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Should Luxury Apartments Be Built On Public Housing Property?
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Feb 9, 2014
Modified Feb 10, 2014
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NYCHA
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Feb 9, 2014
Modified Feb 10, 2014
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In a plea for Mayor Bill de Blasio to address the city's dire need for affordable housing, the editorial board of The New York Times has regurgitated a proposal from the Bloomberg administration to lease precious public land for the development of luxury apartments.
The proposal is currently facing a lawsuit from the City Council, and was largely left for dead by the Bloomberg administration in August.
After advocating for a more calibrated use of tax subsidies and a moderate helping of inclusionary zoning [PDF] (Nevermind that the most strict inclusionary zoning laws have proven to be the most effective [PDF]—"rigid laws might have the effect of discouraging development.") the editorial acknowledges that NYCHA can barely serve its 630,000 current residents.
The New York City Housing Authority, which manages more than 178,000 apartments in 334 developments spread around the city, faces a $6 billion backlog in capital repairs, mainly because of federal cuts. In December, The Times reported that hundreds of apartments had been left vacant, some of them for years on end, awaiting major repairs.
Given that federal aid for public housing is unlikely to come back, the city needs to find alternative sources of revenue. Mr. de Blasio should seriously consider a plan, proposed by the Bloomberg administration, that would lease open space in the public housing projects to developers who would build mixed-income apartments that would generate $30 million to $50 million a year to be used to meet the system’s capital needs. Under that plan, 20 percent of the units in the new buildings would be permanently set aside for low-income families. Some residents fear that such development would be a prelude to driving them out. Without new revenue, though, housing authority buildings will continue to deteriorate.
That $6 billion "backlog" is misleading. NYCHA actually faces a projected $13.4 billion deficient over the next five years [PDF]. Bloomberg's proposal would lease 11 public plots to developers for 99 years, and would allow for 3,600 total apartments, 720 of them being permanently affordable, while the rest would be market rate. The Times reported in December that city officials believed the proposal would "yield [NYCHA] an average of $37 million a year—which could be leveraged, they said, to finance $700 million to $900 million for capital upgrades."
The revenue from freezing public basketball courts, playgrounds, and parks for 99 years would barely make a dent in the $13.4 billion deficit. The leasing plan would further entrench the rapacious, publicly-subsidized real estate market that Mayor de Blasio vowed to check in the first place, while delivering little more than a token on his promise to build or save 200,000 units of affordable housing in 10 years.
NYCHA has seen its funding slashed by a Congress (and a President) that has been unwilling to confront the fact that the country has no money to provide for its people.
The mayor's Pre-K proposal has revealed that roughly $900 a year from the city's wealthiest residents would reap $340 million annually. You might (rightfully) suggest that Albany allowing the city to tax its most affluent citizens is political fantasy.
But how is it that ceding public land to developers for four generations is more attractive than asking a tiny sliver of the population for a relatively minuscule amount of their income?
Tagged
affordable housing
mayor bloomberg
nycha
tax the rich
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins is a New York City reporter covering transportation, affordable housing, local politics, and criminal justice. His work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Chris is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia, and enjoys biking to Fort Tilden in the summertime.
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