Many of New York City’s residential neighborhoods will get denser and taller development as part of a sweeping housing plan that will mandate the construction of more affordable housing and rewrite the city’s decades-old zoning to enable more residential development.
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Under the current Council-approved plan, the city would require builders to include below-market rate apartment units in new buildings if they want to construct in areas that are rezoned for residential growth or simply building higher (known as mandatory inclusionary housing). The first calls for 25% of units in new developments to be set aside for New Yorkers making 60% of the Area Median Income [AMI], or $46,620 for a family of three.
“The scope and magnitude of these proposals can not be understated”, Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito said when she announced the deal last week.
According to the New York Times, “The business world is unexpectedly happy with the mayor”, and as phrased by Crain’s New York Business, “The de Blasio administration is looking to satisfy demands for more affordability without scaring away developers”.
“My plan is to utilize the community-based plan as a guide for myself for future negotiations”, said Mark-Viverito.
But Ortiz said some area groups and residents remain skeptical. With the council’s intervention, that threshold has been lowered to as low as 40 percent.
The City Council passed MIH with a vote of 42-5. Because there is no mandated amount of low-income housing, Williams said the plan will keep the city’s historic housing segregation intact.
“I think one of the questions that developers have is, if they have to give up rents on 30 percent of the apartments, are they going to get subsidies?” Community Board 11 officials have suggested that the city has undercounted auto ownership in the neighborhood, since many vehicles parked on the street may be registered in New Jersey or Staten Island.
Community boards, civic groups, and housing advocates came out strongly against the proposals when they were introduced previous year – arguing the plan left out the most needy New Yorkers while allowing developers to run roughshod over their communities. Last year, Mayor de Blasio traveled to Albany to push his agenda. “Some neighborhoods are more likely to have more private-sector involvement in development”.
“This will be the most progressive affordable-housing policy of any major city in the country, and the first time the rules of the game have been changed to really benefit the people and not just the developers”, he said.
Deutsch’s changes cut off the transit zone at Avenue Y (on the south), Ocean Avenue (on the east) and Coney Island Avenue (on the west), leaving out numerous neighborhoods impacted most by Sandy.
Here’s how the piece began…”When New York City banned whole milk from public schools in 2006, seeking to reduce obesity and improve students’ health, a trade group for the American dairy industry hired a well-connected Washington lobbyist to fight back”.
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“We survived the crack, the cocaine, the redlining and now we are not getting anything for it except telling us to move”, Muhammad said.
