News alert: there is a significant affordable housing problem in NYC and, sadly, we don’t have the brainpower to fix it. Or perhaps the truth is more nuanced, no one capable of fixing the problem cares to join the legislative ranks to do so. Countless development projects in high-density zoned areas in Manhattan where thousands of affordable apartments could have been created were not. Instead, developers opted to build high-rise, low-density towers or, put more simply, big buildings with few units. Urban planners say the developers are squandering precious few sites left while builders argue the cost of land and construction is too high for anything but luxury condominiums, without tax incentives and more favorable zoning.
A few examples that highlight the issue include:
- (i) 60 East 86th Street with 14 apartments (zoning allowed for 77 units)
- (ii) 15 West 96th Street with 21 apartments (66 units possible)
- (iii) 200 East 75th Street with 36 apartments (144 units possible)
- (iv) 1165 Madison Avenue with 11 apartments (88 units possible)
City Councilwoman, Gale Brewer, asks “in a city that’s desperate for housing…how can you allow a builder to build fewer units” and that none of the newly built projects contain anything affordable is “boggling” to her. The fact that she is dumbfounded and confused is telling but also disheartening that leaders like her can’t understand basic principles of capitalism. Make no mistake: for each of these projects, the developers played by the rules working within zoning regulations and in-place height restrictions. Force their hand and developers will build only what is economically viable. In this case, multi-million dollar condominiums that sell at a brisk pace to the uber wealthy where bigger units command premiums is what makes sense.
There are proposals out there but they require legislators to work with builders (instead of demonizing them) and they include reinstating tax benefits and increasing density in exchange for affordable apartments or obligating apartments eliminated during demolition be built back. To Ms. Brewer and others of her ilk, you can blame the developers or whomever, but your failures are entirely your own responsibility. All NYC residents and especially those of little means deserve better from their so-called leaders.
Chen, Stefanos. “Taller Towers, Fewer Homes.” The New York Times, 23 Sept. 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/09/23/realestate/nyc-apartments-housing-shortage.html.
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