accomplish many goals.
We'd have fewer men murdering their offspring, our schools would rebound from decades of trying to educate children who were never taught manners, self-control, or the ability to form full sentences, and our social and municipal services would not be so strained.
And we'd need fewer low-income projects because well-mannered, socialized, and educated people tend to delay child-bearing, go on for higher education, get jobs, and enter the middle and upper-middle class.
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The Brooklyn Botanic Garden is a century old treasure and the damage cannot be undone once the new construction is in place.
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I live in Greenpoint Brooklyn where I see the issue first hand. It went from a lower middle class immigrant area to up scale "hipsters" in lux hi rise condos/rental along the river resembling more Miami Beach than NYC.
The problem is that the extremes get the ink ie greedy RE developers that only think of profit and nothing else and charge insane rents or the opposite old line residents who want to live in rent regulated apts. and only pay a fraction of the market rent.
Here is the solution to the issue.
1-Regulate rents but both ways. Put a cap on the high and low and let the free market determine the rates in between. Exemptions could be made for seniors, super poor residents or the opposite a select few bldg. that cater to the rich.
2-NYC can only hold so many people and bldgs. Put a cap on how much new development can go on in an area.
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With the current nightmare in the White House, getting involved in "neighborhood" politics is more important than ever. We should no longer depend on the elected to do, or be able to do, their jobs. Starting with their neighbors, citizens should band together and begin taking charge. Wherever and whenever possible. Good things are not in store for this country.
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This all seems moot to me. In 25 or 30 years, a good deal of New York will be permanently under water as the ocean rises. We should be more focused on preventing the destruction of New York by inundation.
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@Marc Great point as the RE industry and the city still seek to develop waterfront land, without a flood plan in place.
6
I have a long deep affection for New York City. Both as a life long frequent visitor for work and pleasure, but also as someone with a degree in urban planning. I have 2 observations and a recommendation.
Observation 1. I walk all over NYC whenever I’m there. Like 30,000 steps on my watch type of walking. It’s my favorite pastime. What always strikes me when I’m there is how do all of the service industry workers afford to live here? And if they don’t how long and painful is their commute for a low paying job. It seems totally backwards.
Observation 2. The city is almost unrecognizable to me now. Everything looks the same. It’s becoming gentrified and homogenized like the south is.
Recommendation. This needs to come from a City Plan. The plan needs to be rewritten to accommodate the desires of the residents of NYC and not oligarchs and tax dodging foreigners. That plan needs to be wholly representative of a community and outline what that community wants to be in 20 years.
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@Dan I agree with you. And I agree with many of the other proposals. I am a visitor who has used AirBnB in NYC and other places and I can see that it does hollow out a city displacing residents. I try to make decisions responsibly and I will still use Airbnb when a place does seem to actually be someone's home that they are making available but if I can't be really secure about that I will stay in a hotel.
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@Dan
I concur. I feel hopeless about it, though.
Observation 1: Service sector workers generally live in the outer boroughs or beyond. Their commutes are long and yes, it is totally backwards, but gentrification started long ago in the center and has also long since pushed outwards from the center. No amount of rent regulation or affordable housing (which is often unaffordable) to hourly wage earners can stop it. The almighty dollar rules. Period.
Observation 2: Yes, Manhattan and quickly the other boroughs are becoming endless spools of chain stores are unmitigated blandness. One neighborhood bleeds into another without distinction. This began 20+ years ago and is the result of gentrification, the loss of local industry (remember when we had districts in Manhattan devoted to a single endeavor?), the loss of immigrant ethnic communities and the small businesses they created, etc.
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@Dan It's not that the NY City "plan needs to be rewritten." There is NO comprehensive plan for the City, period. The last attempt was in the 1960s. It was not approved and no mayor has tried it since. That gives mayors and their developer funders license to pick off neighborhoods one by one. It's time for the City to enact a real comprehensive plan. With modern GIS & mapping technology it can be done much more efficiently & precisely than 50-60 years ago. The point is, every neighborhood--every community board district & every city council district--must do its part.
The City administration has been picking off low income communities of color NOT because they're the only "transit rich" neighborhoods with development potential, but because City officials & their real estate friends think these communities have the least political & financial power to fight back. Maybe the people of Inwood, Bushwick, Crown Heights, and Chinatown/Lower-Eastside (Two Bridges), and (not mentioned in this article) Southern Boulevard in the Bronx, are showing they better think again.
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And not the mayor wants to “save our city”! Be ready for more billionaire towers and more zoning loop holes. Be ready for more small business priced out of neighborhoods or bulldozed out of existence leaving streets dark and workers unemployed. He only has two more years to SELL our city. It’s a travesty but no worries no billionaire is going homeless!
Litigation seems like a good idea until you realize that residents of most neighborhoods don’t have the money to fight developers who own the government and have barrels of money. City government is supposed to protect our neighborhoods not sell them! Litigation can occasionally result in a temporary win BUT developers will be right back with a new scheme and the City will be right there to help them.
DeBlasio is still selling his “they don’t understand me” whine. Mr. Mayor, we do understand you and that is what disturbs us.
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New York needs less people, not more. Less housing. To lower costs, ruin the speculative incentive and tax luxury buildings at luxury tax rates. Which are needed to supply the infrastructure that is already beyond what is possible to provide in such a small area.
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@Paul S First of all, it would be "fewer" not less.
Second of all, how could you possibly pretend, from Minneapolis, to have any clue what New York needs? You people in flyover country constantly whine about how us "coastal elites" are always telling you how to live your lives, but somehow you know what's best for us, better than we do ourselves?
1
@Samuel Born and raised in NYC and lived there again for 3 years from 2015 to 2018. Rats and garbage cover the streets. Traffic and subways in horrific shape. Sidewalks crowded beyond belief, and non NYers buying at Starbucks and Target. Were you born and raised in NYC, or do are you from the suburbs?
1
Except in Rockaway where the councilman is determined to maintain the downhill slide begun by Robert Moses.
In a community with one of the lowest incomes, the most public housing, few jobs, awful schools, he drives to build privately owned but publicly financed housing projects to destroy the community for generations.
And he wants to be borough president!
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There has been little analysis and reporting about the impact of overdevelopment in NYC.
Check out the the narrow streets of Nassau William John Fulton Ann Beekman in lower Manhattan where 5 story buildings have been torn down and replaced by 49 story luxury buildings.
During the week, the sidewalks are unwalkable filled with people and trash piles - a rodent festival once the sun sets.
Before 2010, there were hardly any vehicles - there is now constant gridlock due to ecommerce delivery, Uber and construction. Ambulances, fire trucks and police cannot get through.(there is a hospital on Beekman).
The narrow platform of the Fulton Street 2/3 Station is an accident waiting to happen.
That this overdevelopment was permitted is not just shameful- it is dangerous.
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@SLM One solution: make FiDi car free. In some areas, we need to open the streets to people if we're going to add density - it's the only solution.
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@Janet
During the week at least, traffic consists of: construction vehicles, delivery to residents (ecommerce - Amazon, Fresh Direct), commercial delivery (stores, restaurants), service (plumbing, elevator etc), Uber (hotels have sprouted up), Access-a-Ride and school buses (Spruce Street School and Blue School). There are also ambulances stuck trying to get to the hospital, fire trucks and police cars.
There are virtually no private cars.
Luxury overdevelopment is the culprit.
(BTW able-bodied residents could walk to Key Food on Fulton Street instead of ordering from Fresh Direct and Amazon...)
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More jobs and more housing in the most transit rich corner of the commercial capital of the us is a bad thing? Surely it’s better than tens of thousands in McMansions driving personal vehicles to sprawling suburban office parks in gridlock traffic. Jobs, development, progress are unstoppable, we can only hope to manage them in sustainable ways - like dense office/apartment buildings at the nexus of the transit system.
Regarding the able-bodied getting groceries delivered, the physical stores have been taken over by the delivery app mercenaries who treat it like a full-contact sport and the grocers promote it. If super markets ever had a role as a place of community, it’s now dead as non-locals turn it into a purely bottom-line, gotta-get-mine, where’s-the-apples-at, my-app-won’t-work-on-the-WiFi venture. I order my groceries guilt free as a result.
12
ha ha--a glut of unsold luxury apartments...ah, too bad. Maybe the voracious appetites of the rich are temporarily satiated. Let's hope the neighborhood coalitions against unneeded development and unwelcome gentrification, keep up the good fight.
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Eventually someone will have to lower the asking prices on those luxury apartments and then they will be less “luxury” and more just “apartments”. And isn’t that what everyone wants? Apartments for people to live in?
3
“They don’t have to study the racial impact? That’s ridiculous.”
Zoning changes in New York are cloaked in misinformation. The environment impacts statements which are supposed to inform decision-making lack credible information about what is likely to happen from a zoning change such as residential and business displacement and the racial impact of a zoning change. The lack of credible information fuels the battles between residents who live in the real world which they experience every day and developers and some city planners whose reality is based on flawed projections of the future.
Check out Flawed Findings I which documents how the city underestimates residential displacement and the racial impacts of zoning changes, and Flawed Findings II on how the city's analysis almost never finds any likelihood of commercial displacement, both by the Pratt Center For Community Development.
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